The Jasper Local November 15, 2017

a lt e r n at i v e +

LOCAL + independent

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thejasperlocal.com

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wednesday, november 15, 2017 // ISSUE 109

JAMES HANSEN FROM FERNIE, B.C. ENJOYS SOME OF HIS FIRST TURNS OF THE WINTER DURING MARMOT BASIN’S OPENING WEEKEND. // BOB COVEY

Marmot Basin to open Tres Hombres An area of Marmot Basin which has been tantalizing expert riders for 25 years will open to skiers and snowboarders for the 2017/2018 season.

Parks Canada’s approval of Marmot Basin’s operational and trail maintenance plan has green lit plans to open Tres Hombres, a large, north-facing slope which has never been skied by the public. Marmot Basin made the surprise announcement on November 8.

The area has been subject to long term wildlife studies and will be managed with caribou recovery objectives in accordance with Environment Canada’s Recovery Strategy for Woodland Caribou, according to Parks Canada.

“Tres Hombres can be managed without detriment to caribou recovery objectives,” said an email from JNP’s Steve Young. “The area will remain undeveloped in order to maintain ecological integrity, while allowing for a wilderness type ski experience for visitors.”

Marmot Basin’s social media feed was overwhelmingly in favour of the news. Meanwhile, the Jasper Environmental Association was disappointed. Their concern, outlined in a November 11 blog post, is the endangered caribou, habitat for which includes the adjacent Whistlers Creek.

“Is it not incumbent on Parks Canada under the Species at Risk Act to require that Marmot stay inside its present bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com developed footprint?”

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page A2 // the jasper local // issue 109 // wednesday, november 15, 2017

editorial //

Local Vocal The Jasper Heritage Rodeo has been told it’s too loud,

too inconvenient and basically, too out-of-step with the visitor experience in Jasper National Park to be allowed to continue in its present location.

As a small town Alberta boy, I grew up in rodeo country. You’d think this would make me a huge fan, but in reality I recoil a bit from all the bucking and roping and all the stepping in all of the droppings.

But an aversion to saddle sores and tight-crotched jeans is my own issue. Fact is, I respect the hell out of those cowboys and cowgirls. The athletic talent on display is world class. There is a synergy between man and beast that must be seen to be believed. And the history of outfitting and mountain exploration, which the rodeo pays tribute to, is as rich in Jasper National Park as anywhere.

I suppose that’s the reason I felt chaffed when I learned that Parks Canada was giving the rodeo one more year to buck off out of JNP. Like the steady erosion of the warden service which has taken place over the last two decades, the cancellation of this element of Rocky Mountain heritage is another turn of the screw which will help erase the collective memory of what earned Jasper National Park its spurs in the first place: mountain folk introducing visitors to the wilderness.

What also gets my goat is the reason for the rodeo’s shortened leash. If we’re talking about noise pollution, let’s remember that din coming from the makeshift pavement plant on Hwy 93 that you could hear clearly from Wabasso Campground all summer long in 2016. Or how about the sound of fireworks echoing off the Pyramid bench every Canada Day and closing weekend of Jasper in January? Does the sound barriershattering fly-over by military aircraft on July 1 fit into the “best possible visitor experience” for people coming to JNP? If it does, I would argue that the Jasper Heritage Rodeo should be in the mix, too. These are events that make this park unique, events which allow us to give a tip of the hat to the human history which predates the sanitized, giftshop version of national parks. You know, the brand that we spoon feed to new Canadians whom we hope will take a selfie in a red Adirondack chair?

The Jasper Heritage Rodeo isn’t for everyone.

But neither are hot spring pools, fat biking trails or glass-floored platforms. Until there’s a better reason to cancel this historic event for four days out of the year, I say, giddy up! bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

A sassy skier responds spaces of Marmot Basin—that is prime caribou habitat! If your timing is right, you might even get a Marmot staffer on his sled to help you in the chase. Don’t worry about those close talkers in green sweater vests—the resource CONS have given this area the thumbs up!

Dear Alfie, It turns out you are the “poodle” if you are wasting your time on the dwindling Maligne herd. A few scattered ski tracks in the Bald Hills won’t get you anywhere near those iconic caribou. Get your pack together and head over to the groomed slopes and wide open

Yours truly, The Skier and Schnauzer

Consider more progressive living spaces Dear Editor, I got thinking about the development being proposed that will potentially house 10 families when complete (Parks to build two new apartments, November 1 Jasper Local).

Would it not be more progressive to look at the reality of communal housing? Where 10 homes are going to be, there could be home for 30 or more individuals.

Providing people with their own

The Jasper Local //

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// Local tourism

wednesday, november 15, 2017 // issue 109 // the jasper local// page A3

Rodeo given one year to buck off Parks Canada has told the Jasper Heritage Rodeo it has one year to skedaddle.

Field Unit Superintendent Alan Fehr has said that he is unwilling to commit to a long-term agreement to allow the rodeo to continue in Jasper National Park.

“We have had visitor noise complaints and a loss of revenue as a result of closing camping loops during the rodeo,” Fehr said in a letter to the association.

But the group’s members are railing against the idea that the Jasper summer rodeo poses a problem for the visitor NOISE COMPLAINTS HAVE PUT THE JASPER HERITAGE experience.

RODEO ON THE ROPES. // BOB COVEY “We always hear that people love been presented. The noise issue was a it,” said Helen Switzer, president of the complaint in 2016 and the rodeo abided by association.

Fehr’s request to tone it down, Switzer said.

The Jasper Heritage Rodeo takes places on lands near Whistlers Campground. The “We addressed the issue,” Switzer said.

“We obtained a decimetre to measure the letter from Fehr to the rodeo association makes it clear that overflow parking in that sound.” space is taking priority.

The Jasper Heritage Rodeo takes place over four days in the summer. The professional “We have improved our visitor experience event showcases athletic partnerships this year with overflow parking in this between man and beast, which in Jasper location, a pilot project that has been has links to mountain exploration and trail very successful and that I would like to blazing. continue,” Fehr wrote on October 10.

The Jasper Heritage Rodeo has been giving Fehr says Parks Canada is aware of the impact that this decision will have on the spectators a thrill since 1926. In 1929, the rodeo. He wrote that the one year permit Jasper Rodeo took place at Whistlers is to allow organizers to make alternative Campground, where it was hosted for 60 arrangements, but that “there are no other years. Three years ago, it returned to the locations in the park that are acceptable for area after being indoors for a generation. this purpose.”

But now the rodeo association has one year Switzer and the rodeo association want the to vacate, to find alternative arrangements tradition to continue. They see Jasper’s for their rodeo or presumably, to cease to rodeo as an important part of Jasper’s exist. history. They are asking for an extension.

Switzer wants harder evidence than what’s bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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// Letter cont.

private spaces—where they come together in communal kitchens and living spaces—creates community, creates a sense of ownership and lessens the burden of the cost of individual apartments.

living. Jasper is a place the world watches for innovation in so many things...can we move beyond everyone owning their own fridge and stove and make wiser, more futuristic choices for housing in the 21st century?

The family has evolved since 1950, yet we keep building structures for that era of family

Just a thought.

- Marianne Garrah, Jasper

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page B1 // the jasper local // issue 109 // wednesday, november 15, 2017

Local wildlife//

Conservation groups want public to wake up to inhumane wolf killings A wildlife conservation group wants to shed light on the Alberta government’s inhumane and ineffective predator control strategies.

Sadie Parr, Executive Director of Wolf Awareness, based in Golden, B.C., wants the public to know that the Alberta government is poisoning wolves in the name of caribou protection, but the program is neither effective nor humane.

“Indiscriminate killing is no form of wildlife management,” Parr said.

Since 2005, 190 wolves in the Little Smoky area have been poisoned by strychnine, a

“People don’t believe me when I tell them we use poison in Canada.”

deadly and notoriously painful toxic alkaloid which attacks the neurological system and causes violent convulsions before death by asphyxiation. A coalition of conservation groups are sounding the alarm that the Alberta government sanctioned those cruel killings instead of tackling the real problem: habitat erosion by resource extraction.

“Killing wolves has become a smoke screen. It takes away from the bottom line, which is that we have to stop destroying caribou habitat,” she said.

It has been three decades since Alberta Fish and Wildlife released a a provincial caribou recovery plan which showed woodland caribou were at “immediate risk of extirpation as a result of habitat change related to logging and other industrial activities.”

Despite many other similar pronouncements and reports, the Little Smoky region—7,200 square kilometres between

190 WOLVES IN THE LITTLE SMOKY AREA, OUTSIDE OF JNP, HAVE BEEN KILLED BY POISON IN THE NAME OF CONSERVATION.// PETER A. DETTLING//TERRAMAGICA.CA

APPROXIMATELY 1,000 WOLVES WERE KILLED BY THE ALBERTA GOVERNMENT SINCE 2005 TO PROTECT CARIBOU, MEANWHILE, THE PROVINCE HAS NOT MET DEADLINES FOR HABITAT PROTECTION. // PETER A. DETTLING//TERRAMAGICA.CA

Hinton and Jasper National Park containing the last significant pockets of wilderness in the boreal forest—remains only two per cent protected. Energy industry surface disturbance, such as roads, wells, seismic lines and pipeline corridors, enables predators to travel easily into formerly remote areas of caribou range.

On October 5, the provincial government failed to meet its deadline to develop range plans that protect critical caribou habitat, as required by Canada’s five-year-old recovery strategy for boreal caribou. Parr hopes Albertans will hold their government more accountable to another deadline: on December 31, the province’s five year permit for strychnine to kill wolves, coyotes and black bears expires.

Coinciding with this, the poison will undergo federal re-evaluation,

with the public comment period officially opening in March.

“The critical message is really surrounding strychnine,” Parr said. “Strychnine has been described as one of the most cruel, painful ways humans have devised to kill someone or something.”

It’s also a food-chain killer. More than 240 individuals of nontarget species, including ravens, coyotes, foxes, lynx, eagles and grizzly bears have been killed with strychnine in Little Smoky, according to government numbers accessed via FOIP. “Each victim becomes toxic bait for the next scavenger,” Parr said.

“Strychnine was banned in the U.S. as a predator-killing agent due to environmental hazards in 1972.”

See www.wehowl.ca/poisonfree for more information. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

GLASSY GLIDING // DURING HER LUNCH BREAK, SKYLAR SHEPHERD FOUND A SMOOTH SPOT TO PRACTICE HER STARTS AND STOPS. // BOB COVEY

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wednesday, november 15, 2017 // issue 109 // the jasper local// page B2

Local community//

Sayonara, Sayuri

JAPANESE RESTAURANT ABRUPTLY CLOSES ITS DOORS

Local sushi lovers came out in droves—or is that rolls—to say sayonara to Sayuri.

The popular restaurant at 410 Connaught Drive has a rich history of bringing Japanese cuisine to Jasper residents and visitors, but on November 10 the kimonowearing waiters and waitresses o-fish-ally served their last bento box.

Owner Ryuichi Abe—known to his friends as Deutch—said it was a bittersweet ending for the space that was formerly home to Denjiro, and before that, Tokyo Tom’s.

“I had a tear in my eye,” he said. “A lot of people came up to me in the kitchen and hugged me, to thank me for the memories.”

LAST SUPPER // AT LEFT, JASPER LOCAL CONTRIBUTOR FERN YIP ENJOYS ONE LAST SUSHI DATE AT SAYURI JAPANESE RESTAURANT. AT RIGHT, SAYURI OWNER RYUICHI ABE—KNOWN AS DEUTCH—SAYS HE’S PROUD TO HAVE SERVED SO MANY LOCALS AND VISITORS OVER THE YEARS. SAYURI’S LEASE CAME UP AND THE JASPER INSTITUTION CLOSED ITS DOORS NOVEMBER 10. // NICOLE COVEY // BOB COVEY

The reason for Sayuri’s closing isn’t entirely clear—Deutch was reluctant to give details other than to say there was a miscommunication with the building’s landlord in renewing the lease. What is obvious, however, is how much passion Deutch brought to the restaurant every night.

that time was owned by the rail company. Although he was only 22-years-old, Deutch, with his background in hotel management, was made the hotel’s head waiter, or maitre d. He hardly knew anything about Canada other than the fact the country had hosted Expo ’67 in Montreal, but he quickly became enamoured with his new home.

“This is my culture,” he said. “I like to think I have the Samurai mentality and pride.”

“I didn’t plan to stay this long,” he laughed. “But I was getting into golf and nature.”

Deutch first came to Jasper from Japan in 1973, having been hired

by Canadian National to work for the Jasper Park Lodge, which at

He was also getting into business opportunities. During his 12year tenure at JPL, Deutch saw a growing demand to satisfy

Japanese guests’ needs. When he quit the JPL amid rumours it was going to sell, he started work at the Marmot Lodge’s restaurant, and was soon helping bring international flair to town via a revitalized menu.

“This was at a time when there wasn’t even a Caesar salad on a menu in Jasper,” Deutch recalled.

When the owner of Denjiro made him an offer to take over the business, Deutch agreed, although he still can’t remember actually saying yes.

“Somehow I agreed to take over,” Deutch laughed. “He brought papers to sign the next day.”

Denjiro had a good While chefs reputation, but to from Germany, make it his own, “Without the support of Switzerland Deutch changed my staff I could never and Portugal the name. Sayuri, make it this far.” were starting which translates to to stimulate Geisha, felt lighter Jasper’s food and brighter scene, the young self-starter from to Deutch. Its association with Japan was making a name for dancing, tradition and entertaining himself at the Marmot. In the era was a nod to everything Deutch of group travel in the Rockies, the loved about the hospitality tour operators who Deutch used to business—plus, it allowed him to accommodate at the JPL would pull decorate the space with beautiful up to the Marmot by the busload, kimonos. seeking out the man who helped As much as he loved being out front, facilitate their clients’ previous however, to give guests an authentic vacations.

Japanese food experience, Deutch “We were busy, the food was some of the best in town, and we had very high-end U.S. groups. It was a good time for business,” he said.

After a six year stint at the Marmot, in 1989 Deutch decided to branch out from the restaurant industry and tried his hand in the wholesale tour market. Although his speciality was in dining room etiquette, he had seen demand growing for driver-guided tours of the Rockies.

Magnex International was born.

His groups were typically small— between two and 10 people—and so they were intimate and customized.

“When I look after people I want to look after them in the best way,” Deutch said.

By 2007, Deutch had made a big splash in Jasper’s hospitality scene.

He had served at the highest level at JPL (he served Princess Margaret and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, among other celebrities), proved he could make it as a restauranteur and started an independent business as a tour operator. But he still had a dream he hadn’t fulfilled: owning an authentic Japanese restaurant.

felt he had to stay in the kitchen.

The intricacies of the dishes, the nuances of cooking the sushi rice and the fact that Jasper’s labour force is always lean in the busy months meant the hot plates which were favourites among locals— katsu curry, chicken karaage and Sayuri’s famous tempura—were coming from Deutch’s station.

That’s not to say he didn’t have a ton of help.

“I was fortunate because a lot of Japanese students came to Jasper on working holiday visas,” he said.

“Without the support of my staff I could never make it this far.”

Now Sayuri’s dishes will be but a memory for Jasperites. As for Deutch, he’s going to take some time to think about his next move.

However, the man doesn’t do well sitting around.

“I can’t be at a desk or watching TV,” he said. “I have to do something.”

Whatever that ends up being, Jasperites can be sure Deutch will do it with a Samurai’s mentality and pride. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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page b3+B4 // the jasper local // issue 109 // wednesday, november 15, 2017

FEATURE // STORY BY DAVID HARRAP // PHOTOS BY ALAIN DENIS

FR ED B EC KEY —LAST OF THE CLIMBING LEGENDS I FIRST RAN INTO FRED BECKEY AT THE BANFF BOOK AND FILM FESTIVAL IN 1994, WHERE HE TRIED STEALING MY GIRLFRIEND (SOMETHING HE WAS KNOWN FOR).

I met him again 13 years later. It was late afternoon and he was coming out of a Jasper bakery. A scruffy stooped figured, raw boned, flying hair. You could almost mistake him for a rummy on skid row. He said he was having a shot at Edith Cavell.

The east ridge.

“On your own, Fred?”

“I had a couple of guys lined up but they’ve bailed on me.”

“Where are you staying tonight?”

He said he’d find a spot to sleep along the way.

I felt bad I hadn’t invited him home,

so later I picked up a couple of beers and went looking for him. I found him tucked away in the bushes at a pullout on the old 93 Highway.

It was early evening yet Fred was already in his sleeping bag fast asleep, toque perched on top of his head like an old fashioned nightcap; and with everything laid out on the ground just so. A backpacking stove with a small pot on top. A little jar of instant coffee. A tin mug and spoon. Climbing boots. And right close to his head was a shiny twin bell mechanical wind-up alarm clock, with the alarm set for 3am.

Fred Beckey, master of ten thousand alpine starts.

He didn’t want the beer but he accepted the offer of our place “since it might rain.” I said it’s just a small apartment but he’s welcome to the living room floor. He said that’s fine, that he’d even slept in bathtubs.

Fred did the first ascent of the north face of Mount Edith Cavell with Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia clothing and outdoor gear) and Dan Doody in July 1961. He did ascents in the Tonquin, and the first ascent of the east face (the hardest route) of Mount Bridgland.

There were first ascents in the Bugaboos, the second ascent of Mount Waddington, B.C.’s highest peak, that teenage Fred and his brother Helmy did in 1942, climbing the last 150 m in footgear consisting of “felt pullovers on tennis shoes.” But it was the Pacific Northwest’s Cascade Range that Fred owned. He had more first ascents than any American climber.

Fred was a contemporary of Sir Ed-

mund Hillary; and did a first ascent o in the Alaska Rang mountaineer Hein north face of the E Seven Years In Tib That summer he w achieve the Triple of North American

“Fred did the first the north face of M Cavell with Yvon C (founder of Pat clothing and outd and Dan Doody in J

ing: Denali, Debor Hunter.

In the climbing wo was your Renaissa decades ahead of h While others were takingly step-chop ice slopes Fred wa front-pointing on to gain the prize.

He was deaf as a p every August the p go and there’s Fred ing down the othe THAT?” And not h thing when you to In a battered brief black book with ph climbers, and as so into the apartmen phone making arr next climb.

The first time I br there were some a off about him lyin immediately he cla them.

“So?” I wanted his “BS.”

One time I asked h hardest climb?

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d back in 1954 he of Mount Hunter ge with renowned nrich Harrer—of Eiger and bet fame. would Crown n climb-

“Deborah”. He didn’t even have to think about it.

He didn’t talk much about the past, all the achievements, the bush-

wasn’t feeling well, had a headache.

Another year he had his mind on the Tonquin Valley, and could I arrange a horse party to cart him in?

whacking, the hiking, the skiing, the expeditions, the books he’d written, his unheralded place in the climbing world. He wasn’t resting on any laurels. Not for Fred would “the name die before the man”.

Fred Beckey was the essential dirtbag climber. The last of the lot. The last mountain legend before the adventurer stunters came along. If folks hadn’t heard of him it was because Fred wasn’t one of the good old boys, one of the elite climbers in the club. With his unrivaled qualifications he should have been invited to join the successful 1963 American Everest Expedition. But he was a loose canon; in those elegant eyes of club members a climber who didn’t conform. (And if you had seen him when he came up to Jasper, he sure didn’t conform to his contemporaries at the old folks’ home.)

ascent of Mount Edith Chouinard agonia oor gear) July 1961.”

rah, and

orld Fred ance man, his time. e painspping up as swiftly crampons

post, and phone would d’s voice boomer end: “WHO’S hearing a damn old him. fcase he kept a little hone numbers of oon as he came nt he’d be on the angements for the

ought Fred home rticles I’d printed ng around. Almost apped eyes on

s opinion.

him what was his

He was besotted with getting up Cavell one last time any which way he could. He was an old man now, late eighties, and I could see the light slowly dying but yet not quite out.

One year he wanted my son Liam to guide him. How age turns the tables, eh?

Another time, local guide Peter Amann was coming to pick him up, take him up Cavell, but Fred was still in his sleeping bag. “Peter will be here soon, Fred.”

“I’m going to bail.” Four words that must have killed him to say. He

I feel privileged to have known Fred, and seen those great climbing hands and those faraway eyes scheming the next ascent—or how he could pinch your girl. david harrap // info@thejasperlocal.com

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page B5 // the jasper local // issue 109 // wednesday, november 15, 2017

Local sports //

Fun first with Coach Cassi

For the most part, Cassi Allin had great coaches throughout her sporting life.

Be it soccer, volleyball, basketball or hockey, the 26-year-old feels fortunate to have had mentors who helped her develop as a player, and as a person.

“Most of my coaches helped me love sports,” she said.

“I remember him saying ‘this isn’t supposed to be fun, you’re supposed to win,’” she said.

That memory stayed with her. Recently, Allin started helping coach the Jasper Grizzlies Bantam girls hockey team. Allin knows that no matter how the girls are playing, she’ll always have a fun-first message.

“I want to drive home my love for sports, health and fitness,” she said. “So that There was at least one maybe when they grow up they’ll want to give back to their community.”

“I want to drive home

Allin is herself starting to learn how rewarding that can be. After being away from Jasper for the past several years—she went to a Toronto hockey academy in Grade 11 and 12, then went to the University of Alberta before finding work out of postsecondary—she’s now back in her home town. And even though she thought her experience working as a youth care worker for boys would prepare her for coaching, she found

my love for sports, health and fitness, so that maybe when they grow up they’ll want to give back to their community.”

outlying incident, however.

Allin was in peewee, playing goalie for the Jasper Bearcats boys, when part way through the game one of the coaches went on a rant. The team was losing the game, but the coach was losing his cool.

HOCKEY HEROINE // THE JASPER GRIZZLIES BANTAM GIRLS HAVE A NEW COACH THIS SEASON: CASSI ALLIN, WHO PLAYED HIGH LEVEL HOCKEY IN HIGH SCHOOL, WANTS TO INSTILL A FUN-FIRST ETHIC. // BOB COVEY

she still had a lot to learn about her players.

“Girls are different than boys,” she said. “They take a little more time to size you up.”

Now that the season is firmly underway, the players have taken to Allin.

At practice on November 8, they were making quick crossovers, transferring

their weight when shooting and generally sharpening their hockey skills while sharing the ice with the peewees. Allin, whose hockey career took her to the final game in Ontario provincials when she was in Grade 11, said her goal is to simply help the girls have fun as teammates.

Because although she has great memories of

the big games, what she remembers even more fondly are the downtimes— bus rides, meeting new people, and visiting new towns and cities with her friends.

“Of course I always wanted to go to the Olympics, but more important is finding that love for something,” she said. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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wednesday, november 15, 2017 // issue 109 // the jasper local// page B6

local community //

From picking up and hitting the road to pick up hockey and hitting the trails I’m a firm believer that one’s life can change in an instant. It did for me in the wee morning hours, back in early April. A bunch of mouse clicks, a bit of luck, and an ever-pressing desire to start afresh would lead me to landing in Jasper.

Stuck in a retail rut in the greater Toronto area, where the highest elevation gain is probably the roof of the local Ikea, I found an intriguing job posting online: driver/photographer for a white water rafting company in Alberta.

Following a rather wordy cover letter, a necessarily-unique resume and a lovely long phone interview with my then-future boss, I got the job offer. I had a little less than a month to move out to the Rockies.

I packed up my little pick-up truck and cruised over to the U.S. border crossing at Detroit.

This being my third time driving out west to Alberta, I’d figured out the long road trip down to a memorable science. The decision to go through the States was based on travel time, cheap gas, a concise interstate highway system and the preponderance of wacky roadside attractions. My nine day trip to Jasper included pit stops in a tiny Michigan town called “Hell,” a corn palace,

// ADAM HVISC IS THE JASPER LOCAL’S NEWEST CONTRIBUTOR. HELP HIM GET SETTLED IN HIS ROLE BY EMAILING STORY IDEAS TO ADAM@THEJASPERLOCAL.COM // SUPPLIED

a decommissioned nuclear missile silo and the Badlands of South Dakota. I stayed one night in a highly questionable motel and another cramped in the fetal position, in the cab of my pick-up, in a rainy hamlet in northern Montana. Northeast of Calgary, the Torrington Gopher Hole Museum, with its stuffed gophers anthropomorphized in kitschy dioramas, took the cake as the most delightfully odd roadside attraction. The two dollar admission fee was perhaps the best I’ve ever spent.

One thing I learned to adore about Jasper is how after about two weeks, I began to feel like a local. From my friendly coworkers and helpful residents constantly offering me tips and info about the town—scenic hiking routes, the most delicious poutines, the best bars to catch hockey games at, why you should never wait at the train crossing, etc.—it was easy to feel acclimatized to life here.

This past spring and summer flew by at a breakneck speed.

If I wasn’t having fun working outdoors and making new friends at my job, I was lacing up my boots for big hikes. If it was too warm out, I hit up local lakes for a relaxing dip. Before I moved here, I only had time for rather rudimentary online research

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about Jasper. I remember being stoked that there was a hot spring nearby. Soon enough, Miette Hot Springs and the next-door Sulphur Skyline hike became my frequented “gym and spa.”

Gradually, I became aware of many other delights in town.

Whether it was a quick jaunt through Old Fort Point, belting out “Whip It” by Devo for karaoke at Champs, hucking myself off a cliff at Horseshoe Lake, staring at a twinkling dusk from the “Edge of the World” or being pleasantly surprised at the frequency of the northern lights, it seemed like I was being amazed every few days with something new and exciting.

Now as I get acclimatized to the winter season, besides playing pick-up hockey with the Jalopies rec-league and exploring frozen Maligne Canyon, I’ve found a creative outlet writing for The Jasper Local. I would love it if readers continued to help me discover the ins and outs of this special place.

Be it delightfully odd roadside attractions, charming local characters or must-do winter activities, please don’t be shy to hit me up with ideas.

Cheers to a great first season of memories, Jasper. I’m so grateful to call you my mountain community.

Adam Hvisc // adam@thejasperlocal.com