Look who’s up. Bears are being spotted in Jasper a bit earlier than usual this year. Prints have been spotted on the Pyramid Bench. But how do bears know when it’s time to wake up from their long winter’s nap? Unlike teenage humans, it’s not the smell of bacon and eggs that gets those big boys and g...

Photos by Jamie Robson The Jasper Park Cycling Association is shifting gears into fundraising mode. With a new operating permit in hand from Parks Canada and a fresh lease agreement with the Municipality of Jasper, members of the non-profit group once again have their collective eye on their flagshi...

Photos by Simone Heinrich , Jasper Local wildlife photographer Although it may seem like this pair of bald eagles are pushing the season, showing up to their Medicine Lake home while we are still snowshoeing to Watchtower Canyon and skate skiing down the snow-covered mudflats below their sizeable ne...

After bison, moose are the second-largest naturally occurring land animal in North America. Nice try horses, you’re imported. Unlike other members of the deer family, moose have no white rump patch. They’re brown all over and darker underneath, according to the definitive guide to the Rocky Mountain...

Local photographer Simone Heinrich found this furry friend at Maligne Lake recently. Red foxes are part of the dog family. In the Rockies, red foxes are solitary during late fall and winter, living without dens in home ranges of 3.5-8.5 km-square, according to naturalist Ben Gadd’s Handbook of the C...

In the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro, near the famous crater where the celebrated Ngorongoro Conservation Area teems with wildlife and tourists, Jasper Alberta’s Cory Wallace is “motor pacing” behind a tuktuk along a busy paved road near Arusha, Tanzania. As Wallace’s tire hovers less than a metre fro...

A Rocky Mountain rider is the top dog of the desert. Jasper’s Andrew Bovard is back from a marathon mountain bike race in Utah, where after riding his bike for more than a full rotation of the earth, he was crowned the 2021 male solo champion of the 25 Hours in Frog Hollow Race . “I still can’t feel...

A third-generation Jasperite and life-long ski racer has his sights set on the top of the mountain. For the past 10 years, Jesse Kertesz-Knight has dedicated his life to becoming the best ski racer that he can be. This past spring, after posting impressive results in slalom and giant slalom, the 18-...

Advancements in monitoring technology have improved markedly since caribou were first monitored by VHF (very high frequency) radio in Jasper National Park in the 1970s. Back then, large, clunky radio collars were attached to a handful of animals in a herd. Using VHF receivers, researchers would hike...

Stocked fish poisoned to protect native trout in Banff’s high alpine From the August 15, 2021 Jasper Local Hunkered down on a flat rock high above Dolomite Pass in Banff National Park, I dig through my pack and locate my cheap pair of Bushnells. Chomping a sandwich and glassing the surrounding mount...

August 2 update: Andrew Cotterell finished his hike of the 1130 km Great Divide Trail in 20 days and 7 hours, a new fastest known time. This story is from the August 1, 2021 Jasper Local Every time that Canmore’s Andrew Cotterell told a fellow hiker that he was headed to Jasper National Park’s Skyli...

Two climbers are dead after an avalanche on Mount Andromeda on Sunday, May 30. Parks Canada confirmed the deaths today (Sunday, May 30). Spokesperson Steve Young said EMS ambulances, STARS air ambulance and Alpine helicopters responded to an accident at around 8:30 a.m. Two strike teams from Jasper ...

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...

A freshwater ecologist specializing in Alberta’s native fish says a recently-issued Critical Habitat Order to protect Bull Trout in Alberta does not actually protect critical habitat or Bull Trout. David Mayhood is a director of the Timberwolf Wilderness Society , based in Pincher Creek, Alberta. Ma...

Under a cloudless, sun-drenched sky and framed by glaciated peaks in every direction, on March 10 a small group of skiers and snowboarders slid into Marmot Basin history . Taking in the new vantage point. // B COVEY For years—decades, even—local riders had looked up to the highest point at Marmot Ba...

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...

A local writer and science communicator is taking a deep-dive into the growing world of podcasting. Jasper’s Niki Wilson is bringing her inquisitive nature, vast knowledge of Rocky Mountain biology and love of a good pine marten story to a new podcast series called Anthropomania . Jasper’s Niki Wils...

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...

This story originally appeared in the March 1, 2020 edition of The Jasper Local. Some artists paint pictures, some artists write songs and some artists design buildings. And then there is Jasper’s JF Fortin. Fortin sculpts trails out of snow. JF Fortin making a rare daytime appearance on the Jasper ...

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 ...