Advancements in monitoring technology have improved markedly since caribou were first monitored by VHF (very high frequency) radio in Jasper National Park in the 1970s. Back then, large, clunky radio collars were attached to a handful of animals in a herd. Using VHF receivers, researchers would hike...

Stocked fish poisoned to protect native trout in Banff’s high alpine From the August 15, 2021 Jasper Local Hunkered down on a flat rock high above Dolomite Pass in Banff National Park, I dig through my pack and locate my cheap pair of Bushnells. Chomping a sandwich and glassing the surrounding mount...

August 2 update: Andrew Cotterell finished his hike of the 1130 km Great Divide Trail in 20 days and 7 hours, a new fastest known time. This story is from the August 1, 2021 Jasper Local Every time that Canmore’s Andrew Cotterell told a fellow hiker that he was headed to Jasper National Park’s Skyli...

Two climbers are dead after an avalanche on Mount Andromeda on Sunday, May 30. Parks Canada confirmed the deaths today (Sunday, May 30). Spokesperson Steve Young said EMS ambulances, STARS air ambulance and Alpine helicopters responded to an accident at around 8:30 a.m. Two strike teams from Jasper ...

Kendra Neef often finds herself exploring little-known 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 spi...

A freshwater ecologist specializing in Alberta’s native fish says a recently-issued 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. Ma...

Under a cloudless, sun-drenched sky and framed by glaciated peaks in every direction, on March 10 a small group of skiers and snowboarders slid into Marmot Basin history . Taking in the new vantage point. // B COVEY For years—decades, even—local riders had looked up to the highest point at Marmot Ba...

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...

A local writer and science communicator is taking a deep-dive into the growing world of podcasting. Jasper’s Niki Wilson is bringing her inquisitive nature, vast knowledge of Rocky Mountain biology and love of a good pine marten story to a new podcast series called Anthropomania . Jasper’s Niki Wils...

Walking into the Maligne Canyon on a frigid winter day feels like stepping into another world. As the canyon’s walls rear up above you, pale blue ice pours back down, a cascade of water quite literally frozen in time. This beguiling paradox lends the place an otherworldly allure: gargantuan ice stru...

This story originally appeared in the March 1, 2020 edition of The Jasper Local. Some artists paint pictures, some artists write songs and some artists design buildings. And then there is Jasper’s JF Fortin. Fortin sculpts trails out of snow. JF Fortin making a rare daytime appearance on the Jasper ...

Tom Peterson, who was born in Jasper in 1930, amassed a vast knowledge of fur-trading, aboriginal peoples of the area, and the changing relationships between the upper Athabasca River region and the people who lived there. Tom Peterson overlooking the Saskatchewan Glacier. Peterson’s vast knowledge ...

A foot of snow, a broken bike and 9,000 metres of elevation gain couldn’t stop Dean Anderson from completing the first recorded “Everest” challenge on a fat bike. Jasper Local readers might remember Anderson from a similarly audacious assault on Signal Mountain in August, 2019, wherein the St. Alber...

A new film following Red Bull athlete Will Gadd as he seeks out new climbing routes in remote regions of China was a darling of the 2020 Banff Mountain Film Festival, which wrapped up November 8.  The 40-minute documentary features the charismatic Gadd in his element as he on-sights vertical pillars...

Discovered insignia recalls renowned WWII regiment From time to time, events unfold that remind us that Jasper only feels like a bubble. That we are, and have long been, inextricably connected to the wider world. Recently, of course, the event in question has been the COVID-19 pandemic. But on a hik...

Long before Brewster Transportation Canada rebranded itself under the Pursuit umbrella and three years before the Glacier Skywalk was constructed, prominent Rockies naturalist and author Ben Gadd was warning that the deteriorating moraine into which the company has cut their glacier-access road pose...

Jasper’s Jimmy Gillese and his crew at Stellar Descents staked out a little whitewater history July 8 when they made the first ever commercial rafting trip on the Doré River near McBride, B.C.  While local rivers were at full volume last month, lower flows of visitors meant Gillese was able to get h...

After 31 years, Jasper park warden signs off One of the last of the “old wardens” has hung up his Stetson. Three decades ago, when A.L. Horton was a 25-year-old prairie boy looking for a job to compliment his conservation enforcement diploma, the son of a newspaperman from Vegreville, Alberta, didn’...

As one of the original Rockies occupations, alpine guiding has always occupied a small but sturdy foothold in the tourism sector. Part of that resiliency, surely, has to do with the job-site; for men and women wanting to test themselves against the elements—with the counsel of a qualified profession...

First World War veteran Frank Burstrom Sr. was a Park Warden in the early years of Jasper National Park and undisputedly one of the most gifted Nordic skiers who ever called Jasper home. His herculean endurance and effortless glide carried his well-worn skis into deep powder fields, over glittery pa...