Walking into the Maligne Canyon on a frigid winter day feels like stepping into another world. As the canyon’s walls rear up above you, pale blue ice pours back down, a cascade of water quite literally frozen in time. This beguiling paradox lends the place an otherworldly allure: gargantuan ice stru...

Remembering the man and the mountaineer, Ken Wallator Wallator in Maligne Canyon, 1984. // Gadd family archive The stories about former Jasperite Ken Wallator are jaw dropping. Perhaps the most incredible one took place on the limestone cliffs on Cirrus Mountain. Wallator was establishing a new rout...

Cyril Geoffrey Wates (1883-1946) was a composer, choirmaster, science fiction writer and photographer. Cyril Geoffrey wates in 1922 // Jasper Yellowhead Museum and Archives He was also an inventor, an astronomer and an engineer. Not long after he constructed what was, at the time, the largest telesc...

There aren’t many photos of the Stanko boys from their childhood in Jasper. The ones that do exist look as though the photographer had a hard time getting the three brothers to stand still long enough for a snap. “We were always on the go,” youngest brother Ron Stanko, now 60-years-old, remembered. ...

For several years now, the mats at the Jasper Fitness Centre have been crimping…er, cramping…local bouldering buffs’ style. Bouldering, a form of rock climbing done on small rock formations—or in the case of an indoor gym, a wall of plastic holds—is performed without the use of ropes or harnesses. I...

Through-hikers of the Great Divide Trail are applauding recent volunteer efforts in Jasper National Park to clear a severely overgrown section of Maligne Pass. B esides being known as an historic section of trail in JNP, Maligne Pass is part of the 1,100 km GDT trail network which traverses the Cana...

A heartbreaking loss for the family of a man who died while running in Jasper National Park is also weighing heavily on the Jasper runner who was by his side when he passed. On June 16, 46-year-old ultra runner Steve Sadownik, of Fort St. John, B.C., died of a heart attack while running approximatel...

//Alain Denis I first ran into Fred Beckey at the Banff Book and Film Festival in 1994, where he tried stealing my girlfriend (something he was known for). By David Harrap I met him again 13 years later. It was late afternoon and he was coming out of a Jasper bakery. A scruffy stooped figured, raw b...

“When was the last time you did something for the first time?” The catchphrase at the bottom of Joe Storms’ business card is a challenge in no uncertain terms. And so, with an invitation to experience canyoning with Storms and his nascent Jasper National Park company, Rocky Mountain Canyoning, I too...

By Doug Olthof Standing at the top of Sunset Peak, the Queen Elizabeth and Colin ranges pouring out in front of us and bathed in the soft, oran ge light of a summer sunset, I had no doubt that our decision to walk off the trail near Snow Bowl c ampground had been a good one. The mosquitos in camp we...

Peter Amann doesn’t have a bucket list. The 62-year-old mountain guide doesn’t have a catalog of peaks he needs to climb to feel like he’s been successful in the mountains. He doesn’t concern himself with all the 11,000 foot summits, for example, and he doesn’t care much about what others regard as ...