A local resident wants to revitalize an overlooked part of Jasper’s history. More than a century after the steel ties of the Grand Truck Pacific Railway were spiked into the valley bottom west of Jasper, Danny Frechette wants to celebrate the most historic piece of land in the Jasper townsite: Snape...

Dwain Wacko remembers clearly his father cleaning out the “clinkers”—the parts of the coal that won’t burn—from the old boilers of the original Chaba Theatre. The memory stretches back 69 years, but it’s there. It was 1953, and Wacko was three-years-old. It’s his first memory of The Chaba Theatre—it...

When Len Morissette was given the chance to produce and direct a documentary that would tell the complicated, calamitous story of the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation (AWN), he had a variety of reactions. “I was honoured, but I was also scared,” the 43-year-old Grande Prairie-based filmmaker said. Tasked w...

How can we recognize you if we don’t know who you are? This was the message received by members of the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation (AWN) when they began to engage with the Government of Canada to press their rights as a First Nations people. This was a bitter irony, given that the Indigenous communiti...

Kendra Neef often finds herself exploring little-known corners of Jasper National Park. “I’m always keeping my eye out for cool stuff,” the local wildlife guide and photographer said. On April 15, very soon after the ice came off of Talbot Lake in the east end of Jasper National Park, Neef’s eye spi...

Harry R.J. Home, who passed away at age 86-years-old on March 30, 2020, knew what he wanted to do with his life from the time he was five years old. Infatuated with steam engines since his father let him hop aboard one near his childhood home of Hanna, Alberta, Home was an icon of railroading in Jas...

Tom Peterson, who was born in Jasper in 1930, amassed a vast knowledge of fur-trading, aboriginal peoples of the area, and the changing relationships between the upper Athabasca River region and the people who lived there. Tom Peterson overlooking the Saskatchewan Glacier. Peterson’s vast knowledge ...

If you search for Jasper in Google Maps’ Street View and zoom in on Patricia Circle you can still see the boards at Patricia Circle Rink, or Pat Circle, as it is known colloquially. Although it’s gone now, the tiny outdoor rink had been around for many decades. If they could talk, the disassembled b...

Discovered insignia recalls renowned WWII regiment From time to time, events unfold that remind us that Jasper only feels like a bubble. That we are, and have long been, inextricably connected to the wider world. Recently, of course, the event in question has been the COVID-19 pandemic. But on a hik...

After 31 years, Jasper park warden signs off One of the last of the “old wardens” has hung up his Stetson. Three decades ago, when A.L. Horton was a 25-year-old prairie boy looking for a job to compliment his conservation enforcement diploma, the son of a newspaperman from Vegreville, Alberta, didn’...

Jasper’s Harry Home has been an icon of railroading in Jasper. Now the octogenarian wants to revive his 75-year old 6060 Steam Engine as a heritage tourism attraction. May 1, 2019 // The Jasper Local archives Harry Home wants to rekindle a fire that’s been extinguished for far too long. The 85-year-...

First World War veteran Frank Burstrom Sr. was a Park Warden in the early years of Jasper National Park and undisputedly one of the most gifted Nordic skiers who ever called Jasper home. His herculean endurance and effortless glide carried his well-worn skis into deep powder fields, over glittery pa...

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...

From the June 15, 2016 Jasper Local Larry Nelles calls instructions during a 2016 course in Jasper. // Bob Covey “Go around there again, put a little lope motion in your body. You might have to over-and-under like that, but see if she can drop her head and pick up that canter.” Larry Nelles is calli...

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...

A bison bone found high in the alpine near Maligne Lake is opening doors of discovery for paleo-environmental researchers in Jasper National Park. In 2016, Parks Canada historians surveying an ice patch near the headwaters of Trapper Creek were surprised to find what looked to be a bison humerus mel...

Ever wonder how The Jasper Local gets created? After the stories are collected and written, after the photos are snapped and selected, and after the advertisements are booked and approved—and then once our art director puts everything together in an eye-catching layout—it’s time to send the files to...

It was 1993. May. The almost two-month long siege at Waco Texas had just ended in terrible massacre; the siege of Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs was into its second year. The following month would see TVs final episode of Cheers and rave reviews for blockbuster movie Jurassic Park. There was no fanfa...

A compass which belonged to Jasper Park’s first superintendent has finally led its beneficiary to the place where it was originally used. When Vancouver’s Tim Timberg inherited an antique compass from his grandmother, he had scant idea the connection the artefact held to Jasper National Park. Howeve...

The Jasper Yellowhead Museum and Archives is hoping a new exhibit will become the bedrock of the institution. The museum is planning to create a geological education area, a permanent showpiece which will pay tribute to a Canadian geologist who conducted much of his field work in Jasper National Par...