KANANASKIS, Alta. (CP) - Barriers and checkpoints went up Sunday on the only road into this Rocky Mountain retreat where the G-8 leaders will meet. Car travellers hoping to drive on by will now sit idling their engines for two hours or more while teams of Mounties in bright yellow highway vests lift their floor mats, poke through their trunks and sweep a mirror under their doors and axles.
"People can expect to see a series of checkpoints along Highway 40," said RCMP Cpl. Jamie Johnston. "There will be a mandatory search of their vehicle to make sure there are no dangerous items on board. From there they will be escorted through by police vehicles."
The checkpoints began operating at 8 a.m. along a 35-kilometre stretch of road. By 9:30 a.m., drivers in the dozen or so cars in the queue at the north end were being told the wait would be two hours or more.
Kananaskis Village, where the Group of Eight leaders will meet Wednesday and Thursday, is just south of the Trans-Canada Highway on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, about an hour's drive west of Calgary.
Travellers heading from Calgary to Kananaskis are being stopped five kilometres after the turnoff by a two-metre-high, black mesh fence and about a dozen Mounties.
After a preliminary check, drivers proceed three kilometres further, then pull over for the vehicle search. They are then escorted by police the rest of the way by convoy and eventually have to go past a third checkpoint.
No one is being allowed closer than 6½ kilometres to the village.
Most of the early-comers Sunday didn't mind the wait.
Evan Westlake, a 28-year-old Calgarian out with some buddies to go mountain biking, said: "I got stopped three times and searched once. That's OK, I don't mind."
Motorist Paul Hassey said the security was "appropriate for what's going on."
"I don't mind," he said. "I should've come earlier."
Kananaskis Country - a 4,000-square-kilometre recreational area - has become a sprawling military security zone in the last few days. Soldiers patrol among the trees. Rocket launchers stand ready. Helicopters are seen thwop-thwopping overhead.
There will be a 150-kilometre no-fly zone around Kananaskis starting Tuesday, patrolled by CF-18 jets and surface-to-air missiles ready to shoot down any aircraft that strays over and doesn't comply with an immediate about-face.
"This is the largest security operation during peacetime in Canadian history," Johnston said.
He refused to divulge the number of police and military involved. But it has been estimated that 5,000 to 7,000 of them from across Canada are in the area to repel attacks from terrorists and keep the peace as Prime Minister Jean Chretien welcomes leaders from Japan, Italy, France, Britain, Germany, the United States and Russia.
"Sept. 11 has clearly raised the bar about the kinds of threats that exist," Johnston said.
"We've always had to plan for a higher level of threat, especially against international persons and diplomatic groups, but we've seen direct attacks in North America now using airliners and, post-Sept. 11, we've seen a biological campaign."
While travel is restricted in what locals call K-Country, most of the camping and backcountry spots remain open.
South of Kananaskis at the U.S. border, RCMP and Canada Customs also plan a crackdown. All vehicles coming in will be inspected and anyone caught with "tools of disobedience" will be refused entry, Mounties said.
These items include gas masks, pepper spray and seemingly innocuous things such as handcuffs, spray paint and ski masks.
In downtown Calgary, metre-high fences are to be set up Tuesday at the Telus Convention Centre, where thousands of media people and G-8 delegates will work.
Concrete barricades have already gone up around City Hall to thwart potential car bombers.
Calgary police have increased patrols and plan to control protests by using officers on bicycles who can then literally link together, if necessary, to become a human fence.
They also have water cannons and two RG-12 South African armoured rescue vehicles - able to withstand grenades and gunfire - that can be sent into a hazardous situation to pull someone out.
Businesses are taking precautions. Some have boarded up their windows with plywood. Oil companies and high-profile chain stores and coffee houses are covering up their street signs.
Downtown parking lots will be closed as will some of the walkways that link buildings in the core. One in five workers is expected to avoid downtown and work from home this week. Office towers will be under tight, access-card-only security.
Local health authorities have stocked up on chemical decontamination chambers, protective suits and anti-anthrax pills.
The Calgary Board of Education has sent a note home to students, informing them if they encounter a street protest to back away immediately and to not "engage protesters in discussion or debate."
City crews have removed mailboxes from the downtown and at the University of Calgary (the boxes are considered a good hiding spot for bombs) while metal grates at the bases of trees have been welded down to stop protesters from picking them up to use as weapons.
Mass protests have become commonplace at such international gatherings by those who see these summits as nothing more than wealthy nations getting together to perpetuate trade and aid rules that benefit themselves and trans-national corporations at the expense of human rights, poorer nations, and the environment.
Violent street clashes at last-year's G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy, left hundreds injured, one protester killed, and cars and homes wrecked and burned.
Earlier this month, police and activists fought at the G-7 finance ministers' meeting in Halifax after protesters charged a security fence. Some of them were tear-gassed and 31 were arrested.
Protesters have been rallying colleagues on Web sites to join Calgary protest marches and tie up traffic at various G-8 events. They have labelled the downtown security barriers a red flag provocation to violence. Police say the fence is there primarily for traffic control.
To combat concerns of police brutality and to monitor protester behaviour, volunteers with the Alberta Civil Liberties Association will be allowed to observe actions on both sides of the line. A few will also be allowed to go into detention centres to monitor how those arrested are treated.
The observers will be plainly identifiable by their orange- or lime-coloured T-shirts.
This comes after reports of mistreatment of some protesters arrested at the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in April 2001.
Leaders at the Kananaskis summit - which will run for 30 hours over the two days - plan to discuss a new aid plan for Africa, the global economy and the fight against terrorism.
The cost of the summit is pegged at $300 million. The last time Canada hosted a summit was 1995 in Halifax. The cost then was $25 million.
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