Part 1: Pioneer species on a fire-affected landscape Driving into the park a month after the 2024 Jasper Wildfire, we braced ourselves for a charred-earth landscape. Emotions of loss, devastation, and trepidation followed us in. So when we passed vibrant patches of green grasses springing from newly...

It’s been six months since Jasper was evacuated due to the threat of a massive wildfire roaring down the Athabasca Valley. On Friday, January 24, it will be exactly six months since thousands of Jasperites learned that their homes, businesses and everything in them burnt to the ground . And on Satur...

A Christmas Carol With a Twist will screen at the Jasper Legion A play about Christmas Past is helping strengthen Jasper’s future. For the last three years, former Jasperite Ryan Chabrel-Davis has been living in Vancouver, trying to break into the acting scene.  That hasn’t been easy, but even harde...

Beneath surface-level discussions and debates around the Jasper wildfire lies a more complex reality. This fire is not just an isolated event, but part of a broader pattern linked to climate change—a result of a century of colonial land use practices and an economic system focused on extraction and ...

Margot Finley’s Uncle Charlie’s house was one of the more than 350 structures destroyed by the wildfire that swept through Jasper, Alberta on July 24, 2024.  But “structure” is a terribly empty word for what's gone, Margot writes. At a dinner last winter I learned that our waiter had spent time in J...

Record dryness, extreme heat, high winds, and a lightning storm. This summer in Jasper National Park, all of the ingredients of a recipe for disaster were in place. Now, two and a half months after that disaster came to pass, another set of circumstances— misinformation, toxic politics and facts-sta...

Upheaval and change One of the most successful TV shows of the past several years has been Succession, a darkly funny drama about an exceptionally dysfunctional family of rich “one percenters” and their competition to succeed the ailing father as CEO of a huge corporation. In ecology, the word succe...

DISCLAIMER: Views, opinions and actions of Jasper Local contributors do not represent those of Jasper Local staff and/or publishers. Monday July 22 was another hot day. The day before was even hotter: at 38 degrees Celsius (100 F) Jasper was the hottest place in Alberta—excluding my apartment! (The ...

Plus: Council endorses recommendation to hire 10 new firefighters to supplement exhausted brigade Freson Bros. have cooked up a mountain of support for the Jasper Volunteer Fire Brigade. Back in late July, just one day after JVFB members, together with other structural firefighters from neighbouring...

More than 40 millimetres of rain over the weekend has helped wildland firefighters get a handle on the Jasper Wildfire Complex. The wet weather, which started on August 23 and continued throughout the next day, will speed up crews’ ability to extinguish deep, dangerous hot spots throughout key, acti...