a lt e r n a t i v e + l o c a l + i n d e p e n d e n t //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
thejasperlocal.com
wednesday, july 15, 2015 // issue 53
SPLIT DECISION // LOCAL ROCK GUIDE MATT REYNOLDS LEADS THE WAY UP A CRAG ON MOUNT COLIN, A CLASSIC JASPER CLIMB FIRST ASCENDED BY FRANK SMYTHE IN 1947.// N.GABOURY
No changes to TFW program on horizon: Leitch CANADA’S MINISTER OF LABOUR AND MINISTER OF STATUS OF WOMEN, KELLIE LEITCH, SAYS NO CHANGES TO THE FEDERAL TEMPORARY FOREIGN WORKER PROGRAM WILL BE FORTHCOMING BETWEEN NOW AND THE OCTOBER ELECTION.
Leitch was in Jasper as a guest of the Jasper Park Chamber of Commerce on July 10. She spoke to a crowd of approximately 50 business leaders and professionals at Pyramid Lake Resort. “The Prime Minister’s been very clear: Canadians come first for Canadian jobs,” Leitch said. Mountain Park Lodges General Manager Bernhard Schneider had pressed Leitch on creating exemptions for tourism-dependent communities to rules which make it difficult to access Temporary Foreign Workers.
“Every valued foreign worker we have lost since the changes in 2014 we have not been able to replace,” Schneider said. “We need government to have a better understanding of operational needs.” Leitch said that Citizenship and Immigration Canada has increased the number of people available to the provincial nominee program. Moreover, she said there needs to be a perspective shift for young people. “We need to be educating them about opportunities, whether that’s at Tim Horton’s or McDonald’s…entering at the bottom level gives them an idea of what it takes to be successful…it’s not just about having temporary foreign workers, it’s also about making sure young Canadians understand there’s a great career path in the food and beverage and hospitality industries.” bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com
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page A2 // the jasper local // issue 53 // wednesday, july 15, 2015
editorial //
Local Vocal LIKE MOST PEOPLE WHO COME TO JASPER FOR A JOB AND WHO ONLY HAVE A VAGUE UNDERSTANDING OF A MOUNTAIN LIFESTYLE, AT FIRST I DIDN’T REALLY GET IT. I remember figuring that I might as well give hiking a try, since I fancied the idea of fresh air and birds or whatever. As such, I got my sport socks and hopped onto the Discovery Trail thinking that since there were cute little pictures of bears on the signs, it would be mellow. Wrong! Looking back, I remember thinking the only thing I was “Discovering” on the steep hills behind the RCMP station was how sadistic the Friends of Jasper National Park were for facilitating this terrifying hell-march. After I got a few more hikes under my sport socks, I realized the Discovery Trail wasn’t a sick joke uber-athletes were playing on grandmothers and 25-year-old weaklings. I came to know it as the punchy prelude to an incredibly diverse and generous trail network. Eventually, I got it. A similar wave of understanding washed over me recently when chatting about the Tour of Alberta with local bike wizard, Dana Ruddy. I remembered months ago when certain members of council were pushing to bring the race to Jasper. Not aware of what the tour—or professional cycling, for that matter—represented, I couldn’t help but think cynical thoughts about bringing thousands of visitors to our community at a time when we’re already maxed out. However, an hour-long conversation with Ruddy has turned my internal naysaying into outward yay-saying. Instead of asking how we’re going to manage, I’m now more interested in asking how I can help. I’m starting to get it. When it comes to Jasper’s need for a bolstered work force, I don’t think federal Labour Minister Kellie Leitch gets it. She’s quick to tout her government’s band-aid solutions and tell us Yellowhead kids need to smarten up and see the career opportunities in scooping Timbits, but she might as well be instructing us in bear safety from her office in Ottawa—things are different here. If she wasn’t in such a rush to get back on the campaign trail, she could have stopped by the job board at the Jasper Adult Learning Centre. It’s bodies we need, plain and simple. Hard-line, across-the-board policies don’t work for communities with unique needs. Maybe in October, she’ll get it. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com
Demolish demo idea, save history Dear Editor, After reading about the impending demolition of the Athabasca & Sunwapta warden stations I can’t help wondering if one of them might be able to serve as an interpretive/information/visitor centre for travellers on the south highway? Nothing fancy but a good place for the public to learn more about fire safety, the latest park updates and get general info such as trail & campground maps. It might also alleviate some load from the town Info Centre. We need to keep thinking outside the box. That means looking for ways to save money and being innovative. Having a south highway info stop is a great way to
engage the public, save the demo costs and repurpose some buildings that are part of the park history. They may not look like much now but they are a part of history and some day we will wish they had been kept. It’s still beyond me that they demolished the beautiful missionstyle hospital that once stood in Jasper and built the boxy 70s-style one we now have. We need to appreciate our buildings and preserve them and think of ways to repurpose them or we will continually wipe out our history! Imagine if all the old buildings in Europe had been gradually demolished? Where is our record of history going to be if we don’t value our buildings? Elizabeth Prinz, Jasper
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
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Local events//
wednesday, july 15, 2015 // issue 53 // the jasper local// page A3
Former road racer revved up for Tour of Alberta drama
Ruddy has a deep knowledge of the sport in large part because he himself used to compete. Beginning as a mountain biker racer at age 16, then switching to the road scene when he turned 18, for two years Ruddy raced Jasperite Dana Ruddy against the best amateur is driving the Athabasca road cyclists in the world. Falls loop, south along He spent two summers in Highway 93A and back Belgium, where he quickly towards town via Highway learned how serious the 93. It’s part of the same Flemish take their cycling. route that, in September, “Everybody follows it there, the world’s best cyclists and the races go through RUDDY IS TOA’S ANCILLARY EVENTS will ride during the Tour COORDINATOR // N. GABOURY the villages,” he said. “It of Alberta’s much-vaunted would be a comparable level mountain stage. Ruddy, advantage of every tilt, of excitement in Canada if who’s accepted a volunteer track, zoom and pan that can the Stanley Cup was being post with the Tour of played for in the streets.” capture what makes Jasper Alberta’s local organizing “It’s such a different culture,” National Park special. committee (LOC), is slowing The problem is, he’s a Ruddy said. down at spots along the road bit distracted. Instead Cycling culture is rich and which he thinks might work of thinking about what storied, but its recent past is for potential supporting— would really make for ugly. Blood doping among or ancillary—events. As stunning images at the sport’s most prominent the LOC’s ancillary event Horseshoe Lake, for figures has marred cycling coordinator, he is taking the example, Ruddy’s talking in the mainstream media. lead on ensuring that some racing tactics. Ruddy, however, says the of Jasper’s most unique scandal only adds to the “Typically the Tour of imagery will be on display intrigue. Alberta will be won by a when the peloton of 120-plus few seconds. This year, “It’s a soap opera that plays riders go screaming by. The because of the mountain out on the highways,” he said. Tour of Alberta’s television “And the most exciting race stages, it will be more broadcasters will beam selective. You’ll see bigger of the Tour of Alberta, by far, the race to an estimated 41 will be here in Jasper.” gaps. It’ll be a different million households across type of racer who’ll win.” bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com
“To be a really top end bike racer you have to be tough. Tough tough tough.”
the world and when the cameras aren’t focused on the racers, it’s part of Ruddy’s job to help take
Canada's top cyclist expected in Jasper The best cyclist Canada has ever produced, Ryder Hesjedal, will be in Jasper for the Tour of Alberta. Cycling Magazine Canada reported the news in June; Local Organizing Committee cochair, Matt Decore, confirmed that Hesjedal’s team, Garmin Cannonade, is registered for this year’s TOA but could not confirm Hesjedel’s participation. “We expect [Ryder will compete] if he’s healthy,” Decore said. “He has expressed his intention to attend.” In 2012, Hesjedal won the Giro d’Italia, becoming the only Canadian to win a Grand Tour of cycling. He is currently competing in the Tour de France.
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page B1 // the jasper local // issue 53 // wednesday, July 15, 2015
Local news //
Fire specialists not out of the woods yet The Maligne Valley (Excelsior Creek) wildfire is still out of control.
As of July 14 the 1,000 hectare wildfire was not contained, but not growing, said Parks Canada fire boss, Dave Smith. “We’re not out of the woods yet,” Smith said. “Our first priority is getting water all around it and extinguishing the north side.” Since July 9, when dry, hot forest conditions helped a fire which had been smouldering for more than a week come to life, fire fighters have been working to extinguish the blaze. That day, Parks Canada officials evacuated approximately 1,000 day users and 60 backcountry campers and hikers from the Maligne Valley while the fire ran almost 10 kilometres in four hours. The fire was caused by lightning strike. It burned south, on the west side of Medicine Lake, and is now burning on the lake’s north end. The fire is not currently threatening any facilities. Maligne Lake Road remained closed at the 5th Bridge turnoff on July 14. Six helicopters and more than 50 fire fighters from local and external units have been working on establishing a perimeter around the fire. “We’re not taking this lightly,” Smith said. Crews with heavy equipment are building trails into the rugged terrain on the west side of Medicine Lake to establish a perimeter. They will also build a series of helipads to facilitate air access. “We will open [the Maligne Valley] as fast as we can,” Smith said.
The Maligne Valley (Excelsior Creek) Wildfire was still out of control on July 14 // Dane Olinkin
Bob Covey //bob@thejasperlocal.com
Lucky strike // It was no surprise that local angler Curtis Dirks had a healthy bend in his fishing rod on the afternoon of June 30—It was just another day of trolling on Pyramid Lake when he hooked a three-pound trout. The surprise came when his respectable catch became fish food for a monster from the depths—a 14-pound lake trout bit into the smaller one, snagging itself on Dirks’ lure in the process. Unfortunately for the fish, despite Dirks’ best efforts to release it back to the water, it did not survive. // Rebecca Silver photo
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Local trails//
wednesday, july 15, 2015 // issue 53 // the jasper local// page B2
Trail crew boss bridges the old and the new Erin Shepherd’s hard hat is impossibly clean and his green, collared Parks Canada shirt has nary a wrinkle in it. For someone who heads up Jasper National Park’s trail crew, it sure looks like he spends a lot of time in the office. “It’s not as much fun, but somebody’s got to build the spreadsheets,” he laments. He hasn’t always been a paper jockey. Shepherd, who grew up in Jasper, worked with the trail crews of legend—rough, tough and innovative gangs who played as hard as they worked while building bridges and other historic facilities in Jasper’s remote backcountry. “You’d go in for 10 days, come out for four, lather, rinse repeat,” he said. “We ate 3,000 calories a day and I still lost 20 pounds a summer.” These days, trail crew is a different beast—the summerlong backcountry projects in one remote area of the park are a thing of the past. Today’s crews’ objectives are more specific in their scope, funds more surgical in their allocation. More attention is paid to park mandates, such as enhancing visitor experience and improving asset sustainability. It’s not a bad thing, Shepherd suggests, just different. “The answers people used in the past were right for the personnel, policy and funding at the time,” he said.
Moreover, the way the park is used by visitors has changed the way trail crew works. Today’s average user sticks closer to the highway. As such, Shepherd’s crews have been busy at day-use facilities such JNP Trail crew’s Erin Shepherd as the Mary bridges the past and future//BC Schaeffer Loop at Maligne Lake, the Source of the Springs boardwalk at Miette Hotsprings and creating fencing improvements at Athabasca Falls. “There’s a very intense usage of a few very limited corridors,” he said. Athabasca Falls, in particular, checks all of the budget boxes. According to Shepherd, the park has seen an uptick in “near-misses” at the falls, where the frigid Athabas-
ca River plunges over sharp, steep cliffs into a churning cascade of dangerous rapids. “Social” trails have formed where people have short-cut between walking paths and an egress from a former picnic area threatened a culturally-sensitive site (tool shards have been discovered). Creating new fencing to manage visitor flow, therefore, earns points for visitor safety, ecological integrity, heritage protection and visitor experience. “It hits a number of priority targets,” he said. Same goes in the Tonquin Valley, where another trail crew (there are three) has been rebuilding the deteriorating wooden corduroy near Amethyst Lakes. It’s a huge job, but Shepherd says when it’s done it will spell wins for sensitive vegetation (hikers won’t make their own trails), public safety (horses won’t break through the rotten wood and potentially throw their riders) and visitor experience (more enjoyable travel). Times may have changed when it comes to where they focus their efforts since Shepherd was mending stream banks along the remote south boundary trail, but the fact that his crews are helping create new legacies in the park makes him forget about all the paper he has to push. “I feel privileged to have a connection to the old ways and have an opportunity to help develop a new way,” he said. Bob Covey //bob@thejasperlocal.com
Preventative maintenance// Trail Crew leader James Griffin, along with Lucas Duchoslav, erect fencing at Athabasca Falls day use area in the hopes that the new structure will prevent scenes like the one captured by photographer Rick Chandler, at right. // Bob Covey
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page b3+B4 // the jasper local // issue 53 // wednesday, july 15, 2015
LOCAL FEATURE // EXTRAORDINARY COORDINATING
ALL HANDS ON DECK MAPPING THE MALIGNE VALLEY WILDFIRE EVACUATION July 9, 3:30 p.m. start
4 p.m.
4:30 p.m.
Fire reported by aircraft; confirmed by Parks Canada staff.
Jasper Visitor Safety staff get list of hikers and campers on Skyline Trail, Maligne Lake and Jacques Lake campgrounds from Information Centre staff.
Smoke can be seen from the townsite. IA crew reports 20 flames and “spotting out” (n ignited in front of main blaze
3:45 p.m.
4:15 p.m.
4:35 p.m.
Parks Canada staff begin to drive up road to alert motorists and move them out of the valley. Jasper RCMP set up road block and begin traffic control at junction of Moberly Bridge and Hwy 16. RCMP will be bolstered by officers from Edson and Hinton detachments.
Maligne Tours and Parks Canada work together to prioritize high-priority visitors (elderly, disabled) for helicopter evacuation.
Parks Canada Visitor Safety staff begin sweeps along Skyline Trail using helicopters, ATVs and mountain bikes to ensure no one is missed.
Jacques Lk.
780.883.0773
swilson.jasper@gmail.com
16
Starting point
EMERGENCY OPERATING CENTRE
MA
rescue helicopter
INCIDENT COMMAND
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//dane olinkin
feature //
4:40 p.m.
e Jasper 00m-high new fires e).
NE
6:30 p.m.
One hiker in Jacques Lake makes his way to the trailhead; a second hiker at the campground is flown out via helicopter.
6 p.m.
Fire comes within 150m of the road at the north end of Medicine Lake. Community Outreach Services begins taking in evacuees. Fire fighters and Jasper RCMP officers, along with COS and Jasper Victim Services Unit staff and volunteers, help process more than 50 people who have been airlifted to SunDog Tour Company shuttles waiting along Hwy 93. Evacuees are assisted with finding meals and accommodations for the night. Jasper townsfolk offer their suites and backyards to grateful victims. Parks Canada closes the road and asks evacuees to wait at the lake’s south end.
LA K
E RO
Fire crosses the road at the north end of Medicine Lake. Campers at Maligne Lake are asked to stay at their campsites for the evening and to paddle back the following morning for evacuation.
10 p.m. Forty cars waiting at south end of Medicine Lake can be escorted through to Jasper..
AD
Maligne Lake
*Map not to scale.
July 10, 12 a.m. All day users are out of the Maligne Valley; all hikers and campers are accounted for.
ON THE AFTERNOON OF JULY 9, MORE THAN A WEEK AFTER A LIGHTNING STORM IN JASPER’S MALIGNE VALLEY, HOT, DRY CONDITIONS HELPED BRING A SMOULDERING FIRE IN THE EXCELSIOR CREEK AREA TO LIFE. Soon after smoke was reported by passing aircraft, Parks Canada Wildlife Guardians confirmed to fire officials that trees were candling and flames were shooting into the sky. “The dry conditions woke a sleeping giant,” said Parks Canada’s fire and vegetation specialist, Dave Smith. The response was immediate—because of the extreme fire hazard, Jasper National Park’s Initial Attack crew was at the ready—but only minutes after the call came in, the crew determined from a helicopter that the fire was already too big to be suppressed from the ground. “As soon as they got over the ridge they determined it was outside of IA’s capability,” Smith said. The fire was not spreading toward town, but rather up the Maligne Valley. Parks Canada’s priority shifted to moving people out. “It became clear that this was a fast-moving, intense fire,” Smith said. “Everything had to be sped up.” More than 1,000 day users and nearly 60 backcountry users—spread out along Jasper’s most popular backcountry trail, The Skyline—needed to be evacuated from the area. What came next was a heroic effort in coordination and collaboration, Smith said. “I have never felt so proud of so many people for how well this went,” he said. “I have never seen something of this magnitude go off with so little glitches.” Bob Covey //bob@thejasperlocal.com
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page B5 // the jasper local // issue 53 // wednesday, July 15, 2015
local community //
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Local stories //
wednesday, july 15, 2015 // issue 53 // the jasper local// page B6
BEAR-LY KEEPING UP: Another victim of budget cuts
//N. GABOURY
By Dave Harrap
Pretty soon there will be one less bear in the Park. How come? This spring, a grizzly, as you’ve heard through the pages of The Local, has been busting into warden cabins on the South Boundary Trail. He’s been helping himself to things like boxes of stale Bisquick, jars of rancid peanut butter and his favourite of the lot: half-mouldy sacks of horse oats. There are just two things on the mind of bears; make that three. Food. Sex. And more food (not unlike us, really). This Big Fella has been having a ball. He’s been doing laps, visiting all the unoccupied warden cabins laid out on the South Boundary like food stations at a marathon. He’s had the place to himself. The Brazeau River valley lost its snow real early this year. By the beginning of May it had gone. How do I know this? Did I get the information from the warden service? No. I climbed a mountain at Nigel Pass in early May and saw for myself; the first wardens wouldn’t come through for another month (that’s when they discovered the grizzly rampage). I could see down to Four Point cabin—the first fast-food joint the Griz hit—past Brazeau Lake and the second cabin, and beyond almost to Isaac Creek. But I couldn’t
Service Directory
see the Big Fella, nor were there any of his tracks up at the pass. He was operating in snow-free country down below. I fried eggs, bacon and sausage for breakfast on that trip. A couple of nights I fixed pork chops over the fire, and one evening I had fried shrimp and garlic in a cream sauce. Delicious. Who knows? Grizz might have caught a whiff, but he didn’t come calling; he was as leery of me as I was of him. That’s how it is with bears. Sure, he probably came to my camp after I left, sniffed and scratched around a bit. Again, like us, bears are curious. I’d burned the shrimp shells and the pork bones, tidied up nice, so there was nothing at my camp for him other than strange smells. He might have even picked up the lingering odour of my socks, but whatever, it was him and me and we got on OK. Now the wildlife conflict staff have cameras up on the trails looking for him. They’ve snapped several pictures of his comings and goings. Maybe they have shots of him with his paws on his ears, tongue stuck out, doing the bear version of a Nelson Muntz: HA! HA! Sooner or later, however, like the Mounties and their man, chances are that Parks will get their bear. It will be a bullet, then a helicopter to dispose of the body in an unmarked grave—as if the Big Fella was some type of criminal—but not before they run the autopsy. They might find an ancient bullet lodged deep in his shoulder
bone. The Big Fella got it when he made the mistake of stepping out the park during hunting season. They’ll probably find a couple of claws missing from his paws. He lost those digging up marmots and ground squirrels. He’ll be missing a few teeth (as happens to the best of us). But most surprisingly, when they cut open his stomach, they will find—along with the kinnikinnik berries—the remains of a Bisquick box with the best before date (02/01) still legible. However, it wasn’t the rancid peanut butter (do bears have peanut allergies?), or the pancake mix or the mouldy oats. It wasn’t even the warden’s bullet that did it to him. No, Old Griz was killed by budget cuts. Once upon a time the wardens, those guardians of the wild places, lived out there in those cabins. They knew their animals—many by name—and they knew what was going on in their territory. They knew how to deal with a bear that was becoming a bit of a nuisance. Those days are gone now. Today, only three part-time resource management specialists cover 10,860 square kms of Jasper’s wilderness. Warden cabins are seldom used, let alone occupied for any length of time. Yes, like most things Griz will meet his end because of money . . . And now there is one less bear on the South Boundary. DAVE HARRAP // info@thejasperlocal.com