Icefields Parkway 34

It is possible to travel this route in just three hours, but that would be a crime. The Icefields Parkway offers the best hiking, biking and photo opportunities in the Rockies. There are unforgettable stops along the way. The most photographed locations are the ones that are easily accessed: Bow Lake, Peyto Lake, Mistaya Canyon, Athabasca Glacier, the Columbia Icefields Centre, Athabasca Falls and Sunwapta Falls.

But there are some locations tucked away, unsigned, where you may find your “mountain moment”. Some that are well worth the hike include: Herbert Lake, Panther Falls, Parker Ridge, Tangle Falls and the two-for-one stop at Waterfowl Lakes Campground to take in Cephren Lake and Cirque Lake.

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Pick up a copy of Experience Jasper Visitor Map to see Jasper’s Treasures

See Campground Directory on pg 66 See Legend on page 67

It’s been said in the Rockies that when water is flowing, a canyon is growing. If you hike Maligne Canyon from Sixth Bridge, the 3.7 km outing will convince you this is true. For those with less time, you may hike from Fifth Bridge (2.7 km), or complete the 800 m loop near the teahouse. This outing is great for cloudy and rainy days.

From Sixth Bridge picnic area, cross the Maligne River and head upstream. Jesuit missionary, Pierre-Jean De Smet, referred to the river in 1846 using the French word “maligne,” which means “wicked.”

After 800 m of pleasant riverbank you reach the mouth of the canyon. Note the change in the character of the forest. Dampness and chill prevail. Two rivers flow through the canyon. If you were to compare the volume of flow at Sixth Bridge with the volume at First Bridge in mid-summer, you would see that the lower canyon contains much more water (eight times as much) as the upper canyon. An underground river, which begins up the valley at Medicine Lake, empties 24,000 litres per second into the canyon. This underground river may be the largest in the world.

After climbing above the river, the trail descends again to the damp forest at riverside. Beaten paths lead to the riverbank, but the wet, silt-covered rock is certain death if you misplace a step.

Above the Fourth Bridge, the canyon narrows dramatically. Downstream the river is eroding relatively weak shales. Upstream the river has a tougher time with resistant limestone. This rock is fossil-rich.

The Maligne River takes a mighty drop beneath Third Bridge, where the canyon’s depth is 10 m and you cross to the opposite bank. The air also changes. Below the bridge, within the canyon, it’s cool and damp. From here on you climb along the canyon rim, where the air is noticeably warmer.

Maligne Canyon is deepest (55 m) at Second Bridge. Locals know the pocket of ice on the wall as “The Icebox.” At First Bridge, the canyon is 38 m deep and the entire river is forced through a 1 m slot. Although the canyon is shallow from here on, it features wonderful potholes. These are circular depressions drilled into the limestone by boulders caught in eddies, a process that requires thousands of years.

From the teahouse, walk back down as you are certain to see things you missed before. And spending more time in the company of the lower Maligne River, a ribbon of blue-green beauty, is bound to yield many more exciting discoveries!

In 1908, just a year after Jasper National Park was created, coal was discovered at Pocahontas, a mining town that once sat on Miette Road near Hwy 16. While resource extraction is no longer permitted in Canada’s national parks, in those days resource extraction provided a welcome source of royalties paid to the federal government.

Taking its name from a famous Virginia Coal Field, the community of Pocahontas quickly swelled to a population of 2000 over the next decade. Isolated in Jasper National Park’s wilderness, Pocahontas’ connection to the outside world was the railway.

During WWI, the rail line shut down and the eventual competition between the Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Northern Railways lead to bankruptcy that had a profound impact on Pocahontas. When the Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Northern merged into the government-owned Canadian National Railways, an inefficient spur line was all that was left connecting the community to the outside world. More misfortunes followed as the coal being mined was not suitable for heating homes or running railway locomotives.

By 1921, the mine closed after only 11 years in operation. Industrial buildings were demolished and houses were moved east into other towns. Eventually, Pocahontas was all but forgotten. The legacy left behind? A log pool with mud and moss chinking built at Miette Hot Springs in 1919 by workers during a labour dispute.

Accessible via a rough-hewn trail cut through the forest in 1910, the original pool was used by only the hardiest and most determined of travellers. Arriving on foot or by horseback, visitation to the hot springs became increasingly popular throughout the 1920s.

During the Depression, relief projects employed hundreds of men who built a new road, campground, and aquacourt. Wedged into the base of a narrow ravine near the source, the original aquacourt site was considered to be geologically unstable and replaced in 1986.

As Canada celebrates the 150th Anniversary of Confederation, visiting Miette Hot Springs remains a popular pastime of visitors. The easy-toaccess Miette Hot Springs road is a popular place to view wildlife and easy stops such as the Punchbowl Falls and Ashlar Ridge viewpoint are great places to take in the view. The short walk from the day-use area next to Miette Hot Springs to the water’s source gives history buffs a chance to explore the ruins of the old aquacourt. An on-site café and nearby accommodations, including hotels as well as the Pocahontas Campground, means that soaking in Miette Hot Springs is no longer just for hardy and determined travellers!

Bathers in the Miette Hot Springs Pool, Jasper National Park, Ab, 1929 Photo Courtesy of Jasper-Yellowhead Museum & Archive - PA 39-57

Photo Courtesy of Jasper Planetarium

If dark starry night skies give you goose bumps, you’ve come to the right place!

The landscape within Jasper National Park is a vision during daylight, but it also has a night time magic very rare in the world these days. The park boasts one of the largest dark sky preserves in the world. You can see dreamy nightscapes of planets and constellations year-round, although the stars are brightest during the monthly phase of the new moon.

In March 2011 the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) officially designated Jasper National Park as a Dark Sky Preserve (DSP). A DSP is an area in which no artificial lighting is visible and active measures are in place to promote the reduction of light pollution, the protection of nocturnal habitat, and the visibility of the night skies.

While Jasper is nestled within soaring mountain ranges, it also has the largest clearings in the Rockies, ideal for dramatic open spaces for stargazing. This kind of wilderness astronomy in the Canadian Rockies is a pursuit gaining real traction with parents and grandparents, alike. They take advantage of the perfect conditions to share this amazing experience with their children and grandchildren. Families are replacing clumsy & expensive telescopes with iPads and GPS-based star-finders to browse their way around the vast sky.

Astronomy programs are offered daily at the Planetarium and Jasper’s Dark Sky Festival is a “must see”. Since inception, this festival has grown into one of North America’s largest annual celebrations of the night sky. Plan to return for the ultimate Jasper Dark Sky experience, from October that includes:

• Guided virtual tour in climate-controlled dome theatre • See the local aboriginal First Nations constellations • Tour of the most powerful telescopes in the Rockies • See recent 4K sky imagery with a new video telescope • Learn how to photograph auroras and the Milky Way • Guided tour deep space and Q&A with astronomy expert

What to Bring? (in addition to warm clothes) You’ll be simply amazed as to what you will be able to see with the naked eye, but if you have a Smart Phone or an iPad, load up a GPS-based star finder program from your App Store, and get familiar with it, before you leave home.

Your camera! Remember to take pictures of your experience and enter our reader contest! (see pg 48)

Image-stabilized binoculars feature optics that adjust many times a second to counteract your unsteady hands, effectively transforming such devices into small telescopes without the need to pack a tripod.

For more visit jasperdarksky.travel/partners and jasperplanetarium.com