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.

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.

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.

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.

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.