Dear Editor:
A number of decisions in Jasper National Park, including not replacing the Simon Creek Bridge, make one wonder if senior management has lost sight of what a park is for. Environmental quality matters, of course. But so does public safety and public enjoyment of a park’s natural beauty.
In this case, administrators turned down $300,000 in private donations to pay for a replacement bridge and ongoing maintenance over Simon Creek on the historic Athabasca Pass Trail because if they did, people might go there. I’m not making this up. The bridge was demolished by ice seven years ago, in 2016, making the trail inaccessible. And the Park Superintendent stated that management considers it a wilderness area and doesn’t want to encourage large numbers of visitors. Even though there have never been a large number of visitors on this trail.
The bridge over Simon Creek, on the trail to Athabasca Pass National Historic Site in Jasper National Park, was destroyed by ice in 2016. A private proposal to fund a replacement bridge has been rebuffed by Jasper National Park Superintendent, Alan Fehr. // Supplied
Parts of this trail have been designated as a National Historic Site and it is only by travelling in the footsteps of the early adventures that people get a true sense of history.
The possibility that environmental zealots are in charge is also raised by a series of decisions related to the mountain pine beetle (MPB) back in 2017. Apparently senior management regarded this invasive species not as a problem but as a natural process unfolding that nobody could or should stop.
The first such decision came at a major MPB seminar in Jasper in the middle of a historic MPB outbreak. But there was nobody present who had anything to do with Jasper National Park.
Mountain Pine Beetle pitch tube in Jasper National Park. // Jasper Local file
At the seminar we learned that other parks had cooperated with the federal government and local communities in conducting aggressive control treatment along the leading edge of the infestation. But the main thing done in Jasper was prescribed burning, a strategy which experts I spoke to at the seminar said is not effective—especially in the midst of an infestation.
Later we were told control work at Jasper was deliberately limited due to sensitive soils in some areas, such as the Pyramid Bench, which were apparently more important than the people or buildings in the Municipality of Jasper.
Fortunately, this policy seems to have been reversed. But overall the position of those making such decisions seems to be that the national park is only for nature, not for people.
Perhaps it is time for Senior Management to take back the keys. And let us in.
Stuart Taylor, Hinton, AB
