EDMONTON — In what officials are describing as a 'common-sense return to the basics,' the Government of Alberta has quietly removed outdoor and wilderness safety instruction from the provincial curriculum, arguing that the skills are redundant in a province where, according to one ministry spokesperson, 'the land speaks for itself.'

The changes eliminate units on topographic map-reading, weather assessment, and safe descent technique — the last of which experts note is statistically the most dangerous part of any hike. In their place, students will receive an expanded module titled Personal Responsibility in the Great Outdoors, a single-page worksheet that reportedly consists of the word 'CAREFUL' in a large serif font.

The decision arrives the same season the province continues to charge visitors a Kananaskis Conservation Pass while declining to clarify how much of that revenue funds the volunteer search-and-rescue teams who recover people from the terrain. When asked, a ministry official said the figure was 'being reviewed,' a phrase the government has now used about the same line item for four consecutive budgets.

'We trust Albertans to navigate a mountain the same way we trust them to navigate a healthcare system we are also dismantling,' the spokesperson said, before clarifying that the comparison was 'aspirational.' Critics noted that the only Albertans reliably equipped to read alpine terrain are now the unpaid volunteers the government thanks in press releases and funds in neither.

Education advocates pointed out that wilderness safety was one of the few remaining curriculum items that produced a measurably lower body count, a metric the ministry confirmed it does not track and 'would prefer not to start.' The province countered that teaching descent technique implied the mountains were dangerous, which it called 'a political framing.'

At press time, the government had announced a new tourism campaign encouraging more first-time visitors into the backcountry, to be funded entirely by the conservation pass, and staffed entirely by people it has decided not to educate.