"Returning to Jasper this summer, I found myself rerooting, as an Albertan who spent most of my adult life abroad." The palette beyond our engine was a blinding white. Not snow, not fog, but something closer to the emptied light that those who brush against death claim to glimpse — a blankness that ...

He passed us, not a care in the world as if he were strolling on a tropical beach. He wore running shoes and just a pair of shorts. It was hot, boiling hot as it can be on a glacier with the sun blasting down. The four of us, roped and on the way down, were not in beachwear; we had crampons on and w...

At about 10 p.m. last July 22, 2024, anxious Jasperites, stuck in gridlock only blocks away from their homes and illuminated by the headlights of their neighbours, evacuated slowly westward towards the Yellowhead Highway. One year later, on July 22, 2025, many of those same people came together agai...

“One thing that has been clear is human behaviour hasn't changed. We tend to think that the last fire was an anomaly, think of it as unfortunate, and don’t plan for the next one.”- Alan MacEachern One of Canada’s most eminent environmental historians is coming to Jasper to share lessons of wildfires...

The playful bending of personal knowledge, documented history and mythology—kindled from the stories of First Nations cultures he has deep reverence and respect for—informs author Cameron Wilson’s  Ancestors: Great Spirit Remembers A former Jasperite is leaning on his experience as a wilderness expl...

An Alberta storyteller whose roots will always be firmly planted in Jasper is coming back to her hometown to relay Some of the Facts . Author and creative writing instructor Beth Everest, the daughter of Jasper business patriarch Roy Everest, will read from her latest book at the Jasper Municipal Li...

Naked Pictures by Rockies poet Mme Paulette Dubé is a curious peek into a curious mind during a curious time in the world.  Naked Pictures is available in Jasper and through At Bay Press. // Supplied Peering at the COVID pandemic from her various perches in Jasper’s wildlife-rich Douglas fir forests...

Jasper’s outfitter lifestyle stars in entertaining, enlightening read Geologist Patrick McLaren has created a solid bedrock on which to recount his charming memoirs. Magic Travels: The Unlikely Adventures of a Geologist is McLaren’s first book. The title presents an unassuming facade, but what lies ...

This is the sequel to Poetry in the Snow , from February 9, 2024. Next day we skied  to the alpine and came across fresh grizzly tracks. One of the things I enjoyed about snow camping was the comforting thought that all the bears were tucked up snugly in their dens and I could get a good night's sle...

“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champed the grasses—” No one descended to the traveller. // Harrap “It's 'chomped', Dad! Not champed . . . ” “No it isn't, it's 'champed'. Do you think I don't know the poem?” I took out the Phot...

The sky was mauve, a pale bluish purple. A colour you only see in winter. Mauve, the colour of cold. This was the night the temperature was forecast to hit minus 30 degrees Celsius.  As we struggled up from the valley the forecast seemed spot on.     I caught the smell of woodsmoke and figured our b...

“If I can do this, you can as well.” John McLay was in Jasper for Booklovers Weekend (October 21-23), a three day dedication to books, book workshops, book writers and book readings hosted by the collaborators at the Jasper Municipal Library, JAG and Jasper’s Habitat for the Arts . Author John McLay...

This story originally appeared in the March 1, 2020 edition of The Jasper Local . Author’s note: If any names have been changed, it’s to spare the blushes of Jasper’s stolid citizens. Those who dream by night . . . wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous...

In Jasper, a trickster is about. Just ask Joe Urie—although be warned…you might not get a straight answer. Illustration: Joe Urie and Ed Duchoslav While he was writing his forthcoming, debut novel, Urie wasn’t sure if the protagonist he was crafting was based on himself, or not. However, a conversat...

Author, conservationist and former superintendent of Banff National Park, Kevin Van Tighem, wants Albertans to reimagine themselves. At a time when social, economic and environmental changes confront and confound Alberta,Van Tighem, a fourth-generation Albertan, says we need better ways of rememberi...

Destanne Norris has long-known that death is part of living.  However, it’s taken her decades to fully understand that idea. Norris lost her daughter to a tragic accident in 1995. Leah was just 19-months-old when she fell into the Maligne River and was swept away. “She just got away from our eyes,” ...

Jasper’s Ailsa Ross has a rule: no screens before she gets outside in the morning. That means no logging into social media, no checking her phone, no firing up the laptop. Instead, she’ll head out for a walk around Cabin Creek. Or a quick bike ride. The important thing is that she doesn’t waste the ...

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 wer...

Almost three decades ago, The Jasper Booster—precursor to Jasper’s current community newspapers—had a space to fill in its newsroom. The Booster’s long-standing editorial cartoonist, Thomas Boldt—or Tab, as he became known for his work with Sun Media Newspapers—was moving on.  Then-publisher Haf Bai...

It was 1993. May. The almost two-month long siege at Waco Texas had just ended in terrible massacre; the siege of Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs was into its second year. The following month would see TVs final episode of Cheers and rave reviews for blockbuster movie Jurassic Park. There was no fanfa...