11/06/2025 by photosbyhank

The Road to Jasper

It was another more cloud than sun day on Sunday, May 18th. We were going to check out the Jasper townsite and a bit of the surrounding area today.

Jasper is often our go to destination, but after the wildfire last year, we decided we’d stay somewhere else to keep out of the way. One of the first images we saw come out of the fire scene was the singed sign at Wicked Cup and a totally destroyed building behind it. Wicked Cup was our go to place for tea/coffee and breakfast as it was always good and the service was top notch so there was a level of sadness involved with a visit into Jasper.

I had planned to make a stop or two along the way and the first place I wanted to go was Rearguard Falls. We had stopped there in the fall back in 2023 and I wanted to see it in the spring. The parking lot was jammed full so we continued on our way.

Mount Robson was only partly peeking out of the clouds so we felt there was no point in stopping.

When we got to Overlander Falls, the parking lot was almost empty, so we pulled in there to check it out. Like the hike down to Rearguard Falls, it’s a pretty easy walk. It looks to be a bigger falls than Rearguard is.

We hung around for a bit listening to the roar of the water and were looking at leaving when we saw some kayakers pulling in to check out the route through the falls and rapids.

They obviously agreed on a plan of attack as they were soon heading down the falls.

Having made it safely down, they didn’t take all that long to regroup, shoot the rapids, and continue downriver.

Lynda liked this tree stump and wanted here photo take with it. I’m always happy to take photos of my bride as she never used to like me taking them. It never stopped me, but she didn’t like it.

The downside of walking down to see the falls, is it’s pretty much uphill all the way back to the truck. But, it wasn’t too strenuous a hike and soon we were back on our way into Jasper.

When we got to town, we drove around a bit to see what was gone and what was still standing. I felt a little sad remembering places that used to be, but knowing no one died in the fire helped put it into perspective.

We parked and wandered around a bit to find a new cafe so Lynda could have a good London Fog. We had heard Andromeda Coffee was pretty good, so we decided to check it out. And it was very good. We’ll have to try it again on our next visit.

We checked out more of the streets while on foot and decided to try someplace different for lunch and ended up at Estío Jasper. The place was hopping and we each decided on one of the grilled cheese sandwiches and sat out on the patio to enjoy the weather.

After enjoying our lunch, we decided we’d go over to check out the Pine Bungalows and Jasper Park Lodge areas to see how they had done.

Before we did that though, I got into the crazy lineup at the only gas station standing to top up my fuel. It is beyond ridiculous that in the 9 months since the fire, no re-construction of any building has commenced. Even crazier is the fact a 2nd gas station hasn’t opened, or that the town hasn’t been allowed to put in tanks with a cardlock to at least make it easier for tour buses to fuel up. I would hate to be stuck in the line up once full blown summer season is upon us. It would be entertaining as hell to sit and watch though.

I was in and out of the gas station quicker than expected and soon we were heading over to the Pine Bungalows. We had stayed there back in 2021 and liked it so we wanted to see if it survived the fire unscathed; it had.

We made our way over to the Jasper Park Lodge and there were a lot of burned trees on the way in but it looked to us that any damaged buildings were along the golf course and not in the main lodge area itself. The trees however, were crispy for as far as the eye could see.

We pulled into the Lake Annette parking lot and walked down to the lake.

There were a couple of scraggly looking cow elk hanging out near the lake and I don’t think she was all that happy to have her photo taken. I was a long ways away and had to crop this in to see the expression on her face.

We backtracked a bit and drove up the Maligne Lake Road to the Lookout. The fire made it a whole lot easier to see the valley from the lookout. For many years, you looked through the gaps in the trees to see anything.

Now that we could see through the forest, it was surprising to see how close Maligne Canyon is to the road and parking lot.

It was getting to be time to head back for supper so we didn’t drive very far up the road before we turned around to head to BC.

We hit some rain on and off on the drive and as we got close to the cabin, Lynda pointed out that the 1 cloud in the area looked like rain so we should go to town for supper. I really didn’t want to cook over the fire either so I wasn’t about to argue with her. (It didn’t appear to have rained when we got back.)

We went back to Caribou Grill to have a drink and dessert like we told the waiter we would.

We actually had a meal too but kept it small to make it possible to have dessert.

Lynda had seen an Icetini listed on their online menu but not the printed menu. When she asked about it, they told us it was coming off the menu as Ice Wine has getting more expensive, it soon wouldn’t be worth making, but they could make her one. It consists of ice wine, vodka and frozen grapes. When the bartender brought it over, she explained that was the very last ounce of ice wine in the place. Lynda really enjoyed it and when the waitress asked if she wanted another drink, she said; “No, because you can’t make me another one of these.” It made me smile.

We enjoyed our supper and shared the Caribou Coupé. It was as good as advertised but I didn’t take any photos of it.

We headed back to the cabin for our last night of vacation.

We didn’t even have a fire before bed, just a nice cup of tea.

26/07/2024 by photosbyhank

Jasper

It’s been 2 days since a massive wild fire roared through part of the town of Jasper, Alberta. It’s looking like about 30% of the buildings were destroyed, but luckily, none of the infrastructure ones. Updates have been slow in coming so I don’t know if the Pines Bungalow survived or not. I know some of the buildings across the river at the Japer Park Lodge were destroyed and some damaged.

My news cast broke the story that the fire had entered the town around 6:40 pm and it wasn’t long before I saw a photo that hurt my heart to see; The Maligne Lodge and Wicked Cup were fully engulfed in flames and it was obvious that there would be nothing left to save. As they are on the south west edge of town, all I could imagine was the fire roaring through, leaving nothing but smoking remains behind. Thankfully, this wasn’t to be the case. Firefighters managed to save more than they lost. A most impressive feat considering flames were reported to be over 100 meters high and moving forward at approximately 15 meters per minute, pushed by up to 100 kilometer per hour winds.

While I am happiest outside and I can generally find happiness in most of the places I’ve visited, Jasper is one of my favorite places in the whole wide world. Even with everything being either uphill or downhill, I always found the pace of life around Jasper to be relaxing. More importantly, my bride finds it relaxing and that makes me happy as relaxing isn’t exactly her strong suit. I can re-visit places in Jasper over and over and never get bored, be it, a point of interest or restaurant I like, and there are many of those.

Wicked Cup has become our go to place for breakfast and or tea/coffee over the past few years. The staff changes enough that we didn’t actually get to know them all that well, but we never had a bad experience there.

Outdoor breakfast at Wicked Cup, August 2021

Looking at the map of where the fire has gone, it appears that both the Whistler and Wapiti campgrounds are probably gone. With no official update out though, I can’t be sure of that. Lynda and I have camped at Wapiti a time or two over the years. Once Adam came along, we’ve stayed in an oTENTic at Whistler and that changed our camping habits for a few years.

The lap of luxury at site #5 back in August of 2014

While it’s not exactly inexpensive to go to Jasper, it’s not really all that bad as a long weekend holiday and Lynda and I have made those happen for getaways to relax and recharge over the years.

We’ve stayed at different hotels over the years and have never really had a bad experience. None of them were the Ritz, but I’ve never stayed their so I don’t know if I’m missing out on anything.

Looking over the Tonquin Inn in August of 2021.

I’ve always preferred Japer to Banff even though my first job after graduating from SAIT back in 1992 saw me as the camp photographer at the Banff National Army Cadet Camp by the base of Cascade Mountain. I would come out of the barracks every morning, look up at the mountain across the road and exclaim; “That is the coolest thing ever.” It never got old once in the 8 weeks I was there. The 17 straight days of rain wasn’t a fun time, lol. Even back then, the townsite of Banff was just so busy with people everywhere. Jasper by comparison, feels like Mayberry, and I never watched The Andy Griffith show.

Once, we had to wait in line for a venue, well twice if you count the hour plus traffic line up for construction on the way to the Jasper SkyTram. The wait for the tram was about the same, but 10 years have passed and in multiple trips since, the wait for anything has been pretty much nonexistent.

While Japer isn’t exactly a metropolis, it isn’t hard to find good food. Some places like Wicked Cup and Evil Dave’s Grill have become go to favorites, while a place like L&W is a comfortable old favorite.

I mentioned earlier that I found my time in Jasper relaxing, even when my bride drags me out before midnight to go look at the Perseids Meteor Shower up at Pyramid Lake. I got a few photos I was happy with and we even got some with the northern lights. Even with getting back to the hotel after 2 am, that night was totally worth the lack of sleep.

Lynda and I made our last trip to Jasper last October for her birthday. We stayed in Hinton to reduce costs and accepted the extra hours drive to get to places. We attended Symphony Under the Stars at The Jasper Park Lodge and afterwards, drove up to Maligne Lake hoping to get some night sky photos. It was a bit surreal being the only ones at a major tourist attraction but so much fun. Even with having to drive all the way back to Hinton afterwards. Somehow though, morning came super early but fatigue wasn’t an issue. I’m going with the mountain air as the reason.

The Jasper Park Lodge in October of 2023.

While watching the news tonight, I heard Jasper’s mayor say he’d lost his home in the fire and it was the only one on the block to be lost. It was his 2nd birthday when his family moved in, 67 years ago. People often say their leaders are out of touch with the masses. I believe that as life shattering as this is for everyone affected by the fire, having someone in exactly the same boat will benefit the town in the long run. The problem will be that it probably will be a long run.

I have no doubt that Jasper will rebuild. I have no doubt that in some ways, it will be better than ever. It’s just never going to be the same for many of us.

I was hoping to get to Jasper next month for holidays but even if I can find a place to stay, I don’t know if I could handle seeing the destruction. It’s been bad enough seeing all the dead trees from the pine beetle invasion. Charred remains don’t sound any better.

21/08/2018 by photosbyhank

Westward ho

Even though the idea for this post has been rattling around my brain for a couple of years, I still didn’t get on it to publish it when I wanted to. I did think the date I was shooting for was in July but even so, I still wasn’t ready for that either.

They say that home is where the heart is and even though we left the sticks of Quebec four decades ago; I still think of it as back home.

June 2nd, 2018 marked the 40th anniversary of the Broomfield clan arriving in Red Deer. I was 12 years old, my brother; Kevin, was 11 and my baby sister; Lucille, was 5.

We left our little winterized cottage at Keatley Lake, Quebec on May 26th, 1978. Five of us in a green 1970ish Mercury Meteor heading towards Fort St. John, BC in search of work for my dad.

This is from 2011. It looked a lot better when we left it. Gone is the covered stone veranda, large picture window and screen door. The chimney looked better back in the day as well.

The view is pretty much the same as when we left. We had a gravel driveway here and that’s about all that’s different.

I don’t really remember much of the actual trip other than it was a lot of sitting in a hot car. I know we stopped in Sault Ste. Marie and English River as our Ontario sleeping spots and Brandon as our Manitoba stop. I don’t remember the other sleeping spots.

I remember seeing the vegetation thin out as we approached Sudbury and the closer we got, the less plants there were. It seemed a bit surreal driving through a city that looked like it should be on the surface of the moon. We saw the giant “nickel” up on the hill and the really, really tall smokestack that was the cause of the lack of vegetation.

I do remember stopping in Lethbridge when we had car trouble and dad was going to look for a job until we saw a group of people sitting in a park passing a brown paper bag around and drinking out of it and mom was “nope”. I remember getting to Calgary as it was getting dark and mom was “too big”.

I remember as we were approaching Red Deer and were coming down Antler Hill my sister really, really had to pee so we pulled to the side of Highway 2 for her to squat. Turns out this would be foreshadowing of her need to learn how to use squat toilets when she moved to Beijing, China in 2012.

The barn was in a lot better shape when we stopped there the first time.

Wouldn’t want to stop along here these days.

We got to Red Deer and drove through town, stopping on the north side near the edge of town at The Bluebird Motel for the night. The motel was torn down years ago and I couldn’t find any photos of it.

Former location of the Bluebird Motel

When mom and dad went in to register; the desk clerk looked at their last name and said he had some other Broomfield’s there already. “A really tall guy with a really short pregnant woman?” My mom asked.

Turns out my uncle Jerry and aunt Annette who had left about 2 weeks ahead of us had arrived at the same motel the day before us.

Mom liked the look of Red Deer and decided we should see what we could find here for work and housing.

I don’t remember how long we were at the motel but soon we were all moving into a duplex on 63rd Street in the Highland Green neighbourhood. Dad got a job at the Revlestoke lumber yard for $4.50/hr – $2.00/hr less than what he was making in Quebec.

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My aunt and uncle only stayed with us a couple of days before deciding to head back to Quebec. My cousin Anita was born down there a couple of months later. They would move to Calgary a couple of years later.

We were only in the duplex for a month or so. We moved a bit north to the Mustang Acres trailer court. That’s right, we were now officially trailer trash.

Same address but different trailer than what we lived in.

The park has changed some in the ensuing years (it’s actually trashy now).

I started grade 8 at GH Dawe school that September. Apparently my grades were good enough that I didn’t have to do my grade 7 exams. I remember laughing when people said the K-grade 8 school was big. As a little grade 7 student I was in a grade 7-11 school with over 600 student and an attached French school with around 800 students.

Looks a lot different today than 40 years ago.

Grade 8 was the best year of my scholastic career. I wasn’t an A student by any means (except in French. It was like my grade 2 Quebec French so it was actually easy.) My new friends and I spent every lunch hour out playing sports and our principle, Don Campbell, came out every day to coach us, no matter the weather. I was part of the “Outstanding Students” group that year. I still remember how mad the brainiacs were at us. Apparently they didn’t base it on grades for the first time ever.

Summer of 1979 saw us all fly back down east to visit everyone and arrange to get some of the stuff we left behind. I really don’t know how my parents managed to have enough money for airline tickets and be able to rent a car for the couple weeks we were there, but somehow they did it.

It was nice to go back as that would be the last time I would see 3 of my 4 great grandparents. I also got to spend a bit of time with my friend Adam Kerr (who I knew as Darren at the time). I haven’t seen Adam since, but FaceBook allowed us to re-connect.

Dad had moved on to work at the Coca-Cola plant and then he was working in the construction field for Bennett and White on the new Normandeau school.

Because we lived north of 67th Street I couldn’t go back to GH Dawe for grade 9. I had to go to Normandeau.

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Another year, another school. And what a shitty school it was. I had an English teacher that was abusive (not to me, but others) and a bit crazy. (He left part way through the year and we drove the substitute out too.) Their replacement was a good guy though. The gym teacher had a bad case of short man syndrome and I’m pretty sure he still does. I did have a couple of teachers that were good. The students were another thing at that school. I think I know what it feels like to attend reform school. I had more bullies in one class than I’d had in my previous 8 years of school and I’d had more than a few over the years.

January of 1980 saw us move to the Belvedere Apartments complex on the south hill. It was a low rental townhouse complex but they were still called apartments.

The fences are new since we lived there.

These trees weren’t here back in the day.

As much as I hated being at Normandeau School, I hated the idea of going to a new school even more so I refused to switch to West Park Junior High like my brother did. I figured it would be bad enough to that I had to go to high school in the fall and I already knew my school bullies.

I managed to pass all my grade 9 classes with fairly average marks. I had decided not to take French for the first time in my life as it was optional. I took Art instead and was really enjoying it until my pregnant teacher had to leave to have the baby and her substitute and I did not see eye to eye. I managed to transfer into French for 1/2 a semester and apparently got the 3rd highest mark in the City on the final exam. (Something I didn’t even know until someone I beat on the test told me in grade 10.)
I tried band for the 1st and last time in grade 9. I tried to play the trombone because the 2 cutest girls in the band played it. (Turned out I couldn’t read the music but I could kind of follow along. I transferred out of band too.)

September of 1980 saw me start at Lindsay Thurber Composite High School (Later changed to Comprehensive.).

It was the start of my 4 years there. (Yes I know high school is only 3 years but I had some issues and I never really liked being in school.)

My son Adam and his friend Taylor ahead of their graduation earlier this year.

Well that is enough early history of the Broomfield clan in Alberta.

And so while a whole lot of my history has happened out here in Alberta I still sometimes miss the quiet life I had in Quebec. I wasn’t happy to leave my friends and life behind to move but as I’ve aged I have come to be thankful that we made the move. While I don’t think I would of been an ignorant hillbilly if we had of stayed, I realized that I learned different things living in the city. And for that I am forever grateful to my parents that we made the move.

I’ve been back 5 times in 40 years and I was hoping to be able to go back this year. There is still time so you never know.