The Jasper Local December 15, 2016

a lt e r n at i v e +

LOCAL + independent

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thejasperlocal.com

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thursday, december 15, 2016 // ISSUE 87

Charges laid after fire at Cavell Court A Jasper man has been charged with arson causing property damage after a fire broke out at Cavell Apartments.

On December 12, shortly after 3 p.m. Jasper emergency personnel were dispatched to Cavell Apartments at the east end of Geikie Street to respond to a structure fire. Upon arrival, the fire had already caused significant damage to a ground floor apartment, according to Jasper RCMP Sgt. Rick Bidaisee.

As firefighters contained the fire, police took 27-year-old Tyler Colin Genaille into custody.

TIM BANGLE GETS A LIFT FROM HIS DAD, JEFF, ON PATRICIA LAKE. COLD TEMPERATURES HAVE USHERED IN OUTDOOR SKATING// BOB COVEY

investigation, police discovered that Genaille had “recklessly used a propane torch inside the apartment,” according to a media release. “[Genaille] then wrapped [the torch] in a jacket before throwing it inside a fridge.”

Bidaisee would not speculate on why Genaille was operating the torch. He presumes the tool caught fire and Genaille attempted to deprive the fire of oxygen by smothering it.

“We can only assume the fire got away from him but we can’t speak to why [he was using the torch].”

“The suspect was located outside of the premises,” Bidaisee said.

In addition to the arson charge, Genaille is facing mischief over $5,000. He is set to appear in Jasper Provincial Court on December 22.

As a result of their

bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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page A2 // the jasper local // issue 87 // thursday, december 15, 2016

editorial //

Local Vocal Occasionally, if I make a genuine connection with a guest at the restaurant where I serve part-time, I’ll give them a few insider tips on enjoying Jasper National Park.

Maybe I’ll tell them my favourite sauce on a deli sandwich (currently curry mayo) or perhaps I’ll recommend a good spot to stretch the legs on the Icefields Parkway (I like Rampart Creek).

Usually, I never hear from these folks again, but that’s OK. Truly, a big part of the enjoyment of working in Jasper’s service industry is helping guests fully experience this place we all love (the wine helps, too).

While doing interviews for our feature story this issue, I had an epiphany of sorts. In talking to members of Marmot Basin’s marketing team, I realized that although these folks might not consider themselves in the service industry per se, they are certainly helping guests connect to the park. Moreover, they’re most definitely doing a big service to the community at large. wheelchair. My father loved Dear Editor, These folks get a bit of slack from cynical locals the outdoors and hiked many for seemingly putting lipstick on a pig when It is nice to read that Parks areas of Jasper and Banff. snow conditions aren’t ideal, but I gained a new Canada has repaved the trail appreciation for the work they put into making That day meant so much to going around Lake Annette. sure potential guests are aware of all that the my father as he was so happy I, as a younger person, was mountain has to offer, regardless of how deep the to be back outdoors, seeing against the paving of the powder is. the trees, birds and smelling trail back in the 70s, as I In a cold snap such as the one we’ve been the fresh air away from the thought it took away from experiencing for the past three weeks, it’s admittedly hard to convince a family from extended care. nature. Life can change one’s Edmonton to bundle up, forget about the black ice perspective and I can now Just thought I would tell you on Highway 16 and mosey on up for a minus-aacknowledge the benefit of that the paved trail does have million-Celsius ski vacay. However, when there is such a limited development. its benefits, at least to some. something genuinely positive to promote—such About 14 years ago, two years as a blessed temperature inversion which can turn - K. Glenn Howard, Edson, AB early-season skiing from ghastly to glorious— before he passed away, I had rather than scoff as the marketing machine fires the privilege of pushing my __________________ up, I think it behooves us all to get on board. send LETTERS our way! father around the lake in his letters@thejasperlocal.com As I reflect on the fact that I’d have markedly fewer winter guests to serve if Marmot Basin The Jasper Local // Jasper’s independent alternative newspaper wasn’t bringing tourists to town, I find I’ve gained 780.852.9474 • thejasperlocal.com • po box 2046, jasper ab, t0e 1e0 a newfound respect for the ski area’s coordinated Published on the 1st and 15th of each month communications blitzes. Sure there are other draws to Jasper in the winter, but without our Editor / Publisher Bob Covey.................................................................................... bob@thejasperlocal.com anchor tenant, there’d be a lot less demand for canyon guides, day spas or fat bike rentals.

Art Director Nicole Gaboury.................................................................. nicole@thejasperlocal.com Look, not everyone is going to agree with some of + sales the flavours of Jasper’s marketing campaigns, just Advertising ..............................................................................................................ads@thejasperlocal.com like not everyone is going to like curry mayo on cartoonist their sandwich.

Deke.................................................................................................deke@thejasperlocal.com But we can all agree we have to eat. facebook.com/thejasperlocal @thejasperlocal

Paved Trail Benefits

bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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Local community //

thursday, december 15, 2016 // issue 87 // the jasper local// page A3

Valemount tragedy spurs Jasperites Jasperites are rallying to come to the assistance of a Valemount family with close ties to this community.

On December 6, at approximately 10:30 p.m., 18-year-old Hannah Knelsen was woken up to the sound of her younger sister screaming. “‘She screamed ‘He didn’t make it,’” Knelsen said. “Dominic didn’t make it.”

Dominic was Hannah’s nephew—the son of her sister, Allison Olson, and Olson’s partner, Clint Meek. About a half-hour earlier, flames had broken out in Olson and Meek’s Valemount trailer. While Meek and three-year-old Landon were badly burned, 16-month-old Dominic couldn’t be saved.

Olson and their six-year-old daughter, Samara, were not at home at the time.

Knelsen and her seven siblings grew up in Valemount. Since August, Knelsen had been commuting back and forth from Valemount to work as a hairdresser at Jasper’s Wild Orchid Salon and Spa. “She is not only responsible but determined to learn the trade,” said Jasper’s Nadia Helmy said of her employee. “She’s a really good girl and we just want to help any way we can.”

The community of Valemount has responded with overwhelming kindness, Knelsen said.

In the wake of the tragedy, donations have poured in as well as love and support.

“How this community comes together is amazing, we would not get this kind of support in a city,” Knelsen said.

Meek is currently in hospital with first and second degree burns. Three-year-old Landon is also being treated for burns.

Wild Orchid is acting as a relay point for donations for the Meek-Olson family.

Knelsen said that currently, the family is asking for help with Christmas presents such as toys for the children but the need for clothing has been filled. The family is most in need of cash and gift cards, Knelsen said.

“We’re still trying to give them a Christmas,” Knelsen said.

Donations can be made to CIBC and one of two Go Fund Me accounts. For those looking for more specific details on what is needed, email Alicia Olson at olson.92@hotmail.com.

B.C.’s Office of the Fire Commissioner has identified the area of fire origin being near a wood stove, noting a possible cause of the fire may have been storage of combustible materials. Valemount RCMP have ruled out foul play.

—With files from the Rocky Mountain Goat bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com ice paws // Jasper’s Brad stewart and his four legged friend, RB, take a spin on fresh ice December 13. Cold weather has blasted Alberta and B.C. lately, making getting outdoors a multi-stepped process, if not an insurmountable challenge for some Jasperites.

Thankfully, for skaters and walkers, one blessing is the frozen lakes which are in close proximity to the community.

Send your winter photos to thejasperlocal@gmail. com // Bob Covey

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Local recognition //

page B1 // the jasper local // issue 87 // thursday, december 15, 2016

GVT awarded service medal by GG When Greg Van Tighem was 19, before he left his parent’s home in Calgary, and before he boarded a bus to Jasper to live with his older brother Kevin, his mom told him something he’d never forget.

“She said ‘I don’t care what you do, as long as you do the best job possible and you do good,’” he recalled.

Apparently Van Tighem took those instructions to heart. Thirty-seven years later, on December 8, Jasper’s fire chief was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal from Canada’s Governor General, David Johnston.

The award was given to Van Tighem for his tireless efforts to raise money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. By now, Jasper knows well of GVT’s End-to-End-to-End-MS cycling campaigns: His first mission, in 2013, saw him battling truckers for shoulder space while traversing nearly 2,800 kms of narrow Highway 93 from Wickenburg, Arizona to Jasper. His next journey, in the winter of 2014, took him more than 3,000 kms along the snow and ice-caked Highway 16, on a fat bike, no less. And finally, because once he started rolling the fatty he just couldn’t stop, he pedalled the most extreme iceroad in the world, the Dempster Highway, at the top of the Canadian arctic. The extreme elements conspired against him, giving him a couple of close encounters with hypothermia.

Since 10 years ago, when he first entered the Hinton MS Bike Tour and was inspired to raise money for the debilitating disease, GVT has raised more than $378,000 for the MS Society of Canada.

Van Tighem’s long-distance cycling didn’t start with the Jasper Rockhoppers, however. It didn’t even start in 1982, when he bought his first mountain bike in Jasper (a BRC High Sierra, for those interested). GVT’s cycling career began much earlier, in Calgary, at St. Mary’s High School. There, the future top MS fundraiser in Alberta, Canada and North America would ride his 10-speed, along with about 14 other students, around Calgary’s Bow River Valley. On weekends they’d ride up to 180 km in a day.

HIS EXCELLENCY, GOVERNOR GENERAL DAVID JOHNSTON AND JASPER’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURER, GVT// SUPPLIED

‘‘If I find something I’m really passionate about or interested in I’m going to give it 100 per cent” Then he took a sabbatical. Not long after landing in Jasper, he started a family. Van Tighem didn’t really get back on a bike until after his kids, now in their early 20s, left home.

“The bike stayed in the garage,” he said.

He was also spending his days in a garage; after Van Tighem did a stint at the Athabasca Hotel (“I worked as a bouncer, bartender, waiter and DJ,” he said), he settled into a career as a mechanic.

A decade later, at age 30, he put an application into the Jasper Volunteer Fire Brigade. That decision would change his life. Not only was he accepted, he jumped in with both feet. Shortly after joining, GVT was taking all the training he could through the Vermillion (Lakeland) Fire College.

“That’s the way I am,” he said. “If I find something I’m really passionate about or interested in I’m going to give it 100 per cent.”

ALL SMILES // VAN TIGHEM WITH AN ENTOURAGE OF SUPPORTERS AS HE ROLLED INTO JASPER FOLLOWING HIS 2,700 KM RIDE CYCLING END-TO-END ON HWY 93 // BOB COVEY

MAD MUDDER // GVT JUST A FEW CLICKS AWAY FROM ENJOYING AN IPA IN JASPER DURING HIS 2014 FAT BIKE TRAVERSE OF HWY 16 // BOB COVEY

Indeed, the pattern shows up in other aspects of his life. Soon after he joined the rugby club he was the club’s president and coach, and even coached the high school team. Similarly, once he joined the fire brigade, he quickly moved up the ladder, eventually becoming chief. He also started the Jasper Park Lodge fire brigade with fellow longtime Jasper firefighter Henri Gender.

“That’s my problem, when I do get involved I end up getting up to my waist,” Van Tighem said.

Luckily for The Right Honourable David Johnston, Van Tighem had some room above his waist—on his lapel, in fact—so the Governor General could award him his medal.

“GVT and GG are like best buds now,” he laughed. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

NEXT LEVEL LUNACY // GVT BATTLED WIND, SNOW AND EXTREME COLD WHILE SOLOING THE DEMPSTER HIGHWAY IN 2015. // MIRJAM WOUTERS // CYCLINGDUTCHGIRL.COM

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Local art //

thursday, december 15, 2016 // issue 87 // the jasper local// page B2

Grace in power: Jessy Dion, wildlife painter paintings, Dion admits, are quicker to produce and therefore quicker to sell. He’s renting the studio, after all.

Jessy Dion’s art studio is delightfully cluttered.

It’s not messy, but it’s certainly not spartan. The paintings he’s actively working on get plenty of breathing room. A life-like acrylic depicting a powerful yet graceful mule deer, posed in regal solitude, demands the viewer give it space. Yet a shelf behind the work is haphazardly covered in miniatures, a medium Dion says he loves for the detail and the escapism.

On one table, a set of four canvasses—due to be emblazoned with stencils of animal horns Dion has recently cut out—await their creator’s vision to be realized.

And bisecting the room, near two giant jars holding dozens of paint brushes, is a large, Tolkien-style map of Jasper National Park. The map’s reddish hues, pictographesque drawings and stylized calligraphy make it seem as though Bilbo Baggins himself unfurled it while seeking out the safest passage to Mordor, or in this case, Maligne Lake.

Dion wasn’t always OK with turning his art into a commercial enterprise. When he first came to the Rockies from Quebec, the then 20-something was a dedicated photographer. However, as soon as his friends started showing interest in purchasing the prints he made from slides (this was just before digital cameras took hold of the market), he gave it all up.

“It was going really well so I sabotaged it,” he says, tilting his head and biting down on a smile. “People were interested, so I freaked out.”

RENAISSANCE MAN // JASPER’S JESSY DION IS A MAN OF MANY ARTISTIC MEDIUMS. HIS TOLKIENESQUE JASPER NATIONAL PARK MAPS ARE ALL THE RAGE THIS CHRISTMAS SEASON, BUT DOWN DEEP THE 32-YEAR-OLD CONSIDERS HIMSELF A WILDLIFE PAINTER. // BOB COVEY

The map, prints of which are a hot item in Jasper this Christmas holiday, is to scale. Dion traced the foundational elements—roads, rivers, valleys—from the Gem Treks trip planners found in every granola-eater’s nature library, alongside their MEC catalogue and field guide to rare birds.

and stylish, a bit like a waxwing, complete with the dark, intense eyes. And though he’s overtly curious, undeniably hilarious and completely gregarious towards others, his is a passion of solitude.

Painting, for Dion, is a form of meditation. He’ll often get so lost in his sessions that he won’t come out of his trance for hours.

Dion is somewhat of a rare bird himself. Even in his rumpled painter’s t-shirt, he’s somehow lithe

“I was in here painting for 11 hours recently, I didn’t eat. I think I only peed three times,” he laughed.

Near the door of his studio, tucked inside a plastic bag, is a large shock of hair. It’s camel hair. It’s fake.

This, along with other samples

A decade later, Dion doesn’t freak out as easily. He is less hard on himself—on his work.

He’s less inclined to balk at compliments. He knows himself better.

And he knows he wants to be a wildlife painter, although he says that if he sees it written down like that he’ll feel too much pressure to succeed. When he went to the National Museum of Wildlife “I was in here painting for 11 Art in Wyoming with hours recently, I didn’t eat. I his friend, roommate think I only peed three times” and fellow artist, he had one thought: “I belong here.”

of false fur, is for a project he’s taking on with the Habitat for the Arts. Next to the plastic bag is a small airbrush, which he says is excruciating to clean, but which helps him render terrific depth-offield detail. This detail is evident in a terrifyingly beautiful painting of two bison, their faces contorted in primal agony, as something akin to the end of the world is inflicted upon them. This piece sits at the front of a pile of other canvasses which are stacked against the wall.

Above, three less-elaborate, more playful works contrast the baroque, prehistoric scenes opposite. These

And so the boy from Quebec who feels at home in the Rockies continues to paint wildlife in his studio. He continues to escape by building post-apocalyptic scenes from deconstructed model airplanes, and he continues to stretch his artistic boundaries by creating surreal, mythical costumes from fur and cardboard and wire and glue.

But mostly, Jessy Dion paints.

“My experience counts,” he says. “I see that now.” bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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page b3+B4 // the jasper local // issue 87 // thursday, december 15, 2016

COME ON UP, THE WINTER’S FINE

WHEN THE MERCURY DROPS IN THE VALLEY BOTTOM, THE HIGH ALPINE CAN BE BLESSED TEMPERATURE INVERSION. FOR MARMOT BASIN, GETTING THAT INFORMATION TO SKIERS CAN DIFFERENCE NOT JUST IN LIFT TICKET SALES ON THE MOUNTAIN, BUT VISITORS TO THE COM

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On the afternoon of Friday, December 10, Brian Rode was checking his smartphone even more than he usually does. Rode, Marmot Basin’s VP of Marketing and Sales, wasn’t looking for a text from his boss, a mention on Twitter or even a notification from Jasper Buy Sell and Trade. He was checking the weather forecast— specifically, the alpine weather forecast for Marmot Basin.

“At first they were forecasting a high on Saturday of minus 18, then all of a sudden they were forecasting a high of minus 13.”

“They,” are the folks behind RWDI, a specialized engineering company that designs site-specific weather tools for professional alpine operations.

Last season, RWDI set up their flagship weather forecasting system‚ AlpineFX, at Marmot Basin. For Marmot’s avalanche control team, RWDI’s alpine forecasts are more precise than the general Jasper forecast provided by Environment Canada, and therefore more useful when making plans to manage terrain or adjust staffing levels. However, RWDI’s data is also useful for ski area marketers such as Rode. In some instances, if an alpine forecast is significantly different than what is being called for in the valley bottom, the marketing team’s ability to get the word out can have far-reaching effects on the entire community of Jasper.

“Even if it’s an extra 100 people that come to ski that’s potentially an extra 50 hotel rooms, and an extra

however many people in the restaurants and shops,” Rode said.

On Friday, when Rode saw that the AlpineFX software was predicting temperatures nine degrees warmer than in Jasper and a double digit difference from the deep freeze taking place in Edmonton, he instructed his team to drop everything and get the word out: An inversion was happening.

//INVERSIONS TAKE PLACE WHEN WARM

“As soon as we saw an inversion we immediately pecked out an email, chucked a picture up on the website and started letting our contacts in the media know ‘look the forecast is beautiful, please let your listeners know,’” he said.

A temperature inversion is a weather phenomenon in which air is cooler near the earth than the air above. In the Rockies, this usually happens in the winter, when a high pressure system comes in and the sun, low in the sky, supplies less warmth to the earth’s surface.

When there is little wind, warmer air aloft acts like a lid, holding cold air near the ground. Clear skies and long nights increase the rate of cooling at the earth’s surface and rising warm air can make the alpine positively balmy in comparison.

Long-time Jasper mountain guide Peter Amann

IT’S LONELY AT THE TOP // MARMOT’S MARKETING TEAM, AS WELL AS THE GENERAL PUBLIC, HAVE NEW FORECAST TOOLS AVAILABLE TO THEM IN 2016. VISITORS CAN GO TO SKIMARMOT.COM TO SEE ALPINE FORECASTS WHICH ARE MORE PRECISE THAN ENVIRO CANADA’S // MIKE GERE

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feature story by Bob Covey // photos by mike gere //

HE NE

BLESSED WITH A KIERS CAN MEAN THE O THE COMMUNITY.

unusual occurrence, after all) the forecast includes predictions for snowfall, as well. This data is arguably an even more pressing concern for potential skiers from Jasper and beyond.

“There’s almost always a difference in snowfall amounts [between the valley and the alpine],” Rode said.

Importantly, the data generated from Marmot’s new forecasting tools come from a third party, so any suggestions that marketers are cooking the powder

predictions don’t hold water.

“I can’t manipulate those numbers,” Rode says with a laugh that tells you he’s been accused of just that.

// INVERSIONS CAN CREATE DOUBLE DIGIT TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE VALLEY AND THE ALPINE // MG

experienced his fair share of inversions while working as the head of avalanche safety at Marmot Basin for more than 20 years. He remembers inversions creating temperature differences as much as 22 degrees from the valley floor to the peaks of the Rockies and said when inversions do happen, the skiing can be glorious.

BLE TO THEM MIKE GERE

“If you have a strong inversion, that’s worth broadcasting,” he said.

Rode apparently agrees. Since the ski area has been set up with the RWDI software, Marmot Basin has featured the AlpineFX forecast on its website—although you have to know where to look for it. Once you do locate the link, the site gives you the option between an alpine forecast—i.e. what you’ll likely experience at mid-mountain—and a valley forecast, i.e., what’s in store for Jasper. And while the difference in temperature between the two isn’t always going to be drastic (inversions are an

On December 10, after a Friday afternoon marketing blitz, there was at least some evidence that the word of warmer climes up high was spreading. Whether Twitter user @Christineloowho learned it from the concierge at her hotel or picked it up from one of Marmot Basin’s social media feeds, she announced to her followers that she was happy to have experienced the mountain’s unique weather event.

MARMOT BASIN NE20W 16/17

& DANA HOSPITALITY P RO U D LY P R E S E N T

Evenings

FO R

AT THE EAGLE CHALET JOIN US FOR AN APRÈS EVENING SKI EVENT

Celebrating Winter Solstice AT M I D - M O U N TA I N

“The inversion at Marmot Basin is real! Climbed 9 degrees driving up to the parking lot!” she Tweeted.

For Rode, he can take solace in knowing the message he worked hard to send out wasn’t falling on deaf ears.

For him, there’s nothing more disappointing than when he learns that a family has travelled all the way to Jasper to ski, but then after seeing the thermometer outside their hotel room—and without investigating any further—gets cold feet.

“It’s about trying to give people the best information we can so they can decide what to do,” Rode said.

Sometimes, however, no matter how much warmer it is in the alpine, when it’s minus 30 degrees Celsius, people simply aren’t interested in starting the car, bundling up the kids and making the journey to go skiing.

“There’s no magic pill for when it gets really cold like this,” he said. “Sometimes you can only do so much.”

Bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

December 21, 2016 4:00 pm - 7:00 pm

$70

INCLUDES 3-COURSE MEAL, NIGHT SKI, GST & GRATUITY Photo: Mike Gere

— DON’T LET LAST LIFT END YOUR SKI DAY! —

Find Out More SkiMarmot.com

Not Include Lift Ticket * Does MUST HAVE VALID LIFT TICKET

WHEN WARM AIR TRAPS COOL AIR IN THE VALLEY BOTTOM // MIKE GERE

“The inversion at Marmot Basin is real! Climbed 9 degrees driving up to the parking lot!”

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page B5 // the jasper local // issue 87 // thursday, december 15, 2016

Local history //

Jasper’s First Permanent Resident and Game Warden Lewis Swift was born in Ohio in the early 1850s. As a young man, he made his way to Edmonton, and then through his relationship with the Moberleys, a Metis family, made his first trip into the Jasper region.

for the pot. Tiny Ida brought up the rear with a basket containing a dozen fresh eggs. Later, Mrs. Swift came carrying the youngest child Jimmy.”

In that same year, another event occurred that proved the family’s ruggedness. Surveyors from the Grand Trunk Railway ran stakes directly through the Swift’s yard. Later, the company’s graders worked up to a few yards of the home. Cradling their guns, Lewis and Suzette stopped the work gang from coming any closer. For several days, they stood their ground until the engineers decided it would be easier to survey a new right-of-way farther from the house.

Lewis originally moved into the abandoned Jasper House. Two years later, he decided on a piece of valley land west of Snaring River at the foot of the Palisades.

It was probably through the Moberleys that Lewis encountered Suzette Chalifoux, a young Cree-speaking Metis girl. At one point in her life Suzette encountered a cougar when she had only a single bullet. Lining up her shot, she downed the dangerous animal.

In 1907, when Ottawa created Jasper Park, there were seven farms in the Athabasca Valley. Six LEWIS SWIFT AT THE SWIFT HOMESTEAD, CIRCA 1892// JYMA

The Swifts thus became the first permanent residents of the park. Lewis became game warden.

In 1897, Lewis and Suzette were married. They had six children, two of whom passed in infancy. Lewis and Suzette worked hard and the family grew.

They had a comfortable house, a good barn and storehouse, corrals with several cows and a bull, numerous sturdy ponies, and chickens.

The Swifts grew grain and had the means to mill it. They also kept an enormous vegetable garden.

Nearby wildlife kept the family supplied with meat.

Lewis was clever with his hands, and built the family’s furniture. He also built a small grist mill driven by stream water.

families accepted a cash payout, including the Moberleys, Joachims and Findlays, all described as a self-reliant mixture of Metis, Cree, Stoney, and Iroquis.

THE SWIFT CABIN, JASPER, CA 1911 BY BYRON HARMON // JMYA

Suzette was not averse to making trips to Edmonton by herself with the family’s packhorses to stock up on supplies—sugar, coffee, salt, tobacco, and the like. She made beautiful coats, gloves, and moccasins of soft buckskin, which she tanned with poplar smoke to give it a wonderful aroma. Early tourists often stopped by the farm to purchase her beautiful beadwork and leather creations.

Lewis and Suzette often provided hospitality for travellers. Mary Schaffer described her 1908 visit by saying: First came Mr. Swift carrying a pitcher of fresh milk, leading a small boy whom he introduced as “my son, Dean.” Little Lottie followed with a pail of new potatoes, all cleaned and ready

Ottawa also attempted to force Lewis and Suzette to move, but they refused. They’d been there a long time, so they fought and were able to establish their title to the property thereby claiming their homestead rights. The Swifts thus became the first permanent residents of the park. Lewis became game warden.

The family sold the property 25 years later and retired to Jasper. Lewis passed away in 1940 at the age of 86. Suzette died six years later. They are buried in the Jasper Cemetery.

Stuart Taylor // Stuart Taylor is an amateur historian and member of Hinton Town Council. Let him know what you think of his historical features or suggest another subject for him to cover.

MRS. SWIFT AND HER CHILDREN, JNP, CA 1910 // JMYA

Email: info@thejasperlocal.com

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thursday, december 15, 2016 // issue 87 // the jasper local// page B6

Local HEALTH //

Healthy Holiday Survival Guide The Holidays can have a huge impact on our health. They can potentially set us back from all the hard work we have done by working out and eating clean.

This time of year can weaken our immune system and our digestive health with all the parties, rich food and constant socializing. Hence the ‘New year, new me” resolutions. Here are a few tips to help you feel great come the new year.

Give your digestion some help:

Everything starts in the gut, ever heard that before?

It’s true! Our digestive health can make or break our immune system, determine how comfortable we feel and plays a huge role how we recover from a night out. There’s no surprise our digestive tract needs a little extra help this time of year. Rich foods require more digestive power. A great way to maximize your digestion is to take a digestive enzyme 15-30 minutes before a meal. I recommend a broad-spectrum digestive enzyme, that way you have all your bases (enzymes) covered.

These enzymes we naturally secrete can become dampened if we are eating lots of rich foods that contain dairy, gluten and sugar. Anti acids like Tums, Rolaids and even some heart burn medications can also dampen our digestibility.

Some benefits of taking digestive enzymes include reduced gas and bloating, reduced heartburn symptoms, appropriate digestive transit time, proper elimination and increased nutrient absorption.

If you are not into taking supplements a splash of good old apple cider vinegar in warm water before a meal will be a close second to a digestive enzyme!

Note: Do not take digestive enzymes if you have or had a history of gastric ulcers.

Avoid over indulgence at the treat table:

It’s easy to get carried away during the holiday season, especially at the treat table! Sugar, unfortunately, feeds bad bacteria in our gut, damages our blood vessels and is linked to various conditions like diabetes, alzheimer’s and dementia. Sugar will straight up always cause extra

Service Directory

// SUGAR HIDES IN MANY FOODS, ACCORDING TO NUTRITIONIST JENNA JACKSON (IN PLAIN SIGHT IN SOME CASES) // SUPPLIED

inflammation in the body, aka a food hangover.

The take home is to reduce the amount of sugar we consume daily, yet sugar hides in everything! First we want to keep our blood sugar balanced to avoid a binge on Christmas treats. Make sure to include protein, fat and fibre at each meal, all three of these macronutrients help us feel full. When we are full, our blood sugar is stable and we avoid a crash that makes us reach for sweet treats.

Exercise

Continue your exercise regime over the holidays!

Getting your heart rate up is actually one of the best ways to stabilize blood sugar. Make exercise fun, go skating, cross-country skiing, a winter run/walk.

Take a break from social indulgence and socialize together with a healthy outdoor activity.

Be smarter than the hangover:

A hangover is essentially our liver being overwhelmed from the amount of alcohol it has to process. There are a couple things we can do to make the liver’s job easier. A lot of the alcohol we consume gets absorbed directly through the stomach walls. It is important before a night of drinking to eat a substantial meal. This will create a nice buffer and the alcohol will get absorbed slower and not overwhelm the liver. We also want to give the liver a little help. Milk thistle seed protects the liver from damage, allows it to regenerate its cells quicker and aids in the many detoxification pathways. Take milk thistle (tincture or capsules)

once before you start imbibing, once before bed and once in the morning.

B Vitamins are another great hangover tool. When we drink alcohol, we lose a lot of our Bs because they are water soluble and alcohol is a diuretic. Replenish your Bs with a B complex; take it first thing in the morning with your breakfast. B vitamins also help with anxiety, stress and energy.

We all deserve to indulge a little, but there is always a balancing act between indulgence and over indulgence. Listen to your body, treat it with respect and make sure to enjoy yourself this holiday season!

Jenna completed a 3-year program of Holistic Nutrition at Pacific Rim College, an industryrenowned school of Complimentary and Integrative Medicine. There she developed a strong understanding of Diet Therapy, Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine and some Western Herbal Medicine.

She works with clients to find a permanent and sustainable fix to their health concerns using natural approaches that take into consideration each person’s bioindividuality. Find her at alpenglownutrition.ca