Jasper is welcoming visitors again by embracing its fire-scarred landscape | Canada Voices

Standing at the top of Whistlers Mountain in the gusting wind, looking out over the Rockies stretching to the horizon, I can see the entire charred path of last year’s devastating wildfire in Jasper National Park.

On the ride up the Jasper SkyTram, an aerial cabin that takes you more than 2,200 metres up the mountain in Jasper National Park, I wasn’t sure how I would feel looking at the fire’s aftermath.

But standing at the summit, I felt a mixture of wonder and terror. Blackened tree trunks are everywhere in the valley below. The fire destroyed 358 of the town’s 1,113 structures. More outside the townsite were also lost, including 12 of 121 structures at the famed Jasper Park Lodge and six structures at the Maligne Canyon Wilderness Hostel.

Postcards from the strong and free

Aboard the Rocky Mountaineer to Jasper, I found a moment to be still

It is a miracle that so much of Jasper itself, located at the north end of the fire, managed to survive. But signs of the burn are still everywhere.

Rather than try to forget the fire, much of Jasper’s tourism industry, so vital to the town and the park’s economy, is embracing it by trying to help visitors appreciate the aftermath. To see the fire’s effects is a way to enjoy the area anew, whether that’s on a wilderness tour or on the golf course at the Jasper Park Lodge.

The fire was a tragedy, and it is also a new beginning.

“That is an unhealthy forest,” our guide, Seb Traczyk, said on the drive up Maligne Canyon, east of town, as we took in a tour on the Ecology of Fire.

The thick, green trees outside the van’s window hardly seemed that way. But as our guide explained, the forest had become so dense that wildlife would have a difficult time navigating the terrain and sunlight could hardly reach the forest floor, meaning the grasses and shrubs that animals feed on could barely grow.

The burnt-out forest we had seen earlier on the tour of the park’s wildlife was actually a healthier forest, our guide said.

We had seen elk munching on the bright new grass growing in that burnt-out forest and, just off the side of the road, a brown bear trailed by two cubs.

As interesting as the talk of fire ecology was, our group was clearly more interested in the wildlife portion of the tour.

“Have you ever seen a grizzly?” one woman on the tour asked our guide excitedly.

We did not see a grizzly, but the bald eagle’s nest we stopped to look at, with the heads of two eaglets peaking out the top, made up for it.

There was one fire in Jasper that I had been looking forward to, but it never happened because the weather was too soggy. Instead, the fireside chat run by Warrior Women, an Indigenous-owned tour company, was held in the basement of the Jasper Yellowhead Museum and Archives.

Matricia Bauer, a Cree woman who owns the company, explained the importance of fireside chats in Indigenous culture as a place to share stories and foster connection.

She has been running weekly fireside chats for the community that tourists are welcome to join. There is usually drumming and dancing, but because of the rain, we sat at a table and talked about last year’s fire.

“Fire can be good. It brings us together and we can talk about renewal,” she said. “We can’t be bitter. We have to move on.”

Our free-flowing conversation covered everything from the role of fire in Indigenous culture to Bauer’s artistic work with buffalo hides to how she smudged people’s homes for free after the wildfire and the community’s recovery.

“We are like the phoenix rising out of the ashes, but we’re not flying just yet. We’re just shaking off the flames. We’re getting ready to launch here any minute. But, you know, it’s just, it’s been a hot minute, is what I tell people,” Bauer said.

Everyone in Jasper is looking for the fire’s silver lining. Golfers will find it at the Stanley Thompson-designed course at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. Here, the burn revealed his original vision for the course, says Tahlon Sweenie, director of golf operations.

Thompson’s design philosophy prioritized making use of scenery and giving golfers of different skill levels options at each hole. But in the 100 years since the famed Canadian golf architect designed the course, plenty of trees and shrubbery had grown in.

Now golfers can see the scenery the way Thompson viewed it and can play some holes the way they were intended. The par-three seventh hole and holes eight and 16, both par fours, have greens restored to their original layout and trees are no longer blocking some shots.

“You can take a look at this picture right now from opening day and it’s exactly the same,” Sweeney said during a tour of the course.

The burnt, blackened tree trunks surrounding the course have a haunting quality up close, but step back just a bit and you can see how much the fire has opened up the course and changed the way it can be played.

The silver linings are everywhere if you’re looking for them.

In town, people are sipping craft beers on the patio of the Jasper Brewing Co., and waiters at the Maligne Range, a new restaurant with an extensive whisky list, are joking about how it was supposed to open on the day of the wildfire evacuation.

The gift shops are buzzing with visitors buying souvenirs and passengers are stepping down from the many trains that still roll through town.

The road to recovery is a long one, but that hasn’t spoiled the park or the optimism of all those who call it home.

“We have a saying in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan,” our SkyTram operator said on the way down from the mountain. “The best life is after a fire.”

If you go

• The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge is the most storied and scenic Jasper has to offer, with rooms starting at $800 a night during the high season, and $400 a night between October and June.
• The Forest Park Hotel, located in the north end of town, offers spacious rooms, an indoor pool under a high vaulted roof and is within easy walking distance of everything the townsite has to offer.
• Tickets for the SkyTram start at $79 for adults and $48 for children.
• See the forest in a new way and understand the fire’s aftermath on the “Wildlife of Spring and the Ecology of Fire” tour run by SunDog Tours based in Jasper.
• There’s lots of great eating and drinking options in town. My favourite was the bison burger at Olive Bistro on Patricia Street, accompanied by the view of the mountains from the patio. At Jasper Brewing Co. on Connaught Drive, I loved the Babe Blueberry Vanilla Ale (although their Jasper the Bear Ale was a close second).

Accommodation and tours were proved by Tourism Jasper, which did not review or approve the story before publication.