After months of lobbying three different governments for reimbursed costs incurred while hosting Jasper wildfire evacuees, the Village of Valemount and nine Valemount businesses have had their voices heard. In August, the Village received $302,585.60, disbursed by the Alberta Government via the Muni...

Zucchini, that Zeppelin wanna-be in your garden, can be utilized in a rich range of recipes I’ve spent some time in Rossland, B.C. After gold was discovered on Red Mountain in 1887, the ‘Golden City’ was the heart of a significant boom. Rossland gardens produce their own mother lode. With each Koote...

Long-serving Jasper school trustee Dale Karpluk will not run for re-election in October. Karpluk, who was first elected in 2017 and who for the last four years has sat as chairperson on the Grande Yellowhead Public School Division board, said she is ready to pass the torch to another community-minde...

The 2025 Jasper Folk Music Festival marched into town on Friday, September 5. The two day festival was a weekend of whimsy and well-deserved respite for a community rebuilding after the July 2024 wildfire. The Jasper Local has this photographic report : Totally tubular: On Friday, September 5, the c...

A gardener and a publisher walk into a Farmers’ Market I sow seeds in potting soil. When we were chatting at the market, Jasper Local publisher Andrea Ziegler sowed a seed in my ear, “You should put your gardening tips in writing.” That seed has sprouted. I love growing and foraging for food. And I ...

Richard Ireland has indicated his intent to run for mayor in Jasper again. The only mayor that the community has ever known filed his notice of intent papers today, August 15, 2025. Reached at his home Friday afternoon, Ireland said he and his family came to the decision to offer his services to the...

Were it not for a life-altering wager, longtime local and raft guide Andre Blanchette-Dube might not have been raised in Jasper. “My parents moved to Jasper because my dad took a bet with his coworkers,” Blanchette-Dube said. “There was a job opportunity as a music teacher and [my dad] applied for t...

A week of theatre games hosted by a duo from Edmonton culminated in a Friday afternoon circus performance for the ages (and for all ages). From August 4-8, Marie-Joanne (MJ) Fogue Makou and Steve Jodoin from Unitheatre Edmonton brought big performer energy down the Yellowhead Highway and into the Ja...

The 2024 wildfire exacted a terrible toll on Jasper, but instead of focusing on what’s been lost, Jasper’s next mural will honour The Things That Grew. Starting on August 6, helped along by a series of community events and opportunities for residents to gather, Belgian artist Gijs Vanhee will bring ...

At about 10 p.m. last July 22, 2024, anxious Jasperites, stuck in gridlock only blocks away from their homes and illuminated by the headlights of their neighbours, evacuated slowly westward towards the Yellowhead Highway. One year later, on July 22, 2025, many of those same people came together agai...