The Jasper Local, March 1, 2021

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LOCAL + INDEPENDENT

MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2021 // ISSUE 183

WONDERS DOWN UNDER // Jasper’s Dominika Dobiasova gets first tracks in this ice cave along the Icefields Parkway. Where can you find this spot? Here’s a hint: when a snowflake lands on the top of the closest mountain, it could end up in one of three oceans. // LADA D PHOTOGRAPHY

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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 183 // MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2021

EDITORIAL //

Local Vocal Last edition, when I contacted Dr. Declan Unsworth for an interview to discuss the latest COVID-19 variants and the importance of taking measures to reduce further viral spread, Dr. Unsworth agreed to chat, but I sensed some hesitation.

I could hardly blame him. Talking about the pandemic is politically charged at best. At worst, it invites a cacophony of uninformed trolls to drown out any science and compassion that physicians like Dr. Unsworth bring to the table.

But Dr. Unsworth stuck his neck out anyway, and we discussed the potential dangers of Alberta’s reopening strategy while vaccines are still stuck in transit and new variants are on the rise. Dr. Unsworth is plugged in to the latest, peer-reviewed, credible coronavirus data and his reputation as a trusted professional working in the best interests of his patients and this community precedes him. I filed my report.

Then, the inevitable. We had no sooner put the story online than the keyboard warriors waded in. One anonymous commenter started disparaging nurses and chucking out nonsense about Nuremberg; another poster dragged out the tired (and dangerous) trope of there not being enough people dying of coronavirus to warrant concern; another troll called the doctor a “quack.”

Sadly, this is the world we live in, where anyone with a smartphone and a dumb idea can turn a conversation about community health and safety into a conspiracyladen argument. It’s exhausting.

Because it’s so draining, most of us who believe the experts and support the sacrifices that have been shown to make a difference in defeating the virus are reluctant to chime in. Fair enough. No one likes to be gaslit, and not everybody is prepared to engage in a “debate,” especially when a troll’s favourite tactic is to skew completely off-topic from the subject at hand.

I don’t like sticking my neck out, either.

It’s unfortunate that Albertans so often find themselves in a dilemma of whether or not to speak up and support the healthcare workers that are seeing the realities of the pandemic first hand, but it’s not hard to see why we’re in this situation. Our political leaders’ passivity has created this vacuum, out of which the most crass, inconsiderate and ignorant voices can echo.

Half measures, stilted responses and wishful thinking have meant the virus has had plenty of time to evolve in tandem with its hosts. A lack of decisive action and the absence of political will has allowed COVID-19 to stick around and play havoc in Albertans’ lives. This fire is still burning, and if we’re not willing to stamp it out completely, it will continue to flare up.

How do we do that? You won’t hear it from the lips of our Premier or his Health Minister, but there is a strategy for going to COVID Zero. Yes, it means a

serious five to seven-week lockdown. Yes, it means financially supporting businesses and their workers during that time. Yes, it means taking an active testing approach, and better contact tracing, and quarantine hotels while the vaccines roll out at the community level.

And yes, it means ignoring the bellyaching and insults that critics of such a plan will most certainly hurl.

Because once the numbers start to drop—and they will, as New Zealand, Vietnam and parts of Atlantic Canada have demonstrated—the public will come on board. That’s the key. Shifting public perspective is the anecdote to growing coronavirus fatigue. When we see decisive measures working we will empower communities and individuals—even those of us not normally inclined to engage.

It’s understandable why citizens and even local doctors may be hesitant to wade into public policy debates, but there’s no excuse for our leaders to ignore the mounting evidence that Alberta’s half-assed approach isn’t working. If you have zero patience for our dithering decision making, tell your community leaders that you support going COVID Zero. ___________________________ BOB COVEY // thejasperlocal@gmail.com

The Jasper Local //

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// LOCAL COMMUNITY

MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2021 // ISSUE 183 // The Jasper Local // PAGE A3

Mayor’s Award recipients specialize in comfort food and compassionate outreach Lynn and Andrew Wannop were not the first to find out that the Municipality of Jasper had some news to share with them.

“I was in a meeting with our school coordinator,” Lynn said. “All of a sudden my phone started going crazy.”

Lynn’s friends were blowing up her phone because they had just watched a two minute video in which Mayor Richard Ireland congratulated the owners of Coco’s Café for being selected for the Mayor’s Special Award for Humanitarianism.

“I bawled for three days,” Lynn said.

Andrew, a decidedly less-emotional type than his wife, said the video (watched in between loading the dishwasher at the café) “took some time to mentally process.”

“It was really nice,” Andrew finally said.

If his reaction seems reserved, it might be because the Wannops have always been community-minded business owners. They have always tried to help fellow Jasperites in need.

“That’s what gets me through life,” Lynn laughed.

Still, when the pandemic hit Jasper and Coco’s reached out, time and time again, to people who were vulnerable, it did not go unnoticed. They

Lynn and Andrew Wannop were recently awarded the Mayor’s Special Award for Humanitarianism. “Through their small business they encouraged and provided comfort, compassion, relief and outreach to the community of Jasper,” Mayor Richard Ireland said.//B COVEY

had sweets for grocery store workers. Savouries for pharmacy clerks. Gift certificates for garbage collectors. Cupcakes for bank tellers. In lieu of the annual Christmas Dinner at the Jasper Legion, they cooked, and helped deliver, 160 turkey dinners across town.

“The efforts of these two individuals softened the blow for so many during months of stress and uncertainty,” Ireland said.

The nominator, whose identity The Jasper Local agreed to protect (at least until she can tell Lynn and Andrew herself), said the tradition of community care and inclusiveness at Coco’s Café expanded with the arrival of COVID-19.

“This wasn’t a business

opportunity, this was humanitarianism at its best,” she said.

The Wannops also provided an opportunity for others to help. Coco’s set up an online portal though which people could donate to others. And a year after the pandemic was first declared, a sign in the café window implores those who can’t afford a meal to please let them know, no questions asked.

Years ago, when Lynn and Andrew first bought Coco’s Café, a friend gave them a piece of business advice they never forgot: If you own a restaurant, you can either have friends or money, not both.

Measured in friendships, the Wannops are rich indeed.

B COVEY // thejasperlocal@gmail.com

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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 183 // MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2021

LOCAL BUSINESS

New “boutique” pharmacy on Patricia Street to fill a niche A young entrepreneur will soon be putting a fresh face on a familiar Jasper retail location.

Jasper’s Tasha Porttin has big plans for the corner of Patricia Street and Miette Avenue. The pharmacist is taking over the space at 600 Patricia Street, where longstanding gift shop J&D Gifts is currently housed. Porttin, who together with her partner welcomed a baby into the world and built a house in the last year, is now poised to take on another life challenge: opening her own business.

“I’m extremely excited,” Porttin said. “Owning a pharmacy has been a dream of mine.”

Porttin has been a pharmacist for eight years; she moved to Jasper six years ago from Drayton Valley, and eventually took over as the manager at Rexall (now Rx Drugmart).

Now, Porttin is set to open her own pharmacy under the mettra Pharmacy banner. She plans on modelling her new business after her own

pharmacy practice: supportive, patient-oriented and preventative-care based.

“I would describe it as a boutique pharmacy,” she said. “It will have a modern design that gives a warm and welcoming atmosphere for customers.”

Porttin says there is room for a third pharmacy in Jasper.

“In my experience, there is an amount of goodwill that follows a specific pharmacist,” she said. “I’m looking to fill a niche.”

Porttin will take over the lease at 600 Patricia in the spring, with plans to renovate and open her doors by the summer.

“I’ve already received a very positive response from the community,” she said. “I can’t wait to welcome everyone once renovations are complete.”

BOB COVEY // thejasperlocal@gmail.com

PASSION FOR PATIENTS // Jasper pharmacist Tasha Porttin is excited to open a new pharmacy on Patricia Street in the summer. // BOB COVEY

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FRONT OF THE LINE // Jasper’s Wendy Hall has officially entered the 2021 municipal election race. Hall is the first candidate to file her nomination papers, according to the local elections officer, Christine Nadon. To facilitate social distancing and to encourage more candidates to run, the Alberta government passed an amendment to local election rules which created a longer nomination period for 2021. It opened on January 4 and closes at noon on September 20.

Hall, who is filing her nomination papers for the first time, made up her mind to run in November.

Election day is October 18. // BOB COVEY

JIBS AND JABS // Local rider Vit Sarse uses his creativity and a bungee cord to take the ultimate snowboard selfies. He laid out this handplant west of Jasper. // VIT SARSE

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MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2021 // ISSUE 183 // The Jasper Local // PAGE B2

LOCAL COMMUNITY

Cultural Kitchens cooking up community engagement “We’re so diverse here in Jasper, we have so much to offer, I think we should celebrate those things,” Woo said.

Chow mein is a classic Chinese dish that combines protein, veggies and crispy-on-theoutside, chewy-on-the-inside noodles, all fried to perfection in a tangy ginger-soy-oyster sauce.

To start off the celebration, Woo was dipping into the family recipe book to prepare what might be the quintessential Chinese-Canadian dish: chicken chow mein. Woo has fond memories of sitting down with his grandma for lunch, and spending time with his cousins, siblings, uncles and aunts. But Grandma Woo’s chow mein wasn’t just about the delicious food.

But to Jasper’s Chris Woo, chow mein just tastes like childhood.

“For me the taste is a memory,” Woo said from his office at Jasper’s Community and Family Services (CFS), where he works as a Community Development Coordinator.

Woo, who grew up in Port McNeill, B.C., was cooking up a big batch of memories on Sunday, February 28, when he donned the apron as part of Jasper’s inaugural Cultural Kitchens program, a new, online initiative which Woo and the Jasper Settlement

“I think of that social feeling of us all being together,” he said.

Jasper’s Chris Woo was serving up his Grandma’s famous chow mein Feb 28. // SUPPLIED

Services office hope will help spotlight newcomers to Jasper.

Woo knows he isn’t the only one longing for a time when community members can break bread together.

The idea of the Cultural Kitchens program was born with the thought of bringing back Jasper’s Community

Dinners in some form during the pandemic. The program is held over Facebook Live, a platform which broadcasts real-time video to Facebook, allowing users to interact with viewers and commenters.

Woo said by encouraging families and roommates to cook together, and with participants interacting together over social media, he hopes community connections can be fostered.

“We hope people get engaged, have some fun and want to try something new,” he said.

Jasper’s Cultural Kitchens will take place on the last Sunday of every month, from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Find the link by visiting the Jasper Settlement Services Facebook page.

BOB COVEY // thejasperlocal@gmail.com

MUSKRAT BLUES // Jasper wildlife photographer Simone Heinrich had a lucky encounter with a muskrat on the Athabasca River recently.

“It dove into the water a couple times and came back out on the ice to pose and clean itself, then started running pretty fast on the ice (it looked so funny) before vanishing in the water further away.”

Musrats remain active during winter months (they don’t hibernate). They mainly stay in their lodges and go on daily food finds nearby.

Kind of like Jasper residents during last month’s cold snap! // SIMONE HEINRICH PHOTOGRAPHY

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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 183 // MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2021

STORY AND PHOTOS BY DAVID HARRAP

A PAIR OF BROWN EYES:

A look at Jasper’s ravens BY: DAVID HARRAP “I looked at him, he looked at me . . . and all I could do was love him.”

(Apologies to The Pogues.)

Ravens hate crows . . . and crows hate ravens.

They are the Hatfields and McCoys of the avian world. Around St Patrick’s Day all the croaking ravens will suddenly disappear from town and in will come their cawing cousins. It’s the exact opposite in the Fall: the crows clear off and the big guys are back. Happens every year, like clockwork.

Norse god Odin had a couple providing intel; Charles Dickens had a pet raven named Grip; in Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge, the eponymous character wanders in and out of the novel with his talking raven; and Edgar Allan Poe had a “stately raven” starring in his famous poem.

Although it’s 180 years since Grip last dined on lead paint he’s still with us, for in true MontyPython style Dickens’s stuffed raven is nailed to its perch inside a display case that sits in the

At first light you’ll see ravens tracking over from the southwest (where they roost), the high flyers heading for the dump, the townies coming in low … sometimes upside down if you please, for ravens love to goof around.

Before we ran McDonald’s out of town (that was a coup, eh!), I remember watching ravens picking up discarded orders of hash browns and hockey-puck eggs, taking them to the roof of the restaurant where they hammered away at the contents, getting ketchup all over their beaks and looking like they’d been shot. Then sliding down the roof on the Styrofoam containers as if they were toboggans.

To the jaded eye, ravens are big black birds that get into big black garbage bags. Such people never see how smart they are and how beautiful their adornment. When the sun shines on their plumage it’s as if they’ve been dipped in oil.

Their feathers glisten with an iridescence of violet purple, midnight blue and copper-green … even bronze if you look the right way.

There’s a lot going for the raven: it’s the first bird mentioned by name in the Bible (Noah sent out a raven to check how the flood was doing );

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Rare Book Room of the Philadelphia library.

It’s easy to miss that ravens’ eyes are not “ghastly grim” black holes of devilry, rather their irises are dark brown. If you look closely you might see the sun and the mountains— even yourself—reflected in their wise eyes.

Ravens have skinny scaly legs, knobbly knees (well, that’s what they look like) and four toes (middle one faces back) for perching, making them experts at balancing on lamp poles, sign posts and all those ghastly cables that stitch up our towns. Bird on a wire—you bet! On cold days ravens huddle around, backs hunched, plumage fluffed out, looking like old Mother Hubbard wearing 15 pairs of drawers.

It was a minus 25 degrees Celsius morning and I’d popped into DJ’s beer cooler to warm up.

I was checking out stock when an old man came in. He had

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a backpack, a crooked wooden hiking stick with words roughly carved, and was wearing a frightful North Face jacket peppered from camp fires with dozens of tiny holes that showed feathers escaping. It was Himself—The Birdman of Robin Hill! I’d heard that he not only knows about birds, but birds also know about him.

Perfect.

I asked would he mind answering a few

“To the jaded eye, ravens are big black birds that get into big black garbage bags. Such people never see how smart they are and how beautiful their adornment.”

“Neophobia—fear of new things.” (Like me.

Every time my computer does an update I get scared.)

“They’re bait shy. Their jumping-jack performance is innate; hardly a learned response.”

“I thought it might be PTSD; you know, shot up the arse by farmers for hundreds of years, hit with brooms by folk taking Poe’s ghastly grim scaremongering as gospel.”

I picked up a six-pack of Lucky. The Birdman’s eyes told he wouldn’t be caught dead drinking that muck.

“I’ve heard their memory is best in the business.

Maybe that’s why one of Odin’s ravens could remember all the stuff he’d seen.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, “but I know they have facial recognition. Doesn’t matter what I wear—toques, jackets, balaclavas, bowlers. One Robbie Burns Day I came out in a kilt and tam-o-shanter and playing the bagpipes. . . damn! they still knew it was me!”

“Wow! There’s something for the government here.”

“They recognize different cars, too. When my old clunker quit and I got a pick-up, didn’t fool them one bit. They flew in front of the windshield hoping I’d stop and say hello.”

(Probably something here for Elon Musk, for his driverless cars R&D).

questions on ravens.“I know they’re omnivores but what’s their favourite grub?”

“What do you think?” he said.

“Bacon! Got to be … it’s the food of the gods!”

“Pizza. Ravens love fat, and a pepperoni pizza with double cheese is right up their alley.

Haven’t you noticed those discarded pizza boxes lying around town, centres drilled out like the good old boys have shot ‘em up? Ravens know what’s in the boxes.” Once, he said, he watched them attack a pizza box left by a garbage bin.

They were like black devils at a bonspiel, chasing it all over the ice.

“I’ve noticed they go through a peculiar routine when they come across grub. They jump up and down, gingerly approach it sideways, maybe take a daring stab at the food before flying off without feeding.”

“Neophobia.”

“Pardon?”

I asked if he had a pet raven. “Used to,” he said, “but a chap at the mine hit him with a lump of coal, and that was that. Said the ruddy thing kept pinching his meatball sandwiches.”

He said he best be going; on these winter roads it was a good two-hour drive back home. He picked up two cans of 8.6 beer, took another look at my selection, shaking his head as he left.

I paid for the beer, and as I came out of the store, there, on the bike rack, was a pair of brown eyes looking at me.

DAVID HARRAP

// thejasperlocal@gmail.com

________________________________ Jasper’s David Harrap is the author of the soon-tobe-published book Over The Mountains, Under The Stars. If you look closely you might see the sun and the mountains— even a six pack of Lucky— reflected in his wise eyes.

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The Jasper Local // ISSUE 183 // MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2021

LOCAL WILDLIFE

Wildlife photographer shining light on misunderstood, keystone species A cougar in the west end of town hasn’t been spotted since February 4 but wildlife photographer John E. Marriott knows that doesn’t mean the cat isn’t nearby.

Marriott, who lives in Canmore and documents wildlife and the struggles for survival they face, recently embarked on an ambitious cougartracking project, trekking hundreds of kilometres from dawn ‘til dusk over the course of a month in order to locate, photograph, and ultimately shed light on these mysterious cats.

“Cougars have this fearsome reputation,” Marriott said in an interview. “But in reality these animals are incredible in the sense that they live right in our backyards, yet we almost never see them.”

Marriott has a long history of documenting wild animals and their plights, using his images to raise awareness of the Alberta’s wolf cull, grizzly bear hunt and other human/wildlife conf licts taking place in Canada. This past January, Marriott wanted to focus his lens on a different apex predator, the rarely-seen Puma concolor. Marriott wanted to show not only how cougars play a vital role in our mountain ecosystems, but how they’re hunted.

But first he had to find one.

Marriott had tracked cougars before. He put in close to 70 days of cougar tracking in B.C.’s Kootenay Mountains the year previous, finding plenty of fresh tracks, only to have

the trail go suddenly cold. This wasn’t the normal set back he’d feel when an animal he was tracking bested his efforts, however. This was disappointment during hunting season.

“It was extraordinarily discouraging,” Marriott said.

“Every cat we would get on our trail cameras would just disappear, and you knew exactly why.”

Big cat hunters use speciallytrained, GPS-collared hounds to track their prey. When the dogs lock onto a cougar (or lynx, or bobcat), they chase them to exhaustion, until the cat finally climbs a tree.

At that point the hunter can locate the hounds using his GPS device, walk (or more commonly, drive or snowmobile) to where the signal is transmitting from, and blast their “trophy” out of the tree.

“It’s reprehensible and completely unsporting,” Marriott said.

It’s also disruptive to the ecosystem, he said. Cougars are a keystone species, an animal whose healthy populations help to maintain landscapes and biodiversity.

“Managing” predator populations with hunting has shown to cause more conf lict with livestock and pets, Marriott said.

“Cougars in particular manage their own populations through extreme territoriality,” he said.

Marriott is fascinated with how cougars can live in that narrow interface between communities and wilderness. When he finally came

MASTERFUL CONCEALERS // These cats were spotted by Bow Valley pro shooter John E. Marriot, 13 days into a month-long photography project to raise awareness of cougars. // JOHN E. MARRIOTT

upon a mother cougar and her kitten during his recent tracking project, he was less than one kilometre from a Bow Valley resort, and only 150 metres away from a popular hiking and biking trail.

For several hours over the course of the next two days, he was rapt.

“It was probably the greatest wildlife experience of my life, because not only did I get to see them but I got to spend time with them,” he said.

Soon, Marriott’s followers and viewers of the Exposed Wildlife Conservancy’s Big Cat Project will be able to spend time with the cougars—vicariously, at least.

Marriott’s far-reaching videos, books and images have had an effect on public policy when it

comes to other wildlife issues, and he hopes his efforts in tracking and documenting cougars can similarly help apply pressure on governments to address how this indicator species is managed.

In the meantime, his message for Jasperites—and to all Canadians who live close to cougar habitat—is that although these predators are equipped with all of the tools to do us harm, instances of humancougar conf licts are extremely rare.

“I guarantee right now that somewhere around Jasper there’s a cougar on a kill that nobody knows about, other than to see some tracks,” he said. “They are masterful concealers.”

BOB COVEY // thejasperlocal@gmail.com

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LOCAL SPORTS

MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2021 // ISSUE 183 // The Jasper Local // PAGE B6

FRESH SHEETS // Thanks to lifted restrictions and superb ice-making on a renovated facility by Jasper Arena staff Peter Bridge and Karen Kovich, Jasper Minor Hockey players hit the ice on Monday, February 22, for the start of an eight-week mini-season. Under the current restrictions, a maximum of 10 people per group are allowed on the ice surface at one time. Other new rules include no spectators; players and coaches must arrive no earlier than five minutes prior to practice; and groups must arrive dressed to play. Coaches should take note that even though the extra protection is in keeping with pandemic protocols, skate guards should be taken off before getting on the ice (just ask Coach Mike Kliewer). // BOB COVEY