The Jasper Local December 15, 2019

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SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2019 // ISSUE 159

WINTER WELCOME// FRESH SNOW MEANT TRACKS ON PYRAMID LAKE // SIMONE HEINRICH

Christmas cuts for Pursuit employees Pursuit has laid off 32 employees in Jasper.

News that the company was making reductions was circulating on social media in early December. Pursuit confirmed to The Jasper Local that 32 jobs have been affected.

“While we have taken every effort to minimize the impact on our staff, we have transitioned some roles into summer seasonal positions,” said Tanya Otis, Pursuit’s Communications and Media Senior

Manager. “With this reduced operating capacity, 32 roles have been modified to reflect these new seasonal changes.”

In August, Pursuit took over controlling interest in seven assets from Mountain Park Lodges’ Jasper properties. President Dave McKenna said at the time that his group planned to work to preserve Jasper.

“We have a 127-year history of operating within these national parks and this partnership exemplifies

our commitment to investing in the Jasper community,” he said.

Otis said seasonal sales numbers affected the decision to make the cuts.

“Like many resort destinations, there are significant fluctuations in demand throughout the winter season. As a result, we are transitioning our Jasper hotel properties to better align with this fluctuating seasonal demand.”

Bob Covey //

bob@thejasperlocal.com

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page A2 // the jasper local // issue 159 // sunday, december 15, 2019

editorial //

Local Vocal One thing I’m embracing about the holiday season is the availability of terrific bedtime stories.

Usually, as a final send-off to dreamland, I’m asked by our three-year-old to tell a tale that includes her as the main star, supported by a cast of characters that includes a squirrel, a unicorn, popular cartoon animals and at least two of her friends from daycare. Lord help me if I misremember which Paw Patrol puppy drives what vehicle.

With Christmas in the air, however, I’ve got content for days (or nights, as it were), the best narrative of all being the one where a jolly dude in a fur suit flies around dropping presents through everyone’s chimneys from his reindeer-led sleigh. Whoever thought of that whopper must have been desperate to get his kid to bed!

Of course with Santa stories come the conundrum of gift giving, How many and How much being the most operative ones.

While each household will obviously have their own approach, a proactive parenting tip I saw online encouraged parents to label Christmas Day’s most coveted gifts (i.e. the most expensive items) as coming from themselves, rather than some gregarious elf from the north pole. If a kid thinks his new Xbox is from Santa and tells his friend as much at school, it’s only natural that the other kid, whose family’s budget might not have room for such luxury items, will figure Santa skipped him. How heartbreaking is it to think of a child asking his parents if he was naughty just because Billy’s loot pile was twice as big?

While we’re talking sourcing of presents, let’s also remember our local retailers and try to support them whenever we can. Spending local isn’t just something to do to help Jasper shopkeepers, it’s a way to invest in your community. Local businesses provide jobs for our neighbours, they pay taxes which fund municipal services and they help attract quality people to our town. While you might pay a bit more than if you were to bargain-hunt online, the financial gain is only temporary if local businesses are having to close their doors.

This holiday, make a point of looking for what you need in town. Take comfort in the fact that the money you’d save by going to the city or to your computer will be put back into your community.

That might not make the best bed time story for a three-year-old, but it’ll probably help you sleep at night. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

Congratulations to Wildflowers Childcare Centre

Dear Editor,

As a mother of two boys attending our beautiful daycare; I know first hand how fortunate our children, parents and town are to have a childcare centre that shows the utmost compassion, creativity, encouragement and care. Wildflowers childcare centre opens doors for our children and continually

recognizes their unique individual needs and capabilities, allowing them to learn and explore through play. The staff play an important role in our children’s growth and I am proud to have them help educate my children.

I would like to extend a well deserved congratulations to everyone involved in creating such a

positive atmosphere for our children and service to our community. Your recent Provincial 2019 Minister’s Award of Excellence in Childcare is nothing short of well deserved!

Thank you again to you all for your support, hard work and continued care towards all our children.

Paula Cackett, Jasper

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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sunday, december 15, 2019 // issue 159 // the jasper local// page A3

AN APPLE A DAY//DR. MARK ADDISON IS WRAPPING UP 32 YEARS AS A GP IN JASPER. HIS LAST DAY IS DECCEMBER 31. // BOB COVEY

Farewell good doctor Dr. Mark Addison is calling it a career after 32 years of practicing medicine in Jasper.

“Retirement sounds pretty nice,” he said.

In other words, retirement sounds a lot like Dr. Addison himself.

Addison came to Jasper in 1987. He’d just spent a year in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba, where he got a sense that—other than the blackflies—being a rural doctor in Canada wasn’t all that different from practicing in his home country of South Africa.

“People generally have similar ailments,” he said.

But when he moved to Jasper in 1987, he found a younger, healthier community than the ones he’d serviced in his career until then. That suited him fine. He was an avid runner and a vast network of trails seemed the perfect anecdote to a hard day’s work.

He and his wife, Nancy, met in Leaf Rapids. She was a school teacher. When they arrived in Jasper, they both

found work in their fields.

Jasper felt safe. As he followed the news back home, where apartheid rule was tearing the country apart, Addison was happy to start a family here.

“Sixty per cent of my medical class left the country,” he recalled.

Dr. Addison established a clinic with Dr. Jill Konkin, in the Patricia Street building that currently houses Tourism Jasper’s office. In 1991 they moved into the Cottage Clinic. That space would undergo renovations to become the facility it is today—one which houses five doctors and a locum in the summer.

Modern technology has offered the greatest changes in his practice, Addison said.

Whether it’s online journals synthesizing information from experts around the world or improvements in x-rays, patients are served much better thanks to the technological leaps of the digital age.

“No longer do we have to describe what we’re seeing on

an x-ray to a specialist over the phone,” he said.

And to be sure, Jasper doctors see more than their fair share of fractures.

While Jasper’s isolation makes it difficult to specialize in some fields of medicine, this community has a fair complement of doctors for a small town, Addison said.

Still, there are Jasperites that pine for the days when we had obstetrics in Jasper. The last baby to be delivered here (on purpose) was in 2003.

“It seems like these [funding] cuts come in waves,” Addison said.

But now, it’s Addison’s shifts that are being cut. By design.

He retires officially at the end of the year. Raising his family—he and Nancy have four children—has been his proudest achievement.

“Jasper’s been very good to us.”

Dr. Addison’s family will have a celebration of his years working in Jasper at Alpine Summit Seniors Lodge on January 3 from 2-4 p.m.

Bob Covey //

bob@thejasperlocal.com

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page B1 // the jasper local // issue 159 // sunday, december 15, 2019

local community //

Ramping up accessibility in our community A local business owner has taken a small but significant step in making Jasper more accessible.

Ever since she opened the Bear’s Paw and Other Paw Bakeries, Kim Stark has always known the stores weren’t wheelchair friendly.

“It always bothered me,” she said. “There’s that small step up that makes it hard to get in the door.”

Since she became a mom, similar barriers have become even more noticeable. Pushing a stroller around is a good way to find out which stores and sidewalks are accessible and which are not.

“It’s amazing how your perspective changes,” she said.

This fall, Stark got a new perspective on how she could address accessibility in her cafés.

A musician entertaining guests as part of Via Rail’s Artists Onboard program noticed the Other Paw could do well with a ramp. Tim Moxam, a Toronto musician and carpenter, has been working with the StopGap Foundation to raise awareness about the importance of a barrier-free society. Moxam introduced himself to Stark, they took some measurements, and

Luke Anderson founded the stopgap foundation. At right, the ramp at the Other Paw. //

within a few weeks both of her bakeries had a bright red, wooden, moveable ramp where a step formerly acted as a barrier.

“It’s definitely an improvement,” Stark says, “although it still bothers me that the bathroom [at The Other Paw] is inaccessible.”

The StopGap Foundation will take the small win, however. Whenever the conversation about accessibility can move forward, founder and

was happy to get the feedback. Reidler knows that in a small town, with archaic infrastructure, it’s not always feasible for businesses to have a button-operated automatic door.

“I get it,” he said.

Allie Jenkins-Bennett gets it too.

Jenkins-Bennett also uses a wheelchair—albeit a powered model.

Although he lives in Calgary these days, Jenkins-Bennett grew up in Field, B.C. and lived in Jasper for several years. Small towns, more than cities, are more likely to have small but significant barriers to accessibility, he said.

“There’s so many places that have just a tiny little step,” he said. “It seems like nothing until you’re in a wheelchair, then it’s really hard.”

And it’s not just folks who use a wheelchair who can feel ostracized by community infrastructure.

Elderly people, people with an injury, stroller-pushing parents and people whose jobs require them to push a cart or dolly are affected by barriers.

“Canadians have the human right to equal access,” Anderson says.

“That’s what really inspired the ramp project.”

Anderson understands the reasons businesses and communities don’t address accessibility, which give him all the more energy to make change.

“Awareness is spreading,” he said.

“A ramp lands in Jasper and it draws attention. It gets people talking. And hopefully there’s a domino effect.”

For local business owners or community members wanting to make their spaces more accessible, get in touch with the StopGap Foundation.

“We’re looking for advocates,” Anderson says.

“Canadians have the human right to equal access, that’s what really inspired the ramp project.”

executive director Luke Anderson celebrates.

Anderson himself lives with a spinal cord injury as a result of a mountain bike crash 17 years ago.

An engineer by trade, Anderson was pleased that his office put in a moveable ramp so he could access the building with his wheelchair, but realized that he always had to ask someone to deploy the eight foot aluminum incline—hardly an indication of his independence.

“For eight years, every time I needed to get in and out I relied on someone else,” he said.

That served as the tipping point for Anderson. Soon after, the StopGap Foundation was formed. Since then, Anderson and his partners have installed more than 2,000 ramps in more than 60 communities across Canada.

That Jasper has come on board with StopGap is encouraging for Jasper’s Justin Reidler. As a person who uses a wheelchair, Reidler knows all too well the barriers that exist all over town—especially with a foot of snow on the ground.

“It’s pretty hard to get around in this weather,” he said.

Before the snow fell, Reidler got a chance to try the new ramp at the Bear’s Paw. His thoughts?

“It’s a lot better than it was,” he says. “But it’s still not the best.”

The door, because it swings out, is hard to open while on the ramp.

The door handle is awkwardly high. And the incline makes it tough to stay balanced while opening the door and a bit dangerous while coming out.

“If someone isn’t careful momentum could take them into the street or someone’s car,” he suggested.

Overall, however, Reidler is happy the effort is being made. And Stark

bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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sunday, december 15, 2019 // issue 159 // the jasper local// page B2

Local community//

A caring, fabulous friend remembered

Friends and family members of a beloved Jasperite are trying to make sense of their sudden loss after 64-year-old Debora Beiersdorfer was killed in a motor vehicle collision last month.

On the afternoon of November 21, Beiersdorfer was in Valemount, B.C., visiting a friend she’d met through the Jasper Buy Sell and Trade Facebook group. Beiersdorfer offered to lend an eye as her new friend was decorating her home.

“She had great taste,” said Sandi Beiersdorfer, Debora’s sister. “Her own apartment was like something out of Pier One.” In Jasper, Deborah was known for her style. Her clothes, her hair, her car—she simply “sparkled,” her friend Mary McLaughlin said.

“She just gave off this vibrancy,” she said.

She was also known for her warmth. So it was no surprise to McLaughlin that Deb would have made the trip out west to help out a girlfriend. She loved to drive her convertible (her joke was “don’t you just love driving with your top off?”) but was pragmatic about the hazards of the hour-and-a-half long journey. She was regimented when it came to checking in with those who knew she would be travelling.

“She always checked in with her best friend Vallee when she got home,” Sandi said.

Which is why, when Deb didn’t call at 7 p.m. like she said she would, her friends were immediately worried.

“She told me the roads were clear, the only part she didn’t like was the stretch near Moose Lake,” Sandi said.

Forty one kilometres after Highway 16 enters Mount Robson Provincial Park west of Jasper, the roadway is pinched between the foot of B.C.’s Mount Razor and the swampy east end of massive Moose Lake. Together with the CN right-of-way, which traverses the same corridor parallel to the road until it swoops beneath an overhead, the restricted geography—plus the moisture coming off of the lake which can contribute to icy conditions—can make this part of the Yellowhead Highway treacherous.

Over the years, these few kilometres have borne witness to several motor vehicle accidents—evidenced by the roadside memorials erected to pay tribute to the deceased.

On November 21, while travelling eastbound, navigating the very stretch she told her sister she was worried about, Debora Beiersdorfer’s Ford Mustang collided with a transport truck. She was killed instantly. An investiga-

tion by the Valemount-based RCMP is ongoing as to the exact cause of the accident.

In the wake of this tragedy, those closest to Deborah are remembering a woman who lived with verve and pas-

Debora Beiersdorfer is being remembered as a caring, wonderful friend // vallee gammon

sion. They are grieving for a friend who, like many, came to Jasper in her mid-20s to live a care-free and whimsical lifestyle, then moved away to establish a career, and subsequently came back to the mountain town she loved.

When they were young, Debora and Sandi Beiersdorfer’s father worked as an RCMP officer. The career took his family between Edmonton, Victoria and Ottawa over the course of their early years. After high school, in 1978, Sandi moved to Jasper. It didn’t take long before her older sister Debora saw she was onto something.

“She came and said ‘wow, you’re living the life,’” Sandra recalled.

Rooming together, the two sisters bonded in ways that weren’t possible when they were in high school. They became very close.

“We weren’t just sisters, we were best friends,” Sandi said.

And along with their own love, Debora’s love for Jasper

grew. She loved the snow in the winter, loved to visit Pyramid Stables and Maligne Lake in the summer. She loved to picnic—with matching plates mats and cutlery, of course—and she loved to cook. She tended bar at the Whistle Stop and sold clothing at the former Western Shop.

“It was a very social time,” McLaughlin remembered.

“We were all so young.”

But seven years later, Debora was perhaps looking for something more challenging. She moved out of Jasper and sought out a career with the Ministry of Attorney General, in B.C. Working with crown counsel and Victims Services was stimulating but exhausting, her sister said. As such, in 2010, Debora moved back to the place which had embraced her as a young woman.

“The city was getting busy. She had a tough job. She was looking for the closeness that you get in a small town.”

At 55-years-old, Debora brought her city style back to the mountains. She was well known at the Jasper Farmer’s Market, where she sold her exquisite jewelry.

She worked at Pine Bungalows, and, along with her best friend Vallee Gammon, began to visit Mexico in the darker months. Deb and Vallee’s annual sojourns made them many friends in Bucerias, and in Mexico as well as all over Canada and the U.S., folks have sent their love and support to Vallee and Sandra.

The same has been happening in Jasper, of course.

Debora was a favourite client at the local salon and she was a reassuring presence for friends in need of advice or companionship.

“When Deb was there it was reassuring,” McLaughlin said. “She took control.”

Which is why, perhaps, life feels a little bit out-ofcontrol for her friends now that Debora is gone. They are mourning the loss of someone who would always be there to listen, to share and to enjoy the simple things in life.

Mary McLaughlin, who hasn’t lived in Jasper for decades, said those who leave will always feel an affinity for this community.

“Even when you leave Jasper, you don’t really leave,” she said.

Those closest to Debora Beiersdorfer might hold onto that sentiment as they mourn the loss of their beloved friend.

A celebration of her life will be held in the spring. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

SNOW REMOVAL

OPERATIONS Watch for signage in your neighbourhood and remove your vehicle from the street Signage is placed in residential areas 24 hours in advance; if you see signage in your neighbourhood it means the streets will be plowed.

Avoid shovelling snow into the driving lane If you must shovel snow onto the roadway, please stockpile it in the parking lane and municipal crews will pick it up when your street is cleared.

Keep the sidewalk in front of your home free of ice and snow This responsibility exists whether you are the property owner or the tenant.

Questions?

Contact the Bylaw Department at 780-852-5514 or the Administration Office at 780-852-3356.

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page b3+B4 // the jasper local // issue 159 // sunday. december 15, 2019

FEATURE story // by david harrap // photos by chris koo

Co tu Yo

GORDON RAMSAY, EAT YOUR HEART OUT! YOU’VE NEVER COOKED A TURKEY GOOD AS THIS. OVER A FIRE, IN THE MOUNTAINS, ON A SNOWY THANKSGIVING WEEKEND. It’s the annual Turkey Trot: this year at Elk Lakes Provincial Park on the B.C./Alberta border.

Again there’s early snow, but the Trotters are buoyant as is usually the case at the start of a hike. There is nothing buoyant about Liam’s pack, though, as they set off for the nine kilometres to the lake.

At the supermarket where Liam brought the turkey they had to look in the “back” for one.

There were no 30-pounders displayed out front. When you add the turkey, the tin foil, the five roasting trays, the olive oil, the butter, the flour, the lemons, the onions, the parsley, the ladle, the whisk, the sieve, the carving knife, the fixings for the pudding, three litres of Shiraz (the chef has to keep his strength up), plus the usual camping paraphernalia, Liam’s pack is pushing ninety pounds.

This year’s attendance is the

best yet. Trotters have come from all over: Wainwright, Cold Lake, Edmonton, Kelowna, Vancouver, Toronto— two even fly in from the UK.

be nuts going through all this for a turkey dinner. Aah! But what a turkey dinner. Had you been there and tasted that bird you wouldn’t be questioning

It’s a professional bunch.

There’s a dentist, a GP, a radiologist, a nurse, research biologists, a licensed marijuana grower, two contestants from the CBC’s Great Canadian Baking Show, a journalist, an air traffic controller and an F-18 fighter pilot—plus that old man who keeps gatecrashing the party.

They are short a psychiatrist, though, to tell them they must

the sanity of these folks; you’d be booking your spot for next year.

The opening act on the first day is a sticky date and orange pudding baked over the fire then served flambeed with rum. And a blue sylphlike flame dances into the blackness of the cold autumn night.

When chef emerges next morning he finds the turkey

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ooking a 30 pound urkey in the backcountry? ou butter believe it!

BY: DAVID HARRAP frozen solid like a huge cannon ball. Only one thing to do: stick it in a stuff sack and keep pouring boiling water into the bag until the turkey thaws. (You won’t find these instructions in your recipe section.)

Now it’s hands on; four pairs of hands to be

precise. The turkey is plonked in four roasting trays nesting inside each other (that number prevents the fire scorching the bird). Liam squidges a good pound of butter with lemon zest, garlic, parsley, then carefully slides the mixture in between the skin and breast meat.

Someone has fashioned little wooden skewers capped with juniper berries to close up the skin. A small bottle of olive oil is emptied over the turkey.

Another roasting tray is put over the bird and secured with tin foil, then Mr. Turkey is set on the fire.

This might be the Gordon Ramsay turkey-cooking method (sans the woodsy stuff), but this ain’t no Hell’s Kitchen with swearing and shouting and ranting and raging. The chef is mellow, the helpers

are mellow (the wine helps); it’s all for one and one for all.

Not just three Trotters but 30, working for that exquisite turkey dinner that should be ready around nightfall.

Cara is stripped to her muscle vest sawing logs (the two greedy fires need lots), Jacky is doing a rotisserie chicken, baking show Chris is working on his creme caramel (he came equipped with a back-country

hoping to get lucky.

Ashley and Liam check the turkey, basting it, then lacing rashers of bacon over the breast. Chris checks his caramel in the water bath in the oven, and Emma the husky one and Maio of the sad haunted look of the hyenas in The Lion King wander in and out and around, ready for the least crumb tumbling their way.

(For now, Murphy is tied up; he made a grab for the bacon when no one was looking.)

It’s dark and snowing lightly when Liam takes the turkey off the fire. The secret now, a la Gordon Ramsay, is to let the turkey rest uncovered so the meat relaxes and re-absorbs the juices. Ramsay recommends resting the bird the same amount of time it took to cook (don’t worry, it’s hot gravy that warms the turkey slices).

Mr Turkey took five and half hours to cook; if it rests that long dinner would be at midnight.

“When chef emerges next An hour or so will do for morning he finds the turkey here.

Around the fires, tin foil frozen solid like a huge parcels are warming. cannon ball.”

Liam makes gravy.

Then a groaning oven), Dave and Mallory are board of dishes—stuffings, strolling around like genteel casseroles, vegetables, bread hosts at some high class sauce, Cumberland sauce, cocktail party, proffering stuffed mushrooms, rotisserie platters of Wensleydale chicken—is set for the 30 cheese with cranberries, garlic Trotters who line up as if this is sausage and crackers. Nina and a buffet at The Ritz. At the head Courtney are working on the of the table sits the turkey. Steam mulled wine, Emily is offering rises into the trees as Liam, with her hand-made chocolates, headlight on, does the carving. fighter pilot Alex is describing Sitting by the fire, plate on his what the g-force feels like when knee, the old man says, “in a you’re cornering at Mach 2, lifetime of turkeys this is the and Murphy—yes, he’s back juiciest and best of ‘em all.” again—is on the scrounge David Harrap//

harrap2017@gmail.com Jasper’s David Harrap is the author of the soon-to-be-published book Over The Mountains, Under The Stars. He knows a thing about turkeys in the wild, and perhaps a little more about Wild Turkey.

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page B5 // the jasper local //issue 159 // sunday, december 15, 2019

Local arts and culture //

Carving in his fathers wood strokes As a kid, Rob Klettl was enamoured by his father’s wood carvings.

Klettl remembers his dad, Jasper National Park Warden Toni Klettl, sitting at the kitchen table for hours with a piece of wood and his tools while his mom, Shirley, would read out loud from National Geographic magazines.

The scraps from the carvings would go into the stove. Fiveyear-old Rob, sitting underneath the table, would intercept them from time to time.

“I can still picture it,” he said.

Warden Klettl’s first carvings were rudimentary. They were ornaments made out of black poplar. But as his carving skills progressed, the carvings became more detailed. He graduated to softer wood. Soon there were bears, rams and bison decorating the cabins where the family was stationed.

“We’d pack into the Tonquin Valley, he’d pull, mom would push and there was always a carving or two in the sled,” Rob said.

Eventually, Warden Klettl’s pieces became sought after. They were coveted as trophies, as service awards and as memorabilia. They ended up on the mantles of retired

carvings—in this case a sheep.

With the supplemental income, Toni was able to put his kids in ski racing. One of those kids ended up in the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid.

And another of those kids picked up the trade.

From the first time Robbie Klettl intercepted one of those pieces of black poplar underneath the kitchen table, he wanted to carve just like his dad. In Grade 6, Rob remembers being proud of a bear he carved. He subsequently presented it to his teacher, Mr. Reese, who, upon Robbie’s graduation from high school, told him how much the gift had meant to him.

Touched, Rob kept it up.

But when he got to univerChip off the ol block// Rob Klettl has his sity, carving took a back carvings on display in the Museum // b Covey seat. It wasn’t until after school, when he moved up RCMP officers, atop the armoires north to work in the geology field, of local sports clubs and in cabithat he came back to it. His project nets of tourists. One of the carvings even ended up in the Vatican. was a Hyrda—a serpentine water monster in Greek and Roman Like most dignitaries who came mythology, with multiple heads. through Jasper in those days, It was such a challenging carving the Pope of the Catholic Church that he continually put it back in received one of Warden Klettl’s

the shop, to be worked on later.

Thirty years after he cut the raw block to size, his youngest daughter encouraged him to finish it.

“They’ve all got their own stories,” he said while looking over the figures, currently on display at the Jasper Museum’s Alcove Gallery.

Whereas his father stuck to four basic carvings—bears, cougars, sheep and bison—Rob enjoys branching out. Lately, he’s been inspired by the wildlife images he sees local photographers capture.

Local shooters Simone Heinrich, Kendra Neef-Nace and Paul and Coral Hamilton have all had their photos memorialized in balsa wood.

In his shop behind the house where he grew up, Rob Klettl is in his happy place. A block-footed, almost-completed moose gazes up at him, waiting for its details to be etched on its antlers and hooves. A rough cut of a cowboy sits on the lathe, the rider’s posture suggesting a long day in the saddle. And a leather sleeve of tools is strewn haphazardly across the workbench.

The chisels, inherited from his father, are a tangible memory to those days in the warden cabins.

The garage is cold, the space heaters not yet turned on, but you can practically smell the smoke from the black poplar scraps. bob covey // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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local community //

sunday, december 15, 2019 // issue 159 // the jasper local// page B6

Jasper Filipino-Canadian

COMMUNITY CHRISTMAS

Photos by Daren De Guzman