The Jasper Local May 15, 2019

a lt e r n at i v e +

local + independent

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thejasperlocal.com

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wednesday, may 15, 2019 // issue 145

Spring Feast // an agile yearling black bear cub enjoys feasting on tree buds, moving from branch to branch while mom watches closely from the bottom of the tree. // simone heinrich

Paving work on Icefields Parkway resumes The Icefields Parkway continues to get upgrades.

On May 6, Parks Canada resumed paving and safety improvements on a 55-kilometre section of Highway 93-N beginning just north of Sunwapta Falls, continuing to just south of Parker Ridge.

Sunwapta Falls is approximately 55 km south of Jasper; Parker Ridge is approximately 10 km south of the Icefield Centre.

“The work is part of the $3 billion investment over five years to support Parks Canada’s infrastructure work to heritage, tourism, waterway and highway assets located within national historic sites, national parks and national marine conservation areas across Canada,” a press release stated.

Parks Canada says motorists should expect single-lane alternating traffic during work hours in two different work sites within the project limits.

“Speed reductions to 50 km/hr can be expected in work zones. Be prepared to stop and expect delays of up to 20 minutes,” the release said.

Work will occur from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., seven days a week, save long weekends, until the end of June.

Check road conditions, delays and closures by visiting www.511.alberta.ca or dial 511. The website www.pc.gc.ca/ jasper-construction has more information on construction projects in Jasper National Park. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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page A2 // the jasper local // issue 145 // wednesday, may 15, 2019

editorial //

Local Vocal Hard to believe it’s been six years since we started this newspaper, but check the archives…this baby first popped out in 2013!

Time flies when you’re having fun, or when Canada’s permafrost has been thawing, the arctic sea has been losing its ice and the world’s breadbaskets have been baking in drought.

What? Are we bumming you out?

Climate change may not be the happiest subject, which is why, we suppose, it’s so easy to ignore, but if we don’t start taking meaningful steps towards transitioning our economy, there soon won’t be any danger of forgetting about it.

Shrinking glaciers, intensifying wildfires, insect infestations and extreme precipitation events are pretty hard to shrug off. In other areas of the world, floods, extreme heatwaves, droughts and hurricanes are projected to increase. These things aren’t taking place in a vacuum; we’re all connected.

Sure climate change is heavy stuff, particularly when most Jasperites would rather be worrying about which hat will go best with their retro onepiece on the last day of the ski season. But here’s the thing: if we don’t start figuring this stuff out, there’s not going to be a ski season.

It’s not like we don’t have the solutions. We knew what it would take to minimize global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial revolution temperatures in 2015, when Canada, along with 194 other governments across the planet, agreed to targets that would help us get there. But the government isn’t meeting those targets.

There’s a new movement afoot, however. The Green New Deal calls for an aggressive move away from fossil fuels while at the same time projecting resource sector jobs. It addresses climate change injustices and aims to reconfigure the ways communities depend on each other.

But the road map needs to be followed.

Politicians need to buy-in.

Swapping out light bulbs, riding a bike and composting our organics are important, but the math suggests the only way to create enough change to address our climate crisis is mobilization on a much larger level. This is where politicians need to have the guts to enact broad and bold policies which address the urgency of the situation.

More importantly, this is where citizens have to speak up until their governments start to listen. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

Baby steps on climate change not enough

An open letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and Environment & Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna: I am writing because climate change is a crisis, and I demand that you treat it as such. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us that we must cut global carbon emissions by at least 50 per cent in the next 11 years, or face dire and deadly consequences within our children’s lifetimes.

While the carbon tax is a baby step towards curbing emissions, it is nowhere near enough. Canada is currently only on track to cut 19 per cent of our emissions by the necessary deadline. The time for baby steps is over. We need drastic regulatory action for a massive transition. This transition must be swift, but also just.

As envisioned in climate action plans such as the Leap Manifesto and the Green New Deal, a just transition means attending to the dual responsibility of transitioning to renewable energy and sustainable transportation systems, while also prioritizing the lives, dignity, and wellbeing of people throughout.

A just transition means support for oil patch workers, for climate refugees, and the vulnerable Indigenous and racialized populations bearing the brunt of environmental degradation.

It means envisioning and realizing a future where the children who walk this Earth today will not only be able to survive, but also thrive on it tomorrow.

While it takes all of us to envision this future, it is up to you to act courageously and take the first leap.

Marissa Kidd, Jasper, AB

The Jasper Local //

Jasper’s independent alternative newspaper 780.852.9474 • thejasperlocal.com • po box 2046, jasper ab, t0e 1e0

Published on the 1st and 15th of each month Editor / Publisher

Bob Covey.................................................................................... bob@thejasperlocal.com Art Director

Nicole covey......................................................................... nicole@thejasperlocal.com Advertising + sales

Email us today...........................................................................ads@thejasperlocal.com cartoonist

Deke.................................................................................................deke@thejasperlocal.com

facebook.com/thejasperlocal

@thejasperlocal

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// local environment

wednesday, may 15, 2019 // issue 145 // the jasper local// page A3

Fighting by writing: Lobbying for climate change action It’s 2 a.m. and Marissa Kidd is on her couch, nursing her newborn son.

Kidd is tired—her baby boy is only a few days old and she’s hardly slept. But she’s also restless. There’s something on her mind, something that’s been brought sharply into focus ever since her second child was born.

Emilie Cadoret Langley and Vanessa Martin took part in a letter writing marathon to urge Canadian politicians to act on climate change. // bob Covey

Canada from a resourcebased economy to a clean What’s troubling her is this: energy economy. She The planet she lives on is pressed him to listen to our in a climate change crisis Indigenous communities, and the politicians running who have been living with the country aren’t doing the negative affects of climate enough to combat it. change for decades. And she asked him to embrace “It blows my mind,” she a Green New Deal, a suite said. “Climate change is such an urgent problem and of economic policies which would address climate we don’t treat it that way.” change and also the human Kidd has long been injustices it magnifies. sounding the alarm that “Something about being Canada and most of the a mother ignited this rage other 194 governments that we’ve let the world around the world who become this way,” she said. signed the 2015 Paris Climate Pact are way off And so, the next night, Kidd track in terms of meeting wrote another letter. This their carbon reduction time it was to Canada’s goals.

Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna. And However, bringing a new then she wrote another. baby into the world has made the issue all the more “I want to be able to look visceral for Kidd. at my kids and say I did everything I could in “It’s become a much more my power when they ask emotional fight for me, me ‘How did you let this that’s for sure,” she said. happen?’” she said.

And so, while her baby nursed, Kidd decided to take action in the only way that was really possible at that moment: she wrote a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In it, she urged him to take action that would help transition

On March 2 and 3, in conjunction with the world-wide, youth-led classroom walkout to call governments to climate change action, Kidd took her letter-writing campaign to the community. She set

up a station at the Jasper Municipal Library and, in a marathon of messaging, coached or supported others to pen their own protestations to parliament.

“We as individuals, even if we do all the right things, aren’t going to get us there,” she said about the commitment to avoid global warming of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period. “What we need to do is mobilize on a much larger level.”

Hand-written letters hold a special power with elected officials. Kidd is hoping that the ones Jasper sends to Ottawa will help politicians make the right decisions.

Because it’s not just her future she’s worried about.

“We have to love our children by demanding they have a future,” she said.

Kidd is planning another letter writing marathon for climate justice May 24. Find her local Climate Justice Jasper page on Facebook for updates on the campaign. b covey//bob@thejasperlocal.com

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page B1 // the jasper local // issue 145 // wednesday, may 15, 2019

Local community //

Cartoonist's pen is cheekier than the sword Almost three decades ago, The Jasper Booster— precursor TO Jasper’s current community newspapers—had a space to fill in its newsroom.

The Booster’s long-standing editorial cartoonist, Thomas Boldt—or Tab, as he became known for his work with Sun Media Newspapers— was moving on.

Then-publisher Haf Bailey had an idea. Her roommate sent out handdrawn Christmas cards every year.

Could he fill the spot?

Like many Jasperites, Bailey’s roommate had come from eastern Canada as a university student to see the mountains. His first summer job in Jasper was driving tour boats for Bill Ruddy up at Maligne Lake. His first winter job was operating the ski lifts at Marmot Basin.

Then he got a job as a dispatcher— first for the local fire brigade, then for Parks Canada.

He was sharp-witted, had a devilmay-care attitude and created funny doodles.

But could Derek Hammell, known to his friends as Deke, be a political cartoonist?

“I said I’d run out of things to cartoon after about six months,” Deke recalls.

That was 25 years ago. He hasn’t run out of ideas yet.

Unless you’ve worked with him, lived near him or walked dogs with

him, you probably don’t know Deke.

Sure, you’ve seen his name (and his likeness) on the newspapers’ opinion page, but Deke lays pretty low. He likes it that way.

Not that he doesn’t mind stirring the pot.

Deke remembers with a chuckle the series of cartoons that marked the beginning of the end of his tenure with the Booster. The first one was a joke about bylaw officers (it wasn’t even his joke, he points out). Either way, the ‘toon rubbed mayor and council of the day the wrong way. They wanted an apology from The Booster.

And while the publisher at the time

“If I ever drew people looking silly, it’s because they were silly to begin with.“ was willing to issue a mea culpa, Deke was not. Instead, he drew a cartoon depicting himself as a shopper at an “Apology Store.” The sales clerk was explaining that the store “didn’t have any cards that say I’m sorry but also, Bite Me.” It didn’t exactly smooth things over.

Long story short: Deke walked.

“I was right, they were wrong,” he laughed.

It’s that lack of diplomacy that makes Deke such a strong political cartoonist. But pointing out what he sees doesn’t mean he’s taking side.

He’s just an observer, he insists.

Deke is The Jasper Local’s editorial cartoonist, but he’s brought his sharp wit to one Jasper paper or another for nearly 30 years. // bob covey “If I ever drew people looking silly, it’s not because I made them look silly, it’s because they were silly to begin with,” he said.

He’s not always political. As fans of his work know, he’s as liable to cartoon about the wacky weather as he is about a backwards government policy. But no matter what the topic, if you have a problem with Deke’s sense of humour, beware the backlash. He recalls the Chief Park Warden confronting him about working for the government while simultaneously taking pot-shots at it.

“I said ‘I assume you’ve heard of freedom of speech,’” he said. “After that I pretty much had immunity.”

The government may not have been able to touch him, but his style has rubbed his other employers the wrong way. Deke cartooned for the Fitzhugh for five years, with a couple of stand-offs. One skirmish resulted in him submitting a “nonpolitical political cartoon”—simply a blank box where his drawing usually resided. Related to that incident, in 2007 he drew himself holding a long list of topics he had to stay clear of. The reader saw Deke exiting his publishers’ office, where a silhouette of Mickey Mouse

ears drove home the artist’s feelings on the issue.

Other than himself, the locals Deke has depicted the most often include ex-bylaw officer/dyed-in-the-wool cowboy, Bob Barker and former wildlife conflict specialist/warden Wes Bradford. Mayor Richard Ireland certainly makes the list, as do other local government officials, but Deke gets a bit cryptic when pressed about specific residents. He blames it on his “poor drawing.”

“I go through erasers way faster than pencils,” he claims.

Regardless, Jasper has been enjoying Deke’s take on this community for nearly three decades. Even if they don’t always get the joke.

“People will come up to me and say ‘Oh I saw that, that was so-and-so,’ but it wasn’t. Not even close. But to them, that was what made it funny.”

It’s the same thing for Deke, really.

Even if he appreciates the accolades, he’s not cartooning for anyone but himself. He just likes doing it. He just finds certain situations absurd.

And if you don’t like what he’s been doing for The Jasper Local for the past six years, he’ll send you a card: Sorry, but Bite Me. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

Visit Screen Test in

Jasper May 27 - 31

Call for an appointment 1-800-667-0604 (toll free) ***Volunteers needed*** Screening mammograms are the best way to find breast cancer early.

And it can truly save your life.

www.screeningforlife.ca

Screen Test brings screening mammograms to your area with it’s mobile clinics.

Women 50 to 74 should plan to have a screening mammogram every 2 years, and can self-refer.

KNOW THE RISKS. MAKE A PLAN. GET A KIT.

WILDFIRE SEASON IS HERE.

EVACUATION ALERTS AND ORDERS

Are you and your family ready?

KNOW THE RISKS In recent years, mountain pine beetles have killed thousands of trees around Jasper, increasing the wildfire risk to our community.

In the event of a large wildfire, first responders will be busy fighting the fire. You should be ready to get out of Jasper and look after yourself and your family for at least 72 hours.

MAKE A PLAN Get together with your family, make an emergency plan and make sure everyone understands what would happen and what to do in the event of a major emergency.

The Municipality of Jasper will issue two kinds of notices. Know the difference!

EVACUATION ALERT An Evacuation Alert tells people to prepare for an evacuation. If you are ready to go and can evacuate early, please do so.

EVACUATION ORDER An Evacuation Order tells people to evacuate immediately. This may happen in circumstances where there is little or no time to notify, or following an Evacuation Alert.

If a wildfire is in progress but no evacuation is required, information updates will be provided.

A basic emergency plan should include: • • • •

• •

Safe exits from your home and neighbourhood; A designated meeting location outside Jasper in case you get separated; A designated person to pick up children at school or daycare if you’re not available; An out-of-town contact person to act as a point of contact for your family – remember that cell phone and internet access may be limited during an emergency; Health insurance information; and An evacuation plan for pets and large animals like horses.

If you need help to get out of your home, work with family, friends or Community Outreach Services to make a plan. Call 780-852-2100 or drop by 627 Patricia Street, Monday to Friday, 9:00am to 4:30pm.

Know where to get accurate information Go to www.jasper-alberta.com and sign up to receive emergency alerts by text or email.

Download the Alberta Emergency Alert app on your phone and set your location to Jasper.

Check the Municipality of Jasper and Jasper National Park websites and social media feeds.

If you don’t use the internet, turn on the radio or call 780-852-3311.

GET A KIT Put together an emergency kit and keep it somewhere easy to get if you have to evacuate.

GAS

Keep a full tank of gas in your vehicle at all times.

Items to take with you if you have to evacuate: Wallet: identification, credit cards and cash Cell phone and charger Glasses and contacts Medications A three-day supply of water and food per person Copy of your emergency plan, including emergency contact numbers Copies of important documents (birth certificates, passports, insurance and bank records) Pet food and water

Visit getprepared.ca and www.jasper-alberta.com for more information and resources, or get a copy of the Municipality of Jasper Evacuation Guide at municipal facilities.

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page b3+B4 // the jasper local // issue 145 // wednesday, may 15, 2019

FEATURE // story by bob covey

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REC ALL ACCESS $362.99 (4 months) Access to all facilities

Offer valid until May 31. Prices include tax.

303 Bonhomme St. | 780-852-3663 | www.jasper-alberta.com

Ever wonder how The Jasper Local gets created?

After the stories are collected and written, after the photos are snapped and selected, and after the advertisements are booked and approved—and then once our art director puts everything together in an eye-catching layout—it’s time to send the files to print. For six years The Jasper Local has uploaded its digital documents to Great West Newspaper’s Gazette Press in St. Albert, and for six years the folks who work there have magically transformed those files into a stack of newspapers, ready for distribution.

door hisses behind you as you cross into the humidity-controlled chamber. A panel of screens display the current job, where Chrapko can double check that the colours look good, no font issues exist and overall, the files are non-corrupt.

If the pre-press room is the Starship’s bridge, then the three-storey press hall housing the press, one of the most versatile and efficient printing machines in the world, is the warp engine nacelle, tractor beam projector and the photon

Two AGFA platesette of outputting 100 plat etch images of the ne onto coated aluminum are attached to huge r known as plate cylind ink from the ink foun ink onto on a rubber “ which then “offsets” t the newsprint as it tra press (hence the term An eight page, full co like ours requires onl but when Chrapko is

But is it magic? We weren’t sure…we’d never actually taken the time to visit the plant, let alone get an understanding of what the printing process looks like.

For our six year anniversary issue, we wanted to do just that. Join us behind the scenes to take a look at how The Jasper Local gets into your hands. Spoiler alert: there’s definitely some magic involved!

Deadline Day For journalists all over the world, deadline anxiety is a very real thing. And while the stress of meeting the deadlines for our twice-monthly alternative newspaper is a far cry from the pressure cooker atmosphere at a major daily, where hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of advertising might be riding on a single issue, the paper still has to come together in a way that respects the workload of everyone on the team. When we tell our press that files will be uploaded at a certain time, we’re mindful of the fact that Gazette Press prints about 50 other different newspapers in a given week and any delays can back up the whole system.

“I always tell my clients, I can’t print what I don’t got,” laughs John van Huizen, Gazette Press print sales manager and The Jasper Local’s first point of contact if we need to beg for a deadline extension.

When we finally do upload the latest issue of the newspaper to the printer, it’s not exactly like sending a photo of your cat to your dusty inkjet. Once the files are received by digital prepress manager Dave Chrapko, a precise series of steps involving highly technical equipment, German-engineered software and a sixperson crew of experts begins to unfold.

Stepping into Chrapko’s office feels a little bit like you’re entering the bridge on the Starship Enterprise. An air-lock

“It’s always nice to be able to say to readers of our newspapers that no trees have been cut down specifically to make the paper used to print their newspaper.” torpedo bay, combined. As it fires up, thousands of components begin to whirr and hum in a symphony of high-tech synchronization. When the press was built six years ago, it took six weeks to pour the concrete slabs needed to support the 365 tonne machine. Engineers took three-and-a-half months to assemble it. When running at full speed, it can print up to 40,000 copies of a 96 page tabloid or a 72 page broadsheet newspaper in six sections, per hour. On smaller page counts, it can run up to 80,000 copies per hour.

The Jasper Local requires significantly less capacity than that. However, before our digital files get spit out the other end of the press as a newspaper, they must first be “plated.” This is Chrapko’s domain. After getting the green light from the client and ensuring no problems exist with the file, software separates each individual page of the paper by the four components of the CMYK colour model (cyan, magenta, yellow and black).

page, six section broa by the Edmonton Jou it requires as many as It used to take a crew men to print the Edm van Huizen explained Journal with two or th

Six years ago, the Gre group (which operate across Alberta includ Gazette, its flagship p decision to invest in t production facility. Th aging, had limited cap

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ers, each capable tes per hour, laser ewspaper pages m plates. The plates rollers on the press ders, which pick up ntains, transfer that “blanket” cylinder, the image onto avels through the m offset printing). olour tabloid paper ly 16 of these plates, working with a 72

adsheet produced urnal, for example, s 96 plates. “Where of upwards of 12 monton Journal,” d. “we run the with hree guys.”

eat West ownership es 19 newspapers ding the St. Albert paper) made the their current he old plant was pacity and wasn’t

Hot

off the

press:

From notepad to newspaper what the company needed to take their business into the future, van Huizen said.

Even in an era where newspapers across the country were closing shop, Great West was investing in journalism, something they continue to view as their core strength. The reason, van Huizen says, is because strong journalism is the key to a successful newspaper business model.

“You’ve first got to have good editorial content,” he said. “That brings readership, and if you have good readership, that makes it compelling for advertisers to place ads in the newspaper and that brings in the revenue that makes all of this possible”.

conveyer chain snatch the freshly printed papers from the press folder and transport the newspapers to an adjacent mailroom where they get stacked, strapped and skidded, but before they get there, Dorie wants to make sure the print quality is as good as it can be. Plucking out a copy and inspecting it for smudges, colour inconsistencies or other irregularities, he’ll make micro adjustments on the press controls until the finished product is to a standard he’s comfortable with. In the meantime, the startup copies drop harmlessly into a recycling bin. For a typical run, about 400 copies get spoiled in the makeready process.

Minimizing waste is another central pillar in Great West’s corporate philosophy, van Huizen notes. That might sound suspicious coming from a plant that goes through four truckloads of newsprint per week, but van Huizen says Gazette Press receives its paper from Alberta Newsprint, in Whitecourt, a ForestCare-certified company which sources its pulp from off-cuts of the sawmill or lumber industry.

“It’s always nice to be able to say to readers of our newspapers that no trees have been cut down specifically to make the paper used to print their newspaper,” he said.

“That’s contrary to what most people understand to be the case.”

Back in the press room, head pressman Michael Dorie has received the plates from Chrapko and is getting ready to hit the on switch. When he does, four different ink colours are transferred onto the plate cylinders, offset onto the rubber blanket, and back onto the newsprint— which spools off of giant rolls of paper at one end of the machine as it gets fed through the press units. Simultaneously, a rotating knife cuts the newsprint to size and layers the fresh pages on top of each other before the machine delicately and precisely folds the pages in half, then in half again (The Jasper Local is a 41 cm, “quarter-fold” tabloid). Thousands of “gripper fingers” on a winding, twisting

As the first copies of the operator-approved Jasper Local spool around the final rollers on the press’ winding gripper chain, they get one last look by a crew member before they are packed into boxes to await a courier pick-up. The hyper-attention to detail may seem excessive, but it goes back to Great West’s core business: supporting journalism.

“If you don’t have a strong local journalism focus and hire good journalists, you’re not going to get people reading your paper. And if you don’t have people reading your paper, the advertising model doesn’t work in the long term.”

Bob Covey// bob@thejasperlocal.com

622 Connaught Dr. Upper level PO Box 2079 Jasper, Alberta T0E 1E0

Phone: 780 852-2242 Fax: 780 865-1022

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page B5 // the jasper local //issue 145 // wednesday, may 15, 2019

local arts //

Beatlemania coming to Jasper Legion

Love me do // The Beatles Experience brings their rich show to the Jasper Legion May 18

Everyone loves the Beatles, right? Can we agree on that?

Most fans identify with a particular member of the group. Maybe you like John, the smart one, or Paul, the cute one. Maybe you’re a George person, the quiet one. Or perhaps you’re the funny one: the Ringo of your group.

But no one ever wants to be the managing one, do they? Did anybody ever want to be Brian Epstein, the so called “Fifth Beatle?”

Gayna Thompson did.

“I always wanted to manage a Beatles band,” Thompson said from her hometown of Parksville, B.C. “It was a kind of bucket list thing.”

Thompson is a theatre kid. She’s also originally from Liverpool. Years ago, out of sheer boredom with Parkville’s arts scene, she created a music venue and attached it to a restaurant she owned. Along with regular gigging musicians, she’d often book cover bands. Elvis, Tom Jones and Rod Stewart tribute acts always drew a crowd.

But she’d never been able to find a Fab Four facsimile.

“Compared to other tribute acts, there’s not a lot of Beatles acts around,” she said.

Eventually, she found one. Four young guys.

Perfect sound, perfect look. There was just one problem: they lived far away. Like, really far. Like, Argentina far.

She sent them a message anyway.

“I said ‘I know this sounds crazy but would you be remotely interested in coming to Canada to tour?’”

Edgardo Rodriguez plays Paul in The Beatles Experience. He remembers thinking Thompson was messing with them.

“The first thing we thought was ‘it’s fake,’” he

laughed. “But then we started to talk more and we realized she was serious.”

She certainly was. Thompson helped arrange for the group to come to Canada later that year. That was in 2015. With the exception of a break for “George” to take time with newborn twins, The Beatles Experience have been bringing their show to Canada every summer.

And now they’re bringing it to Jasper.

“People fall in love with them,” Thompson said. “They have a charm and charisma that’s absolutely contagious.”

The Beatles Experience perform different incarnations of The Beatles—their late 60s Sgt. Pepper act, for example, contains some of the band’s most complicated arrangements. But for their Alberta tour, they’ll be breaking out the black suits and mop tops of the early years.

Those are Rodriguez’s favourite numbers.

And they happen to be Thompson’s favourites, too.

“They are going to charm the pants off of you,” she said.

The Beatles Experience plays The Jasper Legion (The Stand Easy) May 18 at 9 p.m. Doors at 7:30 p.m. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

Barnburners firing up for summer season “Morning comes, and we can’t find Salty.”

Marc Gervais of Athabasca Barnburner is spinning a tale about Saltwater Hank and the morning after the night before at the Kispiox Valley Music Festival. It one of many tales this Jasper folk trio acquired

during a summer spent bouncing around the folk festival circuit making a name for themselves – even when they weren’t part of the official lineup.

“We went to lots of festivals. We weren’t invited to any of them,” Gervais laughs.

But their late night jams earned

them invitations for 2019. They’re booked for Arts on the Fly (Horsefly, B.C.), the Midsummer Music Festival (Smithers, B.C.) and the Robson Valley Music Festival (Dunster, B.C.).

Frontman Liam Cullen explains that the band did roughly one show a month over the winter before ramping things up in March with a mini-tour alongside folk singer and moonshine maker Big Fancy.

As Liam speaks, Marc walks to the kitchen to fetch a jar of Big Fancy’s wares (providing proof?). I take a sip, failing to stifle a cough.

“You could run a dirtbike on that!”

A few minutes later, Michelle Beauregard walks in the room, skirt and scarves flecked in early May snowflakes. She pours a whiskey before explaining how the band’s sound has evolved.

“Now that Marc is on the upright bass more often, Liam and I have developed more of a technical dynamic. It allows Liam to do more flat-picking and soloing, and that allows me to do a bit more ‘up the neck stuff’ too.”

There are new songs coming into the mix. Meeting other musicians helped inspire new approaches to songwriting – in particular, focusing on the relationship between sadness and humour.

“The way we cope with sadness, death, loss, and living with a broken heart is with humour,” Liam says.

Soon, the trio begin tuning their instruments and let their music do the talking. They start with an established staple from their growing songbook, demonstrating how their switched-up instrumentation gives the song new life. Then, with a new tune recalling the deprivations of life as a busking musician, the group offers an everclear taste of Athabasca Barnburner’s trademark humour and upgraded musicianship.

Their sound is right at home in front of the crackling fireplace, where a Daisy Red Rider B-B gun sits on the mantel. But the band has also made a home for itself at the Jasper Royal Canadian Legion (The Stand Easy).

Athabasca Barnburner will be back there Saturday May 25, this time alongside Black Sabbath surf tribute band Richard Garvey and Children of the Wave, a relationship born out of Athabasca Barnburner’s experience on the festival circuit.

If the stories are anything to go by, it’s guaranteed to be “a time.”

And if you don’t believe me, ask Saltwater Hank.

Doug Olthof // doug@thejasperlocal.com

Barnburner is back at the Legion May 25. // bob covey

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local recreation //

wednesday, may 15, 2019 // issue 145 // the jasper local// page B6

Marmot Basin Last turns of the season

Skiers and snowboarders said a bittersweet so long to another season at Marmot Basin on May 5. Thanks to all the hard working staff who put up with an unusually bone chilling winter. Without the hundreds of lifties, patrollers, food and beverage staff, lift maintenance crew, rental shop homies, park designers, marketers, ski schoolers, snow farmers, daycare staff, cleaning crew, dispatchers, groomers and mountain ops (and others we’re forgetting), we wouldn’t have such an amazing place to ride! Shout out and congrats to Marmot’s freshly retired President, Dave Gibson. See you on the trails! // Bob Covey

BE WILDFIRE READY

Soyez prêt à l’éventualité d’un feu de forêt Learn how you can prepare your home and your family for wildfire season Découvrez les mesures que vous pouvez prendre pour que votre domicile et les membres de votre famille soient bien préparés pour la saison des incendies de forêt.

THURSDAY, MAY 23 Jasper Activity Centre

JEUDI 23 MAI Centre récréatif de Jasper

6:00 p.m.

18 h

Open House: see displays, meet the experts, find a seat!

Séance portes ouvertes : Jetez un coup d’œil aux montages, rencontrez les experts, prenez place!

7:00 p.m.

Presentations by Jasper’s Fire Chief and Parks Canada fire specialists

19 h Exposés présentés par le chef des pompiers de Jasper et par des spécialistes du feu de Parcs Canada

www.jasper-alberta.com • www.parkscanada.gc.ca/jasperfireupdate