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local + independent
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thejasperlocal.com
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monday, july 1, 2019 // issue 148
Quartzite crusher // Jasper’s Addison Eady finds his form at Lost Boys. // Kara-Lyne Weaver
Construction to begin on Whistlers Campground Parks Canada has awarded a $48.7 million contract for the redevelopment of Whistlers Campground. The 781-site campsite has been closed since last year in anticipation of the major construction project. On June 27, after four years of planning, environmental assessment, public engagement, engineering and design work, Parks Canada announced that Edmonton’s PCL Limited were the successful bidders. “This project is one of the most significant investments in visitor facilities in Jasper National Park in the past 50 years,” a
press release stated. The renovations will modernize campground infrastructure. A new registration centre, 17 new combined washroom and shower facilities, improved campsites and wider roads will update the campground, which was built in the 1960s. Underground services will be replaced to improve water, sewer and electrical systems. “Parks Canada appreciates the patience of the campers and show and business owners in Jasper as this project is implemented,” a spokesperson said. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com
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page A2 // the jasper local // issue 148 // July 1, 2019
editorial //
Local Vocal School’s out for the summer and while students and teachers are surely savouring their new-found freedom, there is also a sense of foreboding for the future of Alberta education.
That’s because the Premier’s office has pledged to table a budget that will address Alberta’s “critical fiscal situation.” Teachers fear that will mean larger class sizes, fewer teachers and less supports for students. Public education is already stretched thin. Already there is not enough funding to meet the complex needs in today’s classrooms. Already ancillary programming is running on fumes. Last year, for example, Jasper’s high school library was not staffed. And at the elementary school next door, the library had reduced hours. But the bigger concern is what’s coming down the pipe in September. Former high school teacher Sandy Cox is among many who are worried that the quality of education will be severely eroded though the Education Act that the United Conservative Party seems bent on implementing. “Respect is sadly lacking,” Cox says. “For students, teachers, parents, administrators, parent council volunteers, board representatives, superintendents, and anyone concerned with the education of our youth.” Exhibit A is the forthcoming standardized testing in primary schools. The UCP’s campaign promise to reintroduce Grade 3 provincial achievement tests (PATs) has educators in a tizzy. Instead of listening to the professionals who can demonstrate that PATs for eightyear-olds are more harmful than helpful, the government seems more interested in playing politics. To many, Jason Kenney’s motivations are equally suspicious in the decision to pause the curriculum rewrite. The NDP government began a six-year, $60 million process to involve education experts, teachers and parents in order to update the Alberta education curriculum. It has since been politicized by the UCP, used as a tool to garner party support with sweeping generalizations about the rewrite’s “socialist” agenda. The lifting of the cap on charter schools may not seem like a big deal to the general public, but it is. More charter schools in Alberta means more exclusive, private schools in Alberta. Which might be fine, except that charter school funding comes from the same pot as public
schools. Unless extra funding is made available to support them, charter schools end up taking away resources from the already-deprived public system. And then there’s the deceptive language around supporting Gay Straight Alliances and the fact that the government’s new Bill 8 will not guarantee clubs to allow the words “gay” or “queer” in a club’s name. Taken as a whole, all of these meddling, intrusive policies threaten to take our public education system backwards, not “modernize” it, as Kenney has suggested. If I was a teacher, looking from the inside-out, I’d certainly feel like the screws were being tightened.
Unfortunately, it’s not just teachers who feel the cuts. It’s the students, when they’re forced to share their teachers with more of their peers. It’s the parents, who will pay more in school fees, which were significantly reduced by the former NDP government. And it’s all of us, because a compromised education system will have untold repercussions on our communities at large. Students may be enjoying their first tastes of summer, but unless Albertans rally against the expected austerity measures, come fall, we’re all going to get our first tastes of what an underfunded, disrespected and mistrusted school system looks like. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com
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 community
monday, july 1, 2019 // issue 148 // the jasper local// page A3
The Jasper Immigration Coalition has partnered with The Jasper Local to produce a series of profiles of New Canadians in the community. The Jasper Immigration Coalition is a Government of Canada-funded project that aims to help improve our community’s capacity to welcome New Canadians who make their home here. Meet your neighbour, and next time you see them, say hello!
What are your names? Miriam Molena Paola Molena How long have you lived in Jasper? Three years and five years (respectively) Where did live before coming to Jasper? Guanajuato, Mexico
Nice to meet you, Miriam and Paola Molena (with Vanetina). // Doug olthof
even changed my daughter’s life (Vanetina, 15 months) because she will have so many opportunities. What is your first memory of being in Jasper? Since coming to Jasper, have you become involved in any new activities? Miriam: The mountains. I had never seen mountains like that before. And the Miriam: Hiking. I went to the Valley of the people. I had never seen people from other Five Lakes. It was very nice to see all the countries. In Jasper and Canada there lakes all the forest. are people from a lot of cultures. Hearing other languages was new to me. Paola: On the top you can see everything. Paola: I was excited because there are a lot of What is one new thing you would like to try people from other countries. And for me, living in the next year? in Jasper was like a dream. I was starting school Both: Skiing! in the high school. It was a dream come true. I When you meet someone new, what is the met a lot of nice people, friendly. It’s beautiful. first thing you want to know about them? Jasper is my favourite place in the world! Paola: Where are you from? And I ask the Was there anything that surprised you question to everyone I meet: How is about Jasper? Anything you didn’t expect? same Christmas in your country? Paola: I thought the people would be like Is there anything about you that people who Mexican people. But the attitude of people meet you might be surprised to learn? here is different. So friendly and nice. Miriam: Paola was a dancer, especially in Miriam: The food. I thought it would only be high school. She always had dancing teams hamburgers and stuff, but there was a lot of and she was always out in front, organizing other good food! everything for all the festivals in the school. Is there anything from your home town/ Paola: She’s a really good clothing designer! country/culture that you would like to Amazing! So nice to meet you, Paola and share with Jasper? Miriam! Paola: I feel blessed to be in Canada, because there are so many opportunities. That’s why I decided to have my baby here. Her life will For more information about the be so different. We’re so blessed and happy Jasper Immigration Coalition, with Canadians and with Canada. What I can say is ‘I love Canada.’ This is all thanks contact Doug Olthof at dolthof@ to my Dad. He worked so hard to bring us to jaspercommunityteam.ca Canada and that has changed everything. He
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page B1 // the jasper local // issue 147 // saturday, June 15, 2019
local literature //
Family travel writers to share globetrotting misadventures When Rob Krause and Daria Salamon decided to put their 9-5 lives on hold, pull the kids out of school and go backpacking around the world for a year, they had some apprehensions.
But beyond the regular traveller trepidations—getting bit by a poisonous snake or catching malaria, for example—there were more fundamental concerns going through their minds. Concerns such as “Is our marriage as strong as we think it is?” And “Do our kids love us as much as we think they do?” And, more to the point: “Can we actually do this?” Yes they can. Or, at least, yes they did. To prove it, they’ve documented the experience in a new book. Don’t Try This at Home is the Winnipeg couple’s recently-released memoir of their ambitious year abroad. The book chronicles their sensational misadventures while offering an honest reflection on parenting, marriage, and living on a tight budget. Krause, a music industry consultant and Salamon, a creative writing teacher, take readers through some of the world’s most stunning vistas while meeting the challenges of foreign customs, broken-down buses, stomach bugs, personal loss, and their often lessthan-enthusiastic children. But as demanding as that might sound, Krause says the book is not necessarily a how-to. “It’s more like the nuts and bolts of everything that went wrong and this is how you shouldn’t travel,” Krause said.
Like the book itself, Krause is self-deprecating. Because besides finding their family in some of the most iconic cultural landscapes and incredible ecosystems on the planet (Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands, for example), the Krause-Salamon family found something even more significant: a closer relationship with each other. “We developed a family bond that I think is a direct result of the trip,” Krause said. More specifically, it developed as a result of them working together, every day. Whether it was hailing a cab in downtown Lima or taking turns getting sick in the bathroom during a 52-hour All in the family // Rob, Oskar, Isla Blue and Daria Krause-Salamon bus ride, they had to cooperate as a during their year-long family adventure. // supplied team. they left cautious Canada for the carelar activities, the family was never bored. “I think that mentality, ‘we’re all in this free tropics. The family experienced That despite the challenges of keeping together’ has really stayed with them,” a perspective shift after being on the everyone together on an ever-changing Krause said. path, there was always a bright side. Other things have stayed with them, too. backpacker trail for an extended period of time. “Life on the road is still cleaning someLike the kids’ self-esteem. “You lose one’s underwear in a sink but the places “They’re your firstI’m doing it are Machu Picchu, the New confident,” world, Zealand Alps and Bali,” Krause said. “It’s more like the nuts and bolts of Krause said. organic And now they’re coming to Jasper. On “They’re everything that went wrong and this safety, or July 10, Salamon and Krause will presmore likely is how you shouldn’t travel.” just general ent to guests interested in learning to say ‘I stayingabout extended travel with (or without) think I can alive children. do that.’” standards and allow yourself to be imBut don’t count on a detailed template Turns out, successfully hang gliding mersed in the experiences themselves,” that curious backpackers will be able from the side of a cliff in Peru will give Salamon writes. to follow. More just proof that it can be a person’s belief in themselves a boost. Not that they didn’t need time to wrap done. Only their daughter, Isla Blue, took that their heads around that mindset. Let“If a bunch of buffoons like us can pull it leap, however; she used the money she ting go of social norms from back home off, anybody can,” Krause said. got for her sixth birthday to pay for it. was a process. But soon enough, they Krause and Salamon will bring their “I didn’t need to do that,” laughed were noticing that despite not being in Krause, whose pragmatism had to take talk to the Jasper Municipal Library an unbuckled backseat in most of the 15 school, the kids were reading more and on July 10 at 6 p.m. picking up foreign languages. That decountries they visited. spite not being enrolled in extra curricuNot just seatbelts were cast aside when bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com
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saturday, June 1, 2019 // issue 146 // the jasper local// page B2
Local environment //
Forest experts warn winter pine beetle collapse doesn’t tell the whole story Mountain pine beetle (MPB) populations have all but collapsed in Jasper National Park thanks to poor reproductive rates and a particularly frigid winter. Extreme cold was the “nail in the coffin,” for this year’s beetle crop, according to Forest Health Supervising Technician Roger Brett, but the main reason MPB populations declined so drastically was because the beetles’ development rates were staggered, resulting in failed mating, empty egg galleries and immature larvae. “They’re not as cold tolerant as more robust, mature larvae,” Brett said. The Northern Forestry Centre, a department of Natural Resources Canada, is at a loss to explain why beetle development was imped-
“The true success of the 2018/19 overwintering mortality will not be known until the 2020 spring faders start to show.”
ed. What they do know, is that according to their population assessments on 25 sampling plots across the current range of the Jasper MPB outbreak, more than an estimated 98 per cent of the mountain pine beetles in Jasper National Park are dead. “Substantial MPB population decline occurred in Jasper during the 2018/19 winter,” the report reads. Still, Brett wants members of the public to take the study with a grain of salt. Although he’s satisfied with its distribution, the study’s sample size “equates to a cup of water in a pool,” he said. “There are bound to be varied percentages of mortality through all of Jasper.” Furthermore, beetle populations can bounce back. “We have to remain diligent and keep monitoring those populations. We can’t just wash our hands of it and say ‘mountain pine beetle is over.” The beetle’s mortality rate was slightly lower in the southern-most areas of Jasper National Park, according to the study. In the Jonas plot, near Hwy 93 near Stutfield Creek, for example, small numbers of live larvae were found. Baring predation by birds, these beetles will mature, emerge, attack anew and mate, Brett said, although not to the level seen in recent years. “The beetles that remain are fewer, but are still in aggressive outbreak mode,” he said. Moreover, the pine forest will continue to turn from green to yellow to red as last year’s MPB attack takes hold. Already, thousands of dying trees are visible along Highway 93 between Lick Creek, to the south of Sunwapta Falls, as well as in the Snaring, Snake Indian, Moosehorn,
Beetle blight Mountain pine beetles attack trees by laying eggs under the bark. The beetles introduce blue stain fungus into the tree, inoculating themselves against the tree’s ability to “pitch” the intruder out with sap. The beetle lives off the cambium layer—the tissue layer which provides cells for plant growth—blocking nutrient flow in the tree. Eventually the tree succumbs to the pest. In its slow death, the tree’s needles turn red, then finally grey. Maligne and Fiddle Valleys. “The true success of the 2018/19 overwintering mortality will not be known until the 2020 spring faders start to show,” Brett said. In 2012, forest experts and local vegetation specialists started seeing an increase in beetle killed trees in Jasper National Park. Back then, those trees could be counted individually but in 2014, helicopter surveys indicated about 6,000 hectares of JNP forest was affected. Three years later, in 2017, the number had jumped to around 93,000 hectares and last year, about 163,000 hectares of pine forest was killed by MPB. It’s expected to reach 200,000 hectares this year. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com
beetle damage in Jnp as seen from the air. An estimated 200,000 hectares of forest will have been killed by fall, it is estimated, although A population collapse this past winter will mitigate the rising trend. // Roger brett
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page b3+B4 // the jasper local // issue 148 // july 1, 2019
FEATURE // story by david harrap
We had crossed two high ranges. Scoped a camping spot from the last ridge. Dropped down to gravel flats then up the other side to the meadows and to the little stream where we’d camp. The wind was coming in forceful gusts as we climbed to the meadows, swaying the firs back and forth like great pendulums against the long blue of the lonely sky. Spots of sunlight flickered on the little stream we followed up. Moss covered rocks, frost burned plants, the sound of the trees like the ticking of some almighty clock throwing seconds into the panting silence.
sleep here, hope for the best. “Nothing contributes to tranquilize the mind so much as a steady purpose,” wrote Mary Shelley in Frankenstein. Figuring where to pitch the tent took my mind off the monster for now. The obvious place was the other side of the rockfall on a flat grassy area by a scree slope. We’d be some distance from the woods, and the bear would have to have a darn good reason to cross the jagged rocks…like half a pound of salami? Several sticks of pepperoni? Some ham? A chunk of garlic sausage? Blue cheese? We sat on our packs and watched griz leave the creek and amble across the meadows, rolls of winter fat rippling beneath his heavy coat. He kept coming towards the rockfall, which now seemed hardly wide at all. I picked up a large stone, weighing it in
We stopped to rest. Half-way up the slope already. Sunlight danced with the trees, somnolent, hypnotic, the golden colours glowing through the woods from the meadows above. We were climbing into an autumn dream. The slope eased and the woods spilled out onto huge rockfall on the west side of the meadows. We crossed the last of the rockfall and started across the meadows…suddenly Liam said, “There’s a bear!” For seven years I had been meeting bears in my dreams, in nightmares actually. For seven years we had walked the lonely places expecting this to happen. Now it had, and Liam’s three words put the wind up me like a full gale.
Simone Heinrich
And there he was, a massive silver-tip grizzly, fur thick and shiny and twinkling in the late afternoon light, sitting down in the middle of the stream, munching plants—by the very stream we planned to camp next to. He hadn’t heard us, and since we were upwind he hadn’t smelled us either (which I found remarkable since Liam had been complaining for days how bad I smelled). No other animal in North America puts fear into you like the grizzly. Line it up with the ferocious beasts of earth and few would beat the grizzly for sheer terror when it’s on a rant. Liam gingerly enquired if we had a plan B? To my knowledge we’ve never had a plan A, certainly not for this place, I replied. We’ll have to
my hand. Liam told me to put it down. I said No, that I was arming myself in case he had our spoor (it could be my socks).
“It was, in a word, us: Homo sapiens. We were the villains taking their home.”
His stamp was on this lonely place; spirit of the grizzly was in the air like static electricity before a lightning strike. But a lightning strike that was never to come. For in that magic moment when he turned for the trees, time stood still: A pika runs into the meadows then runs back to the safety of the rockfall. A white-tailed deer creeps like a frightened child towards the woods. Four mountain goats loiter on their way across a talus slope. Ptarmigan mince on feathered feet, clucking and pecking at seed heads. The sun leaves a path of gold through the meadows. Black shadows on north-face walls, trees bending to the wind. Five hundred miles from anywhere familiar.
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Sleeping with my brother The North American Indian called the grizzly my brother. One day I would understand why Next day we climbed to the pass. Bear tracks everywhere: in the mud, the snow, imprinted in the scree, set in crystal at the bottom of melt water tarns. This was a freeway, the neck of the funnel; they were doing laps from one valley to the next. It was remarkable we had seen just the one grizzly. The mountains thrummed with the spirit of the great bear. This was grizzly country, the bears made the rules here. But their range was eroding on
grizzly stand. Then the lumbering giant, the mighty monarch of the mountains, will be gone like a cry torn away in the wind. Without the grizzly there is no wilderness; only tame, empty playgrounds masquerading for what once was. I understood now why the North American Indian called the grizzly “my brother.” For there was a simplicity to all of this. Walking the same mountains, drinking from the same creeks, sleeping among them, sharing the earth with them—like brothers. Companionship with animals. It all made sense. The rawness, the beauty, the magic, the medicine. If we had never come, if we had stayed on the civilized side of the mountains, if fear had turned my spirit back, we would never have felt it, seen it, never let it in. The grizzly fear that had paralyzed me all these years was, in part, because I along with everyone else had lost touch with nature. The fearsome monster we made of the bear was nothing but our own ignorance staring straight back. I was glad I’d brought my son before it was too late. We had come to a place of convergence with the Great Mountain King. This was His throne. If this wasn’t Camelot it was damn close: Don’t let it be forgot, That once there was a spot
Richard Campbell
every side. For if it wasn’t the mining corporations or the big timber companies, it was the tourists in their silver buses, the trucks and trains hammering through the mountains with goods for our bloated lifestyle. It was, in a word, us: Homo sapiens. We were the villains taking their home. Already the bears were circling the wagons for a last
For one brief shining moment That was known as Camelot.
David Harrap//
info@thejasperlocal.com Jasper’s David Harrap is the author of the soon-to-bepublished book Over The Mountains, Under The Stars. He still doesn’t have a plan A, let alone a plan B, but so far, hoping for the best has worked out OK for him.
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 148 // monday, July 1, 2019
Municipality of Jasper
2019 Property Taxes Taxes due July 15 of each year
How do I pay my taxes? • In person at the municipal administration office front desk (303 Pyramid Lake Road); • Online via your banking institution, using your municipal tax bill account number; or • Through our preauthorized payment plan. Forms are available on our website and at the administration office front desk.
Questions? Contact Diane Muir, Finance Officer, at dmuir@town.jasper.ab.ca or 780-852-6509.
Help us plan the future of culture and recreation in Jasper! The Municipality of Jasper is conducting a Culture and Recreation Services and Facilities Review to help set future priorities and determine how to make the best use of our limited resources. This project is important as a number of aging facilities require significant re-investment. We want to know which services and facilities Jasperites value most, which should continue, which could be discontinued or repurposed, and whether any new offerings should be added. • Complete the community questionnaire » Postcards are being mailed to households and businesses in Jasper. Please follow the instructions on the postcard to complete the survey. If you do not receive a postcard, you can complete the survey on our website. • Provide comments on the Facility Panels at the Activity Centre, Fitness and Aquatic Centre or Library and Cultural Centre • Speak to a member of the project team at a community conversation Pop-Up event during the month of July
Visit our website for details: www.jasper-alberta.com/CultureandRecReview
Municipality of Jasper
www.jasper-alberta.com
culture and recreation services and facilities review 2019
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local history //
monday, July 1, 2019 // issue 148 // the jasper local// page B6
Stamp of approval: The lasting legacy of the Ogilvy family in the Jasper community Ann and John Ogilvy were both born in Scotland and immigrated to Canada in 1957.
the Chamber of Commerce, School Trustee, Chairman of the Pontiac Cup and has sat on many town committees. John’s engineering stamp is on many, many projects
At first they worked in the Edmonton area where Ann taught grade one, moving to Vancouver in 1958. Soon after joining Halcrows Engineering in 1962, John was asked to look into building a “passenger rope way” in Jasper and Ann and two of their three children spent the summer of 1963 at Alpine Village while John worked on the construction of the Jasper Tramway on Whistlers Mountain. That same summer, the tram to the Ann Ogilvy with Karen, Doug and Pinky the dog, and the top of Pyramid Mountain cook’s two children on top of Whistlers Mountain, 1963. John Ogilvy and skiers at Marmot Basin, circa 1975. // JYMA was being built and 999.07.663 // JYMA 2014.74.01 John also helped solve the Raise the Roof Project. When CN donated a storin town, often helping homeowners through building their foundation problems. While staying at Alpine age container to the museum and Jasper ConstrucVillage, the Ogilvys got to know the Keiffers who were and renovation difficulties. Ann was a founding memtion provided ground support, John drew up plans to ber of Arts Jasper and many Jasperites will remember involved in the development of Marmot Basin. Later, make it a functional asset to the museum’s operation. fun filled evenings of Scottish Country Dancing. Ann when issues arose around the building of the Yellow Both John and Ann attended many of our outings and and John loved dogs, both their own and the many Chair, John was their man. coffee hours. The JYHS asked John to be the guest “fostered” dogs who accompanied them on walks off While living in Vancouver, John had become an speaker at their 2017 AGM and his account of buildexpert on ski lifts in Western Canada so it seemed to ing the Sky Tram was a big success, thanks to Ann’s be destiny that the Ogilvys would return to Jasper “John’s engineering stamp is on many, behind the scenes organization of photos and notes. to live and raise their three children, Karen, Ron and many projects in town, often helping In 2012, Ann penned the Ogilvy story in “Road to the Doug. They bought the house at 700 Miette Ave. and homeowners through building and Rockies: A Bumpy Ride,” which sums up just how proceeded to renovate it. Over the years Ann worked renovation difficulties.” much the Ogilvys have helped shape Jasper’s history. her magic to create wonderful gardens. John worked Ann and John Ogilvy moved to Lacombe in May of for Marmot Basin from 1971 to 1977 but also started 2019 to be closer to family members and will be sorely his own company so that he could continue to consult. the beaten paths of the park. missed by many in Jasper. The Ogilvys have been strong supporters of the The Ogilvy family became avid skiers and very inSubmitted by the Jasper Yellowhead Museum and Jasper-Yellowhead Historical Society over the years, volved with the Jasper Ski Club. John has held many Archives donating time and money to many projects including volunteer positions in Jasper including President of