Mayor Richard Ireland in the 2017 Tour of Hope. // JASPER LOCAL FILE PHOTO Richard Ireland will run for Mayor in Jasper again.  The only Mayor that the community has ever known filed his nomination papers yesterday, July 29.  The decision to offer his services as mayor for the seventh time was based...

UPDATE: On June 1, council passed second and third reading on a bylaw to set the tax ratio at 5:1 A move to reduce Jasper’s commercial/residential tax ratio has Jasper council split. Introduced during discussion of Jasper’s required tax rate bylaw for 2021, the idea of reducing the tax burden from n...

Most of us had a favourite teacher from school. I had a few. Mrs. Royer, in elementary school, was warm, accessible and caring. She treated all of her students equally, and I’ll never forget how hard she laughed at Grade 6 camp when my friend jumped out of his sleeping bag in his undies while she tr...

After whittling down yet another amended budget put forward by municipal administrators; after cutting and/or reallocating money for social and emergency services; and after once again postponing action on perilously underfunded municipal reserves, Jasper Municipal Council has passed a 2021 operatio...

Jasperites are writing to their elected officials to express their dissatisfaction with the Alberta government’s proposed draft K-6 school curriculum. When Cristin Murphy first saw the newly released draft in early April, she was, like many of her friends and colleagues, surprised at not only what w...

You know that dream where you’re sitting in your old high school classroom and you’ve got a test in front of you but you haven’t studied and you don’t remember seeing any of the course material before and the test is actually in hieroglyphics and—oh no—you’re not wearing any pants? I hate that dream...

Author, conservationist and former superintendent of Banff National Park, Kevin Van Tighem, wants Albertans to reimagine themselves. At a time when social, economic and environmental changes confront and confound Alberta,Van Tighem, a fourth-generation Albertan, says we need better ways of rememberi...

Who opposes the province’s decision to allow open-pit coal mining in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains? Basically everyone. So suggests Edmonton-based writer and political watcher, Dave Cournoyer ( daveberta.ca ). Cournoyer lists ranchers, farmers, environmental organizations and recreational groups among t...

Jasper’s incoming Chief Administrative Officer doesn’t see local government as politics.  “Government is about public service,” Bill Given says. “Partisanship doesn’t benefit anybody.” He’s speaking from experience. Now 43-years-old, at 24, Given was the youngest person to ever be elected to public ...

Signs, signs, everywhere a sign. Can we talk about the new signs that adorn the east and west entrances of our town? “Adorn” might not actually be the right word—that term usually applies to things which make something more attractive. Regretfully, Jasper’s new entrance signs do the opposite—like gi...