Randall Riddell is back behind The Bench. The husband, father of two, musician, sound engineer and bike mechanic can now add entrepreneur to his CV. He opened up The Bench Bike Shop on June 8 in the 606 Patricia space where Freewheel Cycle turned its final wrenches. Like the outpouring of support sh...

3,700 KILOMETRES DOWN, 3,000 TO GO FIRST TIME RACER PAST HALF WAY POINT AS SHE NEARS THE LEGENDARY NEWTON BIKE SHOP IN KANSAS _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From the very beginning of her planned 6,700 km bike adventure...

Jasper residents are teaming up to give plastic bags the boot from Jasper National Park. A growing group of locals, bothered by bags of the single-use variety, want to give retailers and their customers viable options when it comes to carrying their groceries and other goods. “I feel like Jasper sho...

The Municipality of Jasper wants the community’s input on cannabis. When cannabis becomes legal in Alberta later this summer, some decisions on how to regulate the drug’s use and sale will be left up to municipalities. To help inform recommendations to council,a cannabis working group is proposing t...

A $1.5 million geothermal energy demonstration project will soon be piped into the village of Valemount. Natural Resources Canada is funding the purchase of three 150kW modules which will turn the earth’s heat under the B.C. community into clean electricity. “The demonstration geothermal turbines wi...

While Parks Canada is questioning a long-term Jasperite’s need to live in this community, Stef Dolan’s family is questioning the rules which define eligible residency in a national park. Dolan, who’s called Jasper home for 33 years, has been looking for a work-around ever since Jasper National Park ...

Greg Van Tighem is getting back on the bike for charity. Jasper’s fat biking Fire Chief has skirted the skinny shoulders of Route 93, traversed the transport truck-heavy Highway 16, eaten dust on Texas thoroughfares and chewed icicles on an arctic ice road, all in the name of fundraising for the fig...

This hockey season has been a tumultuous swim for the Crisp Pil Beavers and as this paper goes to press, lodge members (Beavers fans, duh) are excitedly imagining a scenario wherein the team makes it back into the A Final to match up against the (dreaded) Brew Pub for the third time in four years. A...

Can the JFI BoneStars beat the Brew Pub Barley Kings? Finding out the answer to that question is the main reason this sports reporter decided to saunter down to the Jasper Hockey Arena at 10:30 p.m. on a Tuesday night in the middle of winter. Well that, and to jam to the sick beats that the 16-year-...

Jasper Municipal Council was weeding through proposed cannabis legislation February 27 and at least one potential retailer in Jasper was keen to learn how local regulations would roll out. Leanne Stanko has been formulating a business plan for cannabis retail in Jasper ever since Prime Minister Just...

Another Jasperite is feeling the sting of Parks Canada’s eligible residency requirements. Kyle Darroch grew up in Jasper, won a handful of prestigious awards and scholarships for his contributions to his community, obtained a degree in education and six years ago came back to his hometown with the h...

If Alberta’s beer industry was a batch of microbrew, in 2005, when the Jasper Brew Pub opened its doors, the batch’s barley would have had scarcely made it to the mill. Today, not only has the mash been converted, the yeast been added to the wort and the beer been filtered, carbonated and cellared, ...

In Jasper, we’re lucky to have several annual events which blend sport and community in a fun yet competitive fashion—think Totem’s storied Spring Run Off on Mother’s Day, the Freewheel Biathlon in October and the Astoria Hotel’s Root Romp. For the last few years, however, another event has been mak...

Agency says opening for hiking season would be inconsistent with caribou recovery plans The Maligne Lake Ski Club’s application for summer use of the historic Shangril-La cabin has been denied in the name of caribou conservation. The decision, which was reached in June but only recently communicated...

The Brew Pub. To visitors, the Jasper Brew Pub is a place to grab a beer, maybe smash a plate of nachos and take in the views of the Colin Range. To many Jasperites, the Brew Pub is a favourite watering hole, a juicy gossip garden and a good spot to watch a sports game. But ask local hockey players ...

The Jasper Hockey League is halfway through the 2017/18 season and most observers just have one question: Who the heck are these Hawks? JHL fans who don’ t actually play in the league (there are a couple) will have noticed a few things about this season: First of all, there seems to be a lot more pa...

On December 1, high above the town of Jasper, a small group of local skiers and snowboarders were unloading from Marmot Basin’s Paradise chairlift. It was a chilly morning, there was a trace of new snow on the ground and a quick glance at the ski tenure below indicated that the groomed runs were in ...

Indigenous Canadians whose ancestors were evicted from their homelands more than 100 years ago took part in a traditional hunt in Jasper National Park October 6-9. The occasion marked an historic return to the land for members of the Simpcw First Nation, whose main village is based in Chu Chua, just...

Welcome back! I hope I convinced you that sleep affects your daily food choices in a BIG way. On the flip side, what you eat can also improve sleep duration and quality. Among other elements of sleep hygiene, choosing foods that impact your brain’s access to tryptophan (an amino acid) and the synthe...

Before you decide on who you’re voting for, make sure you know what councillors will be working on Jasper Housing Corp Housing may be Jasper’s defining issue, and it has been for some time. There has been much progress made on this file thanks to the the creation of the Jasper Community Housing Corp...