“Go to Jasper,” I’ve told countless friends and family who have come west to see ‘the mountains.’ “It’s like Banff was 50 years ago.”
I admit it’s a slight exaggeration, but there is more than a little truth to this framing of the more northerly mountain resort town of Jasper. It is a tourist town, yes, but not yet a victim of the hordes of crowds that have turned Banff into an evergreen Disneyland.
If Banff and Jasper are tourist town twins, then Jasper is the quieter wallflower. A little more remote and a little harder to get to, it has been blessed with a more leisurely, more laid-back pace than its southerly sister. It has retained a powerful sense of community, where locals still rule. Its ski resort is a little smaller, its Fairmont hotel a little more rustic. There’s not a McDonald’s within hours. It is a town that still has a mountain soul.
Today, my heart – like so many others’ – aches for the devastation the people of Jasper must confront and overcome.
The full extent of the fire damage to Jasper is still being calculated, but the known losses are hard to accept. The quaint and cozy Maligne Lodge is a pile of ash. Longstanding houses in town are now hollowed-out basements. Jasper Anglican Church, a historic Gothic heritage building, is gone. An estimated one-third of the town has been reduced to ash.
The loss of historic and charming buildings is just part of the story. The charred spikes that were once trees providing a verdant drape on sweeping mountainscapes now deliver a post-apocalyptic jolt of reality. There will be regrowth, but it will be many years – if ever – before visitors will once again see what once was.
There are also inspiring stories of survival. Most of the businesses along Railway Avenue – the de facto main street – are still standing. Critical infrastructure was spared, thanks to the heroic efforts of firefighters. The magical Jasper Park Lodge suffered minor damage but still stands. There are, in effect, roots upon which the town can sprout anew, like fireweed will in the adjacent forests.
Fighting back tears, Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland told residents, “Your resilience and strength have always been the backbone of our community. In the coming days and weeks, we will rally together, support one another, and begin the daunting process of recovery.”
Jasper is no ordinary town of 5,000 industrious souls. It is, in many respects, the archetypal western town that was built for one of the railroads that brought this country together.
It was founded along the Athabasca River as a trading post serving Canada’s two fur trading pioneers, the Hudson’s Bay Company and North West Company. In 1907, the federal government protected the area as Jasper Forest Park. The hamlet of Fitzhugh, located along the second transcontinental rail line, was later renamed Jasper in honor of the post’s manager and voyageur, Jasper Hawes.
In modern times, the little town has sparkled as the jewel in the heart of Jasper National Park. Enchanting photos of the town and the surrounding vistas can be found around the world, creating an image that has defined our country to visitors. When you think of Canada, this is what it has looked like.
Things have been changing, though. Several years ago, my wife and I camped in a national park campground on the edge of town. We were shocked to see how the once-pristine area had been largely denuded by a pine beetle infestation that turned the mountainsides into sheets of brown.
Those dead trees also helped set the stage for an almost inevitable conflagration. Parks Canada had initiated a program of gradually clearing some of that tinder, but in retrospect, efforts were clearly underfunded and not even remotely adequate to manage the obvious risks.
It seems indecently premature to start playing the blame game, but a few things are patently obvious about this fire. Only a fool would argue, for example, that climate change did not create the drought conditions and heat that fan the flames of forest fires. It is equally obvious that the FireSmart measures the town undertook, while worthwhile, fell well below what was needed to protect it from the vicious flames.
The province itself shares in the blame for a decade of cuts to wildfire management programs. For example, in a cost-saving move, the UCP government shuttered the Wildland Firefighter Rappel Program in 2019 – a year when more than 883,000 hectares of land were torched by wildfires. Last year, more than one million hectares burned. Can we say, pennywise, pound foolish?
But the biggest fault must lie at the feet of Parks Canada, for its all-trees-all-the-time policy. W.J. Byrne, a former deputy minister of Alberta Community Development and of Alberta Advanced Education, on Friday that Parks Canada artificially altered the landscape by “protecting” all growth through the vigorous suppression of naturally occurring fires.
“The result was the gradual replacement of the valley bottom prairies and immediately adjacent uplands with ever-denser stands of coniferous trees (sometimes referred to by firefighters as ‘fireworks on a stick’).”
If Jasper was hit so hard, he asked, can anyone say Banff is safe?
So, let’s talk about getting real with – yes, expensive, but necessary – mitigation measures before all of Canada’s western parks are reduced to ash. Let us begin the decades-long process of restoring these landscapes to their true natural state, which Byrne describes as “a highly varied mix of vegetation, with forest on the montane slopes, but grasslands and low bushes dominant in all of the valleys and immediate uplands.”
Let’s get smarter about FireSmart. Why, for example, doesn’t every building in forest-surrounded communities have a steel roof? And, as one caller to a phone-in show last week asked, why has no one ever considered a large tree-free fire break around the entire perimeter of vulnerable towns? If you want to talk about the cost, just wait until someone adds up the toll from this fire alone.
Slave Lake, Fort McMurray, Lytton, and now Jasper.
Miraculously, no one lost their life in this fire. But a lot of people lost their life memories and, in some cases, their livelihoods. Let’s start the conversation about how Canadians can adapt to the fiery reality that is scarring Western Canada.
Doug Firby is an award-winning editorial writer with over four decades of experience working for newspapers, magazines and online publications in Ontario and western Canada. Previously, he served as Editorial Page Editor at the Calgary Herald.
©
