The Jasper Local July 15, 2020 by The Jasper Local

JASPER

The Local

ALTERNATIVE +

LOCAL + INDEPENDENT

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2020 // ISSUE 169

SURFâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S UP // Athabasca Falls in full rooster tail earlier this month. Jasper National Park experienced higher, faster water flows than it had in eight years this spring melt. // ROGIER GRUYS, BLUEPEAK PHOTOGRAPHY

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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 169 // WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2020

EDITORIAL //

Local Vocal Did Jasper miss an opportunity to make its downtown better? Or at least safer? Now before you get all up in my grill, save your breath (and wear a mask). I’ve heard the arguments against closing the 600 block of Patricia Street to vehicle traffic: Essential services like grocery stores and pharmacies need storefront parking. How are you supposed to haul your clothes to the laundromat? Seniors can’t walk very far. There’s no room for extra traffic in the alleys or on Geikie Street. The street has no “anchor tenants.” I heard all those points last week, and the week before, and the time before that. I heard them loud and clear when a young, naive editor of the F***H*** advocated for a car-free Patricia Street 13 years ago and his publishers just about ran him out of the building (that happened later, btw). And here I am stirring the pot again. Except that I’m doing nothing of the sort. The pot has been stirred many times, by many different straws. It’s no longer a radical idea. Urban planning around pedestrian and bike traffic is, well, kind of… obvious. Now please don’t think I’m dismissing the needs of our mobility-challenged residents. But when was the last time you decided to go to the pharmacy, or the grocer, and snagged a spot right outside the store? We’ve all done the Patricia Street crawl, swerving between lanes in hopes that the guy idling in his lifted diesel truck will move just as we pull up. We’ve all waited for an obnoxious amount of time with our blinker on, to no avail. Admit it! Half the time we go hunting for a Patricia Street parking spot we end up circling the block in vain and end up parking two dozen car lengths away anyway. Is this what we’re defending? Without bringing up Canmore and Banff’s seemingly successful pedestrian-friendly experiments (oops, just did!), allow me to draw on another small tourism community, one in which I also plied the trade of newspapering. In Sidney, B.C., next to where the ferries unload their passengers at the Swartz Bay terminal, there exists a quaint little night market that takes place every Sunday. I recall a vibrant streetscape with all of the amenities you’d expect at a showpiece festival: artisans, open-air cafés and music. Local businesses (Sidney is also known as BookTown) didn’t dare miss it. That was in a community full of retirees, who loved their cars surely as much as we do here in Jasper, long before the term social distancing ever gave residents there a reason to prioritize such a project. Did we miss our opportunity? I suppose we’ll find out. BOB COVEY // bob@thejasperlocal.com

Is it time for your mammogram? Here are some common myths and facts about breast cancer screening:

Myth 1: Monthly selfexamination is the best way to find breast cancer early. What is most important is that women know how their breasts normally look and feel: from the whole area of breast tissue, up to the collarbone and including the armpit. While it is not necessary to have a regimented

method for checking your breasts, call your healthcare provider right away if you notice any unusual changes. Myth 2: Regular mammograms can’t find small tumours any sooner than women could find themselves. Screening mammograms find many small tumours

approximately 2-3 years before they can be felt. That’s why screening is so important — it can find cancer before it has a chance to become more serious. Alberta Health Services’ Screen Test brings breast cancer screening to women across Alberta with its mobile mammography clinics. CONTINUED ON PAGE A3

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

Bob Covey..................................................................................bob@thejasperlocal.com Art Director

Nicole Covey........................................................................ nicole@thejasperlocal.com Advertising & Sales

Email us today.......................................................... bob@thejasperlocal.com Editorial Cartoonist

Deke............................................................................................deke@thejasperlocal.com

facebook.com/thejasperlocal

@thejasperlocal

// LOCAL DOWNTOWN

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2020 // ISSUE 169 // The Jasper Local // PAGE A3

Car-free Canmore streets: so far, so good While Jasper’s downtown receives piecemeal patio treatment as individual businesses owners attempt to revitalize their restaurants, the deputy

mayor of Canmore says their new downtown pedestrian zone is proving popular. Karen Marra is a first term councillor and former downtown business owner who sits on the board of Canmore’s Business Improvement Association. Marra says since Canmore closed two blocks to vehicle traffic to facilitate social distancing, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “The businesses are seeing a good response,” Marra told The Jasper Local on July 10, approximately one month since the streets were closed to cars. “They’re telling us they’ve had better revenues than expected.” That may or may not be due to the street closures, but one thing’s for certain, says Marra: Canmore is a safer place to stroll since the initiative has been introduced. “That’s been the main focus: how do we keep people safe and how do we support our businesses?” The idea of a pedestrian-only zone in Canmore had been kicked around for years, Marra said, but it was the

declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic that ushered in the change.

“We don’t have wide sidewalks,” she said. “Queuing for restaurants and businesses was going to present a problem.” Now, businesses are required to keep the sidewalk in front of their storefronts clear. Lineups are permitted in former parking stalls and on the road, walkers and bikers share a 3.5 metre wide space. To achieve their new main street configuration, Marra said the town engaged businesses and residents in consultations. “We did a lot of brainstorming,” she said. Here in Jasper, some businesses have taken advantage of council’s recent decision to allow expansion of sidewalk seating or retail displays by using the parking lane in front of their businesses. Soto Korogonas, owner of the Downstream Lounge on Connaught Drive, not only expanded his operation into

the parking lot adjacent to his restaurant, he also got the support from his neighbouring tenants to use their stalls, too. On July 8, the Downstream’s patio was spread across six parking stalls. That’s 24 openair tables or 96 seats he didn’t have two days earlier. “Hopefully we can salvage some of this summer,” he said. Still, Korogonas thinks Jasper can do better. “Banff is offering a social distancing option in a really critical time,” he said, referring to the vehicle closure on Banff Ave that went up around the same time as Canmore’s. “Jasper needs to do some diverse things to encourage business.” // bob@thejasperlocal.com

BOB COVEY

Call 1-800-667-0604 (tollfree) to book a mammogram.

to have a mammogram every 2 years and may self-refer.

cost for this service. For more information visit: www.screeningforlife.ca.

Who should get a screening mammogram?

Women 40 - 49 should discuss the risks and benefits of screening with their doctor, and need a referral for their first appointment. There is no

Women 50 – 74 should plan

______________________ AHS’ Screen Test is coming to Jasper July 16-25, 2020.

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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 169 // WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2020

LOCAL TOURISM

DMO trying to shore up Jasper’s complex, vulnerable tourism ecosystem COVID-19 is highlighting where Jasper’s economy is most vulnerable. While Jasperites can thank their rubber tire visitors for propping up summer revenues, local tourism experts are warning that not only are we overlydependent on international guests, but that most overseas visitors to Jasper get here by way of a complex tourism “ecosystem,” the interconnected systems of which are susceptible to factors that are, for the most part, beyond our control. Red Plates to the Rescue

Tourism Jasper’s CEO and President, James Jackson, has never been so thankful for the red license plates of Alberta. “They’re keeping this community running right now,” he says. In March, Jackson’s worst-case revenue forecasts had Jasper’s losses somewhere in the 80 per cent neighbourhood. While it’s too early to get hard data on how the summer has gone so far for local operators, Jackson said anecdotal evidence he’s heard suggests Jasper businesses are doing far better than first anticipated. “Certain restaurants and hotels are faring better than they thought both in terms of occupancy and average cheque,” he said. What’s interesting, he said, is that there seems to be a wide discrepancy of the spending and social habits of our regional guests. “Everything is living at either end of the spectrum,” he suggested. “There are higher-yield guests who are understanding

of the situation and there is a very pricesensitive, challenging market as well.” Furthermore, looking ahead to the fall is problematic when Alberta can’t say if schools will reopen. Added to the uncertainty is the idea that government wage subsidy programs will likely expire at that time.

Y’all Venture On Back Now, Y’Hear?

When COVID-19 was declared a worldwide pandemic, Tourism Jasper’s business plan went “totally out the window.” “Suffice to say we went back to the drawing board,” Jackson said. Now, while Tourism Jasper asks regional visitors to “Venture Again,” and marketers attempt to flip the script on some of Jasper’s unique features (i.e. what better place to vacation during a pandemic than a small, isolated community in a huge park?), the destination marketing organization is simultaneously looking down the pipe to how and when international travel might rebound. The inputs being analyzed include the big numbers (the global GDP contraction, for example), the historical trends (how Americans tend not to travel during an election year, for example) and the realtime travel industry activities (such as what airlines and passenger rail companies are doing to brace customer confidence). “The challenge is understanding all these things and distilling them into a strategy,” Jackson said. The most conspicuous challenge right now, of course, is that international

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guests and their four-toone spending habits (versus domestic travellers’ dollars) aren’t here. This is a problem in 2020, to be sure, but the bigger quandary is realizing just how much we depend on these folks, Jackson says. “The biggest thing we have to get our heads around as a DMO is institutionalizing agility into our model,” he said. “We’ll have to do more planning, have more diversification and be less reliant on our international guests.”

PATRICIA APANNAH AND HER KIDS, ANNA AND PAIGE, WERE VISITING FROM FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. / M WARREN

What A Tangled Web We’ve Wove

In a normal year, a large part of the work Tourism Jasper staff puts into marketing overseas doesn’t come to fruition for more than a year. For an Australian visitor to find her way to Jasper, for example, she’ll typically be using up to four intermediaries. First, the guest’s money gets laid down at an Australian travel agency, which then works with an international tour operator, who then purchases inventory from a Canadianbased receptive tour operator, who then buys blocks of rooms or experiences. “You can see the dominoes that are starting to line up,” Jackson said. Moreover, the further away from Jasper the visitor starts, the more interconnected everything becomes. As any Jasper server who’s listened to their guest go on about their extended travel itinerary knows, most far-flung visitors will have come via

Calgary and Lake Louise and are often on their way to Vancouver and Whistler— and maybe even a cruise to Alaska. “There’s a large ecosystem at play,” Jackson said. While Jasper waits for parts of that ecosystem to recover—the armies of travel agents that have been laid off, or the airlines who are trying to demonstrate above-and-beyond health and safety measures, for example— Jackson said DMOs like Jasper are looking for secondary domestic markets. Soon, travel agencies in places like Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Hamilton will start to compel their customers to see Spirit Island, Athabasca Falls and Maligne Canyon. After all, as the DMO, Tourism Jasper has to now Venture Beyond. BOB COVEY

// bob@thejasperlocal.com

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2020 // ISSUE 169 // The Jasper Local // PAGE B2

LOCAL BUSINESS

COVID Check In: Local rafters pivot to new whitewater 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 his river guides trained up on the new run. The “pure class four” river features eight kilometres of sustained rapids, massive hits and has upped the ante in terms of whitewater rafting in the Jasper area. “On this river there’s no passengers,” Gillese said, a day before making the historic run. “It’s a big team effort that everyone has to commit to.” Gillese first checked out the Doré himself two summers ago, but it was nearly two decades earlier that the permit to raft it was obtained by the former owner of Stellar Descents. The lapse between trips is a testament to the challenge the river serves up, Gillese says, but it also speaks to the experience his 2020 guides have under their utility belts. “You need a great team for a grade four run,” he said. The Doré’s advanced classification means operators also need two safety

crafts—a scouting kayak as well as another raft. The river is located in the shadow of B.C.’s Bell Mountain, which Gillese said is beautiful “if you have time to look up.”

2020 saw Jasper rivers at the fastest flow measured since 2012. June 24 saw the Athabasca River pumping at a furious 560 m³/s; eight years ago exactly the same gauge at the Moberly (JPL) bridge recorded flows of 617 m³/s. Those numbers paled in comparison to 2007, however. On June 6 of that year the AthaB was the highest it had been in 23 years, according to the Alberta government’s data. The Moberly bridge gauge was reading 734 m³/s 13 years ago.

COVID-19 nearly sunk the rafting industry PADDLE OAR BUST// VAULTING THROUGH GRAMMA’S GARDEN, A NEW RUN ON MCBRIDE’S DORE RIVER. WHERE STELLAR DESCENTS HAVE FOCUSED THEIR EFin Jasper. FORTS DURING A DOWNTURN IN BUSINESS. // SAMUEL COMEAU-LABERGE The timing couldn’t have been worse as far as trying On July 14, water levels had to hire staff, dropped significantly, reading plus typical 251 cubic m³/s. risk mitigation - Thanks to Jasper Raft Tours’ measures Brad Stewart and Scott Eady for such as mask the high water beta wearing made for a lot of not going to be open’ that uncertainty wouldn’t work,” Gillese said. when it came to getting the So they’ll run at half capacity green light and take the hit—but they’ll to operate. also take all the hits. customers before they climb onboard. Stellar has “I haven’t been this stoked for training been accepting bookings since June 6, “We considered not opening at all but I in a long time,” he said. but Gillese is putting four people on a want to employ these guys. We thought BOB COVEY // bob@thejasperlocal.com raft, rather than eight, and screening if every company in Canada said ‘we’re

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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 168 // WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 2020

FEATURE // COVID CHECK-IN // PHOTOS BY: NICOLE COVEY

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’t know much about the national park warden service.

Wardens typically took on assignments in a two or three year rotation, often at remote outposts where the learning curve was steep and self-reliance was not just an asset to the job, but a necessity to survival. Horton had several of these postings, one of his favourites being at Saskatchewan Crossing. “It had everything I was looking for,” he said.

As such, when Horton made it through a screening interview (conducted by now-retired Jasper wildland fire manager, Alan Westhaver) and subsequently enrolled in warden school (rooming with now-retired Jasper fire and vegetation specialist, Dave Smith) he couldn’t have “It had possibly imagined the career everything I he would carve out. “When I look back at it now, it was a lifetime of experiences,” Horton said.

was looking for. Horses, backcountry, remoteness.”

These days, to make a career in the national park service is to streamline into a particular discipline, be it ecological integrity, law enforcement, wildlife conservation, fire management or visitor safety. But when Horton was coming through the ranks, a park warden was a generalist, a jack-of-all-trades. Chief Park Wardens of the day valued a breadth of experience over stovepipe specialization, and up until the mid 2000s, wardens were as readily relied upon to lead a pack string of horses for a month-long trip in the backcountry—clearing trails, monitoring wildlife, suppressing fires, helping hikers and conducting poaching patrols along the way—as they were to carry out environmental assessments, perform high mountain rescues or arrest campground drunks on the May long weekend. “My first posting was as a campground cowboy at Tunnel Mountain in Banff,” Horton recalled. “We were ‘armed’ with a radio, a metal clipboard full of various tickets, a set of handcuffs and a big black Maglite flashlight.”

// Valerie Domaine

“Horses, backcountry, remoteness.” For 19 years Horton added experiences, knowledge and skills to the blank slate he entered the service with as a young man. He busted poachers in Elk Island National Park, and readied colts for the backcountry at Ya Ha Tinda Ranch. He climbed over high cols with teams of horses while summering out Banff and studied avalanche paths on snowy passes while wintering out of

THE LAST GENERALIST: After 31 years, Jasper park warden signs off Lake Louise. He trapped bears, heli-darted wolves and reared trumpeter swans. He helped protect indigenous artifacts on Haida Gwaii and taught kids to rock climb in Kluane. Whenever he went somewhere new, Horton never knew exactly what duties a particular post might entail. However, because he was open minded and adaptable, his supervisors continued to challenge him. “They let me experience my potential,” Horton said of his colleagues. Because of his strong solidarity with the history and the values of the service, Horton’s sense of self was tested when he and his warden colleagues were ordered to hand in their badges in 2008. A federal ruling instructed Parks Canada to arm its workers with handguns due to the dangers of the job, and the agency subsequently cleaved off the law enforcement division of the warden service to deal with enforcing the National Parks Act. The remaining staff were reclassified as

one person when Horton pieced together a series of cryptic postings and photos to determine the location of a suicidal young man. Horton spent the next eight years with visitor safety, and while he was perfectly capable of hanging from helicopters and bombing avalanche slopes, his real strength came as an incident commander. “I wasn’t going to be slinging in as a leader, running a rescue in technical terrain but I could figure out how to coordinate these things,” he said. In 2018, Horton took a year off. When he came back to work, he had the opportunity to return to

his roots as a generalist. Horton helped out with the human wildlife conflict team, carrying elk calves to places their protective mothers wouldn’t pose safety risks to people and chasing grizzly bears up into the subalpine. He wrote avalanche bulletins and subbed in on rescues as required. He also embarked on trips on the north and south boundary trails, during which he collected data for JNP’s ecological integrity program. resource management and public safety specialists. “That had a big impact on me,” Horton said. “Until then, the warden service had been my life.” By this time, he’d moved to Sunwapta Station, where a cohort of Jasper characters who were in the same boat made suffering the career blow a bit easier, but the writing seemed to be on the wall for the generalists. Horton said he felt exposed as he made the transition to a public safety specialist. “Working with visitor safety at a high level without a mountain guide background, I always felt a little vulnerable,” he admitted. However, Horton soon found his niche. His calm demeanour and situational awareness made him a natural fit for search and rescue operations and his good detective work saved the life of at least

Moreover, on those extended backcountry outings, Horton was able to play a role that so many of his seniors wardens fulfilled for him in the 31 years since he came out of warden school: that of a mentor to his younger colleagues. “It was fun to share what I know,” he said. “It was important to me to pass on those stories of the old times.” Like the story of when he was gored by a bison in Elk Island National Park, perhaps? Or when he was buried by an avalanche near Parkers Ridge? Or when he was scaling a cliff while the sedated wolf in his backpack gradually came to… Either way, it felt good to be an all-rounder again. BOB COVEY // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 169 // WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2020

LOCAL COMMUNITY

Eco-entrepreneurs brimming with zero-waste zeal adventure that included a stop in Indonesia, where she was helping build ecofriendly hostels and abiding by zero-waste practices, she is embracing her new role.

A new local business is refilling Jasperites’ household and personal care products, and with them, rekindling the idea of living a plastic-free lifestyle. When COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, recycling, along with everything else, promptly took a back seat to public safety. Here in Jasper, the municipality stopped accepting beverage containers, restaurants started using more disposable cutlery and local shoppers’ habits reflected those all over the world—namely, more stockpiling of groceries and essential supplies, plastic be darned.

“Every one of these products you can put in the ground,” Marshall said. “They’re not tested on animals, they’re all vegan and eco-friendly.”

JAR JAR BLING // JADE REFILLERY IS THE JASPER FARMER’S MARKET NEWEST VENDOR. ITS FOUNDERS HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL OFFER A STEPPING STONE TOWARDS A PLASTIC-FREE LIFESTYLE. // BOB COVEY

Meanwhile, over in her house on Geikie Street, Jasper’s Beth Leblanc was using the COVID-precipitated downtime to unpack a business idea she’d been mulling over. With an ever-growing pile of recycling reminding her it was now or never, Leblanc researched what it would take to start a much-needed refillery service in town.

“This is a stepping-stone to a more eco-conscious, plastic-free lifestyle,” said Jade Refillery’s Nicole Veerman, whose expertise Leblanc sought out to help launch the business.

“We were hoarding all our plastics in the trailer,” she recalled.

To Leblanc’s straight-ahead assertiveness and Veerman’s marketing and communication skills, Jade Refillery has added the passion and energy of Faith Marshall. Since July 1, Marshall has been getting Jasperites acquainted with the business via their stall at the Jasper Farmers’ Market. Marshall is Leblanc’s niece, and, fresh off a backpacking

Now, that same trailer is the mobile home of Jade Refillery, a place where customers can bring their own containers to fill up home care and personal products and never again have to buy plastic-bottled shampoo, laundry soap or hand sanitizer.

“I feel like we’re on the cusp of real change when it comes to the way people purchase things.”

Part of the appeal, the trio say, is learning about the products (“I didn’t know we could get mouthwash tablets until yesterday!” Leblanc said). And certainly it’s been fun interacting with customers who are excited to reduce their waste. But make no mistake, what inspires them to work outside their 9-5 desk jobs to make Jade Refillery a success is the idea that they can be a vehicle for change.

“Once you make that switch in your brain and you’re conscious of your plastic consumption it’s really hard to keep purchasing it,” Veerman said. “I feel like we’re on the cusp of real change when it comes to the way people purchase things,” Leblanc said. Jade Refillery is at the Jasper Farmers’ Market every Wednesday.

BOB COVEY // bob@thejasperlocal.com

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LOCAL WILDLIFE

WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2020 // ISSUE 169 // The Jasper Local // PAGE B6

Goslings and loon chicks have wildlife photographers all aflutter as spring fever sets in. // SIMONE HEINRICH PHOTO

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