ALTERNATIVE +
LOCAL + INDEPENDENT
SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2021 // ISSUE 188
KEEP ‘EM WET // A recent Critical Habitat Order has been issued for Bull Trout protection. Our feature story on page B5. // Chase Bohning @jackfishboots
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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 188 // SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2021
EDITORIAL //
Local Vocal Most of us had a favourite teacher from school. I had a few. Mrs. Royer, in elementary school, was warm, accessible and caring. She treated all of her students equally, and I’ll never forget how hard she laughed at Grade 6 camp when my friend jumped out of his sleeping bag in his undies while she tried to get us campers to go to sleep. I loved my Grade 4 teacher, too, Mrs. Olthof, who could transfix an entire class of otherwise unruly nine-yearolds by reading aloud from children’s classics like Roald Dahl’s The Witches. If I had to choose my most influential teacher, however, I’d say it was Mr. Weiss, who I had first as my Grade 7 home room teacher, then again for Grade 12 social studies. His passion for teaching extended far beyond the classroom, as he hosted extra-curricular committees and activities that imprinted on his students a passion for the environment, culture and politics. He was unorthodox, outrageous and brilliant. Mr. Weiss rose to the challenges of imparting his small-town students with a sense of curiosity about the wider world. Right now, across the province, educators are stepping up to a different, unprecedented challenge: teaching during a pandemic. In truth they’ve been at it for more than a year, but the latest COVID-19 measures, wherein students have been sent back home with their laptops to attend their classes online, represents the biggest challenge yet. As the springtime sun saps students’ motivation to stay engaged with their screens, teachers have to press on, staying organized, communicating clearly and assessing progress toward learning objectives. Encouraging collaboration and staying connected is hard enough in a face-to-face environment; it’s easy to imagine how online instruction can quickly turn students into passive observers rather than active participants. And yet in our schools, teachers are adapting. I’ve heard several stories from parents, amazed by how their children laugh along with their classmates as their teacher performs, engages and inspires them to get through the day. Considering that most teachers are facing an educational environment they’ve never experienced, their ability to learn on the fly, to persevere and to put their students’ needs first is nothing short of remarkable. This dedication to education should, in turn, inspire parents across Alberta to take a deep interest in the Alberta government’s proposed draft curriculum. The UCP is purporting to entertain public feedback via “virtual town hall” sessions, but so far the response from those attending the sessions has been troubling: participants report unanswered questions, patronizing,
cut-and-paste government talking points and misrepresentations of the current curriculum. Teachers, as much as they commit themselves to our children’s learning and pour their hearts into keeping their students engaged, feel they can’t speak out on the proposed curriculum. That’s why it’s important Albertans take the time themselves and not only learn about it, but write their MLAs and the Ministry of Education. Most of us who had a favourite teacher from school feel in our heart that no matter what curriculum they were presented with, those teachers would still remain dedicated, accessible and caring. Perhaps they would have. But dedicated teachers shouldn’t be forced to succeed in spite of the curriculum; they should be supported by it. Now’s the time for the rest of us to repay our educators by providing that support. Teachers know what’s best for the students, and the UCP’s proposed curriculum isn’t it. BOB COVEY // thejasperlocal@gmail.com
The Jasper Local //
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// LOCAL GOVERNMENT
SATUDAY, MAY 15, 2021 // ISSUE 188 // The Jasper Local // PAGE A3
MINER THREAT // Jasperites have been assembling weekly to protest the AB government’s bid to mine coal from the Rocky Mountains’ Eastern Slopes. // @Tim Poaps Photography
Employment centres latest service on the provincial gov’t chopping block Impending changes to the way employment centres are funded in the province could have devastating effects on local employment services and shut out hundreds of clients who currently access career counselling and education planning assistance. The Jasper Employment and Education Centre (JEEC) was informed last week through a Request for Proposals (RFP) process that the province wants employment centres to move to regional contracts. “This is very alarming, to be sure,” JEEC’s executive director, Ginette Marcoux said. In the new contracts, employment centres like JEEC, which currently serve hundreds of people looking for jobs and career transitions, will be centralized. Winning bidders will have to serve five communities, at a pittance of their current budget, meaning it will make it all but impossible not to move the services to an online delivery format. Moreover, by making the
free services available to “highly-barriered” people only, the RFPs are effectively shutting out clients who currently access employment services to research career transitions and access labour market outlooks, among other services. “At a time when many Albertans are experiencing labour disruption and career distress because of the pandemic, the loss of local career and employment services in rural communities will be devastating,” Marcoux said. Through its resource centre, JEEC helps 2,000 job seekers find local employment annually, Marcoux said. “These services are critical for job seekers and the business community alike.” Marcoux said the province’s move to serve only “highly barriered” people will be counterproductive, particularly because the reduced funding model will force employment centres online. JEEC’s experience is that people with significant barriers are that much more reliant on in-person
support, Marcoux said. “We’re only serving getting three to four [people whom the province defines as highly barriered] per year,” she said. “Meanwhile Jasper alone currently provides counselling services to 150 clients with diverse employment needs per year.” Under the new proposal, anyone who is currently employed and anyone with a post-secondary degree will be unable to access these services. The RFP expects centres will add a fee for these clients. “We will absolutely not do that, that is not who we are,” Marcoux said. Marcoux and affected stakeholders across the region—which includes Hinton, Edson, Whitecourt and Fox Creek—are launching a campaign to rescind the decision to regionalize Career and Employment Services in the Northwest part of the province, and maintain the current service delivery model. Jasperites can look for the petition on JEEC’s website and social media platforms. B COVEY // thejasperlocal@gmail.com
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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 188 // SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2021
LOCAL ENVIRONMENT
Talbot Lake discovery hints at skeletal history of JNP bison Kendra Neef often finds herself exploring littleknown corners of Jasper National Park. “I’m always keeping my eye out for cool stuff,” the local wildlife guide and photographer said. On April 15, very soon after the ice came off of Talbot Lake in the east end of Jasper National Park, Neef’s eye spied perhaps the coolest discovery she’d ever made. She and her boyfriend were paddling their kayaks, poking Kendra Neef found this bison skull in Talbot Lake recently. Bison haven’t been seen in Jasper National Park since the early 1990s, when around the far shoreline a rouge member of an escaped herd from a Hinton ranch was regularly seen in the Talbot Lake area.// KENDRA NEEF // JILL SEATON (1994) opposite the highway when she spotted what she thought was dozen of the animals were eventually recaptured, three or experts at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton who an antler poking out of the water. Whatever it was, it was four were killed in a collision with a train, but two bison agreed the skull is almost certainly from Parks Canada’s stuck in the mud under about two feet of very clear water. split off and remained in the lower Athabasca Valley. attempt, 43 years ago, to repopulate bison in Jasper “We said ‘oh maybe it’s a sheep horn, this is way cooler According to retired wildlife specialist Wes Bradford one National Park. than an antler,’” she said. As they pulled on it and the animal died within a year but the other, a cow, stayed “It was shown to experts at the provincial museum object came free from the bottom of the lake, it became on, moving between the Rocky River drainage and the and it looks to be about that age,” communications clear it wasn’t a sheep horn, either. The horn was attached Devona Flats area on the north side of the Athabasca officer Steve Young said. to a massive skull. It weighed about 30 pounds. River. She remained in that willowy wonderland for the In 1978 Parks Canada and the Canadian Wildlife better part of 10 years. She was last seen in 1994. “Honestly my first thought was this was from a cow or Service brought in 28 bison to JNP from Elk Island something,” she laughed. “You used to see her all the time in the spring at the National Park. The animals were trucked to Rock east end of Talbot Lake,” Bradford recalled. “She’d be They pulled the skull on top of the boat, took some photos Lake, on the east side of the park’s border, then flown feeding on the sedges, up to her belly in water.” and imagined what they could be looking at. Eventually, by helicopter to Willow Creek, near the park’s north they put it back in the water, but the mystery persisted. boundary. After a summer of being penned in a 14-sq- That’s exactly where Neef came across her discovery, and Neef sent a message to Parks Canada wildlife specialist while from Bradford’s account it sounds like the skull she km holding area, the animals were released, free to Mark Bradley, who emailed her back suggesting her found could have been one of the escapees, even if she’ll make a home in the muskeg-rich country where, two discovery looked like a bison skull. never get to the bottom of the mystery, Neef is satisfied to centuries earlier, their ancestors had done the same. have made such a tangible connection to Jasper’s past. “Holy, that’s so cool,” she thought. But the bison didn’t stay. All but two of the animals made “Whether it’s one of the 28 that were reintroduced their way north, out of the park, and eventually as far as Bradley said if she was interested in collecting the bison or if it was from way back in the day, either way, it’s Grande Prairie. The 2,000 pound animals broke down skull, Parks Canada would be able to find out more Jasper’s history and that’s really neat.” ranchers’ fences and got into farmers’ crops, creating information about it. Neef was in. A couple days later, enough of a nuisance to force the project’s end. she paddled back out to the dig site, pulled the skull back BOB COVEY // thejasperlocal@gmail.com onto her boat, “tried to clean as many gross bugs off it as More bison drama in Jasper took place a few years later This story used parts of a February 15, 2017 article in The possible” and delivered it to Bradley. when 14 animals escaped from a bison ranch near Hinton Jasper Local, Where The Buffalo Roamed. and found their way into the Fiddle River Valley. Half a Upon receiving the specimen, Bradley conferred with
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SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2021 // ISSUE 188 // The Jasper Local // PAGE B2
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
A marriage of convenience: New wedding cooperative rises from the dust of the local live events industry In the live events industry, it’s often said that the most successful planner is the one you never notice. Flawless preparation, vendor coordination and perfect execution mean on the day of the big event, everything runs smooth. “If you’re working with an event manager, you’re at a good event if you never see them,” confirms Jordan Tucker with Jasper Event Management. Ironically, when it comes to the devastation incurred by economic sectors in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, that same sense of invisibility has been how the live events industry has been regarded by the general public. We think of the hardships restaurants, retailers and transportation companies have been dealt, but somehow the folks who bring us the events which bring culture, connection and celebration to our communities get forgotten. Meanwhile, restrictions on gatherings led to the cancellations of events ranging from festivals to conventions to weddings. Tucker, whose company was helping make sure Jasper’s annual Chili Cookoff was as saucy as possible when the pandemic was first declared last March, remembers a dark cloud over the entire production. “Panic set in, we thought we were going to lose our whole business,” he recalled. Things remained dire as the weeks stretched into months and although there were valiant attempts at putting on digital events in the place of normally raucous, in-person affairs, the writing was on the wall for 2020. Jasper Event Management lost about 90 per cent of its business. “A big component of events in Jasper is the experience of coming to Jasper,” Tucker said. “How were we going to save a business that relies on in-person events?” The answer came not from government subsidies or rent relief from their landlords—although those pieces were critical, and Tucker is grateful everyday for the help he got. The key was collaboration. He and his
partners considered the legacy events Jasper holds every year—Jasper in January, Dark Sky Festival, Jasper Pride and more than 300 weddings and corporate events. When they considered the needs of those events and who consistently helped meet those needs, they saw an opportunity to come together for a common goal. Not long after, My Jasper Wedding was launched. “This was a chance to advocate for great vendors in Jasper,” Tucker said. What began as a grain of an idea was soon forming into a pearl of a partnership. Support from the Jasper Employment and Education Centre and the Alberta Community and A new cooperative of local vendors serving the wedding industry has Cooperatives Association (ACCA) pivoted out of the decimated live events sector. // ASHLEY KENNEDY helped move the project forward. In late 2020, funding was made available through ACCA, and a partnership That’s no simple task in a normal year, but particularly with Community Futures West Yellowhead helped during a pandemic, when restrictions are constantly in connect local businesses. Now, My Jasper Wedding flux, figuring out what’s allowed in terms of number of includes 16 different vendors representing eight event participants, inter-provincial travel constraints professional services, including photography, florals, and even whether or not a bridal party can get their hair marriage commissioners, transportation, cakes and done at a salon adds stress to an already pressure-filled wedding design. Centralizing these services helps reduce event. Tucker said having all of My Jasper Wedding’s overhead and allows the partners to share costs. partners on the same page ensures they can make a memorable day in the safest way possible. “It’s allowed us to access a whole new way of doing business,” Tucker said about the cooperative. “We all have that passion for the work,” Tucker said. And it’s better for clients. No longer do couples wanting That passion is what will help create a wedding that to get married in Jasper have to navigate a patchwork matches their clients’ vision, but it also was fundamental of service providers, potentially hiring out-of-town in making sure local businesses in the live events companies that aren’t properly set up with the requisite industry survived. business licenses or a strong foundation of local “You get creative when it’s like your child and you have knowledge. to save it,” Tucker said. “This makes it easy for people to make the right BOB COVEY // thejasperlocal@gmail.com decisions,” Tucker said.
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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 188 // SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2021
STORY BY BOB COVEY // PHOTOS BY CHASE BOHNING, INSTAGRAM @JACKFISHBOOTS
A freshwater ecologist specializing in Alberta’s native fish says a recentlyissued Critical Habitat Order to protect Bull Trout in Alberta does not actually protect critical habitat or Bull Trout. David Mayhood is a director of the Timberwolf Wilderness Society, based in Pincher Creek, Alberta. Mayhood suggests that the government’s recovery plans for Bull Trout does not go far enough to protect the species’ critical habitat and that the legislation has no measurable targets on which the government could base the order’s success.
Bighorn Country—the Government of Alberta continues to sanction multiple uses of the public lands. A major feature of this use are roads and seismic lines. “These land managers want to do everything in the same place, at the same time—they say we want to have mining, we want to have logging, we want to have oil and gas exploration, we want to have offroad recreation, we want to have horseback riding. It’s clearly not possible, yet the ideology of multiple use is a very difficult nut to crack,” Mayhood said. Strip mining causes heavy metals such as
“If we’re not actually counting the fish in some way we don’t know whether we’re making any advances in their recovery,” Mayhood said. On March 31 Canada’s Minister of Fisheries and Oceans // (DFO) and the Minister of Environment signed into law the protection of habitat of Bull Trout (Saskatchewan-Nelson Rivers populations) and Rainbow Trout (Athabasca River populations). DFO trumpeted the orders as taking strong action to conserve these fish populations.
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“Preserving our natural environment will always be a key priority for this government,” DFO’s news release stated. However, Mayhood said that the Bull Trout recovery plan does not go far enough to protect the fish’s critical habitat and that by expecting to recover an at-risk species while the lands and waters needed for that recovery are subjected to ever-increasing abuse from industry and motorized recreation, the plan does not constitute good conservation science. “To retain any credibility at all, some recognition of these overwhelming threats to the success of Bull Trout recovery must be acknowledged,” Mayhood wrote in his submission. In the Saskatchewan River drainage basin—the headwaters of which originate in the pristine wilderness of Alberta’s
selenium, cadmium, arsenic and chromium to leach out of rock waste and into watercourses, while clear cut logging— the preferred practice of Alberta’s timber harvest— leads to increased f lood f lows, sediment transportation and the carving out of the channel systems fish use to spawn. “You can’t log the bejeezus out of a watershed without having an effect on f low timing and magnitude,” Mayhood said. DFO’s March 31 Critical Habitat Order acknowledges that the fish’s habitat includes the land surrounding the rivers, however, it only recognizes a 30 metre riparian “buffer” on either side of a stream
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AT RISK OF FAILURE:
Alberta ecologist calls bull on DFO’s critical habitat order channel, a tiny fraction of what constitutes the true terrestrial portion of critical Bull Trout habitat, Mayhood said. As long as activities damaging to the watershed are taking place on that land, recovery of fish species will be next to impossible, he says. “When you impose something that completely changes the discharge characteristics of the stream you’re going to be hundreds of years, likely, before things settle down to useable fish habitat again.” Apart from in national and provincial parks, Bull Trout have shown serious declines, range contractions and lost populations in Alberta. In spite of nearly two decades of harvest protection, the majority of Bull Trout watersheds were assessed as having either low or very low abundance of adult fish in 2014, according to the Alberta government. The government acknowledges that heavy land use— including forestry, oil/ gas, agriculture and off-road vehicle access— is associated with poor
the risk of extirpation these fish face. Without abundance targets for Bull Trout populations, government biologists won’t be able to know if there are enough fish in enough places to ensure their extinction is not possible. And without expanding the definition of the Bull Trout’s habitat to include the entire watershed, native fish populations in Alberta will continue to be
BULL TROUT FACTS 8
The Bull Trout is the official fish of Alberta.
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Bulls can get big. Individuals have been measured up to 103 cm (41 inches) in length and up to 14.5 kg (32 lb), but typically an adult fish averages about 60 centimetres.
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The Bull Trout is adaptable in where it can live. Some are lake residents, others make their homes in streams and rivers, and still others live in a mixture of the two watercourses. They make maximum use of their natural habitat by having these different life-history types.
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Bull Trout can migrate hundreds of kilometres to spawn in the fall. Like salmon, they do this in small headwaters before moving downstream to larger, over-wintering water. Bull Trout typically spawn at five years, later than most trout.
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Bull Trout aren’t actually a trout. They are members of the salmon family known as char. Char are distributed farther north than any other group of freshwater fish and are well adapted for life in very cold water.
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Bull Trout are listed as a threatened species in Alberta. Over-harvesting of Bull Trout led to a decline in their population in the early part of the 19th Century, but the main threat today is industrial land use and development, habitat destruction and changes to surface and groundwater flow. Mortalities from catch-andrelease angling also could be contributing to population declines.
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Because of their vulnerability, there is a zero possession limit on Bull Trout throughout the province; all Bull Trout caught must be released.
more and more fragmented, damaged and lost entirely. Bull Trout status, yet they continue to prioritize these activities in watersheds the fish need. In 2020 the province removed 175 parks from the provincial park system, opened the Eastern Slopes to strip coal mining and called for a 30 per cent increase in its annual timber harvest. Without taking measures to mitigate the degradation to the watershed and without discontinuing the activities known to cause the problems, the greater
As Canada’s most powerful piece of legislation to protect species and the ecosystems they need to live, the Species At Risk Act has the legal power to fight those battles. However, Mayhood isn’t confident DFO is willing to make the push. “I believe it’s a deliberate ploy to allow business as usual, i.e. resource extraction and OHV use, for as long as possible,” he said. ________________________________ BOB COVEY
// thejasperlocal@gmail.com
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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 188 // SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2021
LOCAL BUSINESS
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LOCAL WILDLIFE
SATURDAY, MAY 15, 2021 // ISSUE 188 // The Jasper Local // PAGE B6
SCRATCH THAT ITCH // Simone Heinrich found lots of action in the trees recently as she photographed this eagle couple and a black bear. // SIMONE HEINRICH