Small Stories from the Mountain Town of Jasper — Alberta, Canada
After a heartbreaking wildfire swept through the Canadian Rockies, a writer visits Jasper, Alberta, to meet a landscape that is healing itself and the people who are watching it recover.
Small Stories from the Mountain Town of Jasper — The Mountain Town of Jasper, Alberta, Canada, and Its Small Stories
After a heartbreaking wildfire swept through the Rocky Mountains, we meet a landscape that is healing itself and the people who are watching it recover.
Words & Photos Hur Taewoo
The Icefields Parkway in Alberta, Canada (a road about 230 km long that connects Banff and Jasper National Parks) is like a kaleidoscope cut from the scenery of the Rocky Mountains. Mountain ridges and forests unfold on both sides of the road, while glaciers and waterfalls appear and vanish. On the way to Jasper, the Athabasca River runs alongside the road, its current fierce. The ever-changing shapes of nature never grow boring, even without any special storyline, because they write a deep story simply by being what they are. The viewpoint rest area in front of the Columbia Icefield, the largest icefield south of the Arctic Circle, is a fitting place for the story to begin. A majestic sheet of ice blankets the peaks of the Rockies. Despite climate change, nature seems unchanged. Or perhaps it is simply so vast that the change goes unnoticed.
Before long, the remains of burned forest begin to appear here and there beside the road. The trees lie scattered as if they have lost their way. As the view, once blocked by mountain ridges, gradually widens, a small town appears ahead. This is Jasper, the heart of Jasper National Park in the northern Alberta Rockies. Embraced by vast wilderness, Jasper is now gauging how long its recovery will take. In 2024, a massive wildfire swept through the area, burning about 3 percent of the national park (330 square kilometers) and destroying about 30 percent of the buildings in the town of Jasper. Some 5,000 residents had to flee through smoke and flames. It was the largest wildfire in the history of the national park.
Nature regenerates on its own. That is the natural order of things. Jasper, swept by the fire, is following that order too. Nicolas, a guide with the local Wild Fire Picnic tour, says so with confidence. “We’ve never experienced anything like this before. So we don’t know how we should bring this forest back. We’re just leaving it alone and watching, so that nature can revive itself.” The tour starts from the Old Fort Point parking lot, about a five-minute drive from downtown Jasper, and follows a trail for about 4 kilometers. It cuts straight through the heart of the fire-ravaged forest. Most of the trees stand in rows on every side, bare and blackened like charcoal. The ground along the trail is covered with burned leaves and branches. Remarkably, about a year after the fire was put out, new shoots are sprouting here and there. Nicolas says, “The burned trees are already dead. But nature is coming back this quickly. Next year, it will change again.” At the Old Fort Point viewpoint, Jasper, nestled on its broad plain, and the surrounding mountains spread out in a single view. The buildings lost downtown are being cleared and rebuilt, and the blackened forest will gradually turn green.
The forests of the Rockies that the flames never reached remain as they were. Seen from a helicopter, the land around Jasper is dark and immense. The wounds of fire that I had witnessed on the ground shrink in comparison, and forest stretches all the way to the horizon. In fact, the forests of Jasper National Park are so densely packed that the fire also served, to some extent, as a thinning. Trees touched by sparks are blackened, and those suffering from the mountain pine beetle have turned a different color. Kristie, a pilot with Jasper Hinton Air, says, “That is Jasper’s nature, the way it has been since the Indigenous peoples.” She skillfully steers the helicopter, skimming past rugged peaks as if performing aerobatics and flying over herds of mountain goats at play. After about 15 minutes in the air, the helicopter finally lands on a summit at the boundary of Jasper National Park. Because flying over the national park is prohibited, this spot is ideal, a place for taking in the view and for yoga.
Kristie, who is both a pilot and a yoga instructor, drops off the group and gets the yoga mats ready. At a glance, we seem to have climbed above the tree line. The broad, flat summit is covered only with low grass and gravel. The peaks and ridgelines of the Rockies stretch out in every direction, pulsing like veins. Kristie calls together the people who had scattered to take photos. Now it is time for the highlight of the Jasper Heli Yoga program. Just as the name says, it is yoga by helicopter. On an unnamed summit in the Rockies, open to 360 degrees, we sit cross-legged. We relax and listen. Kristie’s instructions are simple: breathe in the air of the Rockies and feel connected to nature. I clumsily follow the cow pose, the cat pose and a simple sun salutation, and my excitement settles. I seem to sense the flow and sound of the air. Wind, petals, moisture, sunlight, calls of animals… However small the elements of nature may be, those small fragments lead us to perceive nature and life. In that moment, I become a small part of it too. Just as nature heals itself, as if I were healing myself.
A few days later, at the GoMedia conference held in Jasper, I spoke with a Jasper tourism representative. “More and more people who want to feel the nature of the Rockies with their whole bodies are coming to Jasper. It’s more spacious than any other mountain town in the Rockies. Once the facilities damaged by the fire are restored, tourism will find its footing again right away.” Jasper National Park welcomed more than 1.5 million visitors during the summer season of 2025. That is fewer than in 2023, but a dramatic increase compared with the summer of 2024, when no one could come. The very fact that GoMedia was held in Jasper shows Canada’s will, and its awareness, to move on to the next stage of travel. Without a doubt, Jasper will be shared with even more people than before.
Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge
Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge
A historic luxury resort that opened in 1922. Spread across about 2.9 square kilometers around Lac Beauvert, its spacious log cabins and chalets are laid out like a retreat village. An 18-hole golf course once named one of the best in Canada and The Jasper Planetarium, a night-sky observation facility, are also located within the resort.
Bear Hill Lodge
Bear Hill Lodge
Located on the northwest side of Jasper, at the border between forest and town, Bear Hill Lodge offers a range of accommodations, from studios to standalone log cabins. The cozily decorated interiors carry the feel of a mountain village. The shops and restaurants of downtown are an easy walk away.
Pyramid Lake
Pyramid Lake
A glacial lake about 5 kilometers northwest of downtown Jasper. Set in front of Pyramid Mountain, which rises 2,765 meters above sea level, the lake was barely affected by the 2024 wildfire. It is a favorite picnic spot for locals, with canoeing and kayaking in summer and activities such as skating and dogsledding in winter.
Peyto Lake
Peyto Lake
A glacial lake spread out below Bow Summit, the highest point on the Icefields Parkway. It is famous for its mysterious color, as if emerald paint had been stirred into the water, and for its subtle shape. It takes only about a 10-minute walk from the parking lot to reach it, so it is considered a must-visit stop on any trip to Jasper.
Harvest Food & Drink
Harvest Food & Drink
Harvest Food & Drink in downtown Jasper is a family-run local restaurant. Its breakfast and brunch dishes made with fresh ingredients, such as avocado toast and eggs Benedict, are popular, and the coffee brewed from fair-trade organic beans is excellent, too.
Jasper Food Tours
Jasper Food Tours
Founded in 2015, this is one of Jasper’s leading local tour operators. It offers the Downtown Foodie Tour, which serves up flavor and history in one outing, and the Wild Picnic Tour, which tells the story of Jasper’s heritage and its aftermath of the 2024 wildfire.
Jasper Hinton Air
Jasper Hinton Air
A premium helicopter tour company that lets you take in the hidden wonders of the Canadian Rockies from the sky. Based at Hinton airport on the outskirts of Jasper, it runs heli-yoga, heli-hiking, heli-picnics and heli-skiing, as well as private tours.
