CANADA Part 2: Small-town stories with strangers
What remains of Jasper after last summer's fire
The snowy peaks jutting boldly into the cerulean sky above the cyan lakes looked like they’d been generated by AI, with an emphasis on artificial. But the Canadian Rockies—the True North, strong and free and all that—make up their own rules for how nature gets to look. We pressed on, slowing occasionally to let a herd of bighorn sheep cross the road or to admire mountain goats, elk, beaver dams, and bald eagles.
For two solid days, the cinematic view out the windshield of Walter, our big yellow adventure truck, left us starstruck, like 80s fan girls perusing issues of Tiger Beat. Many of the lakes were still edged with sparkling shards of ice, like the coarsely salted rim of a giant blue margarita.
The unruly grey-green rivers stubbornly ignored any suggestions of where their banks should be, sending brave young rivulets hither and yon around sandbars strewn with snags. The dark and deep forests summarily denied any requests to share their secrets, and the slowly churning glaciers went by the beguiling name of ice fields, as if buttercups and daisies might spontaneously burst forth one day. Jasper National Park is something out of a fairy tale.
Last summer, however, that fairy tale took a dark turn, like an original story penned by the Brothers Grimm rather than its syrupy Disney counterpart.
As we neared the actual town of Jasper, the heart of the national park, the scenery suddenly shifted. The formerly impenetrable forests were suddenly exposed by disturbingly bright sunlight; the trunks of the majestic trees reduced to spindly blackened sticks—crispy relics of what once was. In some places, fallen trees littered the ashen ground like dead soldiers on a battlefield. In others, tidy stacks of cut timber sat aside freshly sawn stumps ringed with sawdust. The sky was still blue, and the creeks still ran cold and clear, but the forest was charred and barren.
Entering the southern end of town, the scorched woodlands subsided, and the burnt remains of man-made structures appeared, entire city blocks and neighborhoods now flat and gray, sectioned off with blue metal fencing and no trespassing signs. Small villages of matching government-issued modular dwellings stood on raised blocks in austere grid patterns, crowded into hastily cleared lots.
Andy and I drove through the town slowly, then found a place to park next to the ruins of the Episcopal church. We sat in the truck for a few moments to gather our courage, then set out to find local people who might be willing to talk to us1, sharing their traumatic, still-fresh stories of last summer. But we wondered: was this even a good idea at all?
We spoke to two park rangers at the historic stone lodge in the center of town. They recommended we talk to anyone we encounter and noted a coffee shop popular with the locals. Next, we spoke to Nick, the firefighter who answered the door at the station. He likewise didn’t have time to talk but had a few recommendations for us. Sitting at a cafe over lunch, we met Jasper’s mayor, whose own home of 67 years was consumed by the flames; as well as the town’s indigenous people’s liaison and the senior lead of The Resilience Institute. All three were welcoming and friendly, assuring us there were many stories to be told—but none had time right then. It was the middle of a workday, of course. We were striking out.
But we had come hoping for stories. All we had so far was the skeleton of bare bones facts—disturbing as they were—which we had learned from online sources2, as well as the helpful staff of the Visitor Experience Centre in town:
The summer of 2024 was unusually hot and dry in Jasper National Park, and fire bans were strictly enforced.
In the early evening of July 22, lightning ignited several small wildfires both north and south of Jasper.
Swirling blasts of wind fanned the flames into a fast-moving frenzy
At 9:45 PM that same day, the Municipality of Jasper officially declared a state of emergency.
Fourteen minutes later, the evacuation order was given for the entire town, and then, twenty minutes after that, the whole national park, as well.
By July 25, all 25,000 civilians had been evacuated—the town, the summer staff, and all the tourists—all via one narrow road toward northeastern British Columbia, as the other two roads were threatened by the fires.
A third of the structures in town were consumed, including entire apartment buildings, houses, hotels, and other businesses.
No civilian lives were lost, but one 24-year-old firefighter was killed in the line of duty.
Residents were not allowed to return to what was left of their town until August 16. Half the population was displaced.
By the end of our two days in Jasper, I had overheard half a dozen conversations between locals, all of them focused on where are you living now, and how are you holding up, and do you have what you need. In addition to our unintentional eavesdropping, we did eventually find people to interview. Even if I limit myself here to only the highlights of my three most significant conversations, this post will likely still be too long. Consider yourself warned.
Diana
When we first saw Diana enter the coffee shop, we were struck by what today’s youth would call main character energy. She was not young, but her presence lit up the entire establishment as soon as she entered. She seemed to know everyone and toured the room like the popular host of a posh party, giving hugs and heartfelt hellos to young and old alike. Her straight white-blonde hair, cut into a stylish bob, swayed and bounced along with her gregarious movements, and her brilliant smile was returned by all who encountered it. Everything about her, down to her flowered green raincoat, effused joy. One of the baristas brought out her regular steaming beverage before she’d even had a chance to approach the counter.
As I observed her outgoing manner, I saw her strike up a conversation with a man who identified himself as an American tourist. He appeared shy, stumbling through a few awkward sentiments about wanting to support Canada in light of everything in the news. As she warmed up to him and began enthusiastically welcoming him to Canada, pushing for more information about his life in the States, he appeared to be scanning for the nearest off-ramp. Glancing down at my red t-shirt, which sported a small maple leaf and the word SORRY, I saw my opportunity.
Diana and I hit it off right away. Within seconds of introducing myself and tugging on my shirt so she could see it better, she was pulling me in for a hug and proclaiming her love for me and for Americans in general. She was a foreigner, too, she explained, which I’d guessed from her UK accent, and had only been in Jasper for 18 years. Several more hugs followed over the course of our conversation.
Diana counted herself one of the lucky ones. Her side of her street went untouched. When she returned to town on August 16, her grass was still green, her flowerbeds still colorful. Across the street, blue fencing and rubble. Even with a house intact, the trauma of the event and the impact on her community has taken its toll on her, but her focus has been on finding practical ways to help others. Her daily trip to the coffee shop is part of her effort—forming connections with people, paying special heed to the lonely ones, the struggling ones.
As a former art teacher specializing in textiles, Diana has now turned to painting to work through the heavy emotions that still come and go. She is part of the local artists’ guild and is excited to participate in this summer’s gallery exhibition, which will feature both guild artists and local amateurs who want to try their hand at processing their feelings through creative expression. The exhibit will run from July 22 to August 16; the same time frame the town sat empty of its residents last year.
Annegret (Anna)
Anna sat in an Adirondack chair on the patio of Jasper’s Legion Hall, sipping a glass of wine, but not appearing attached to anyone else. We had been advised to check out the Legion, as it was a mild and sunny Friday evening and many locals would likely be there to enjoy the patio scene. We found it as vibrant as promised, to the point that we couldn’t find a place to sit at first. When the two seats next to Anna opened up, we swooped in and claimed them. Andy turned to chat with the two construction workers to his left. I turned toward Anna, to my right.
Right away, she asked where I was from. She has lived in this community of less than 5,000 year-round residents for long enough to recognize someone from the outside. She herself is still an outsider, she confessed, having only moved there from her native Germany nineteen years ago. She pointed out her husband and adult sons at a table nearby, but seemed happy to have another woman, close enough in age, for conversation.
Anna did lose her home in the fire. She said it so matter-of-factly, like it was simply par for the course around here. She’s working hard to take it all in stride. Fires happen. The forest has to regenerate itself, and the town will regenerate as well—this town has always loved and supported one another.
Fortunately, she and her husband were able to get into a rental home, upon return from evacuation, in one of the unaffected neighborhoods. For that, she feels fortunate. So many are still in temporary housing or staying with friends or family.
When I probed deeper, though, Anna admitted that one of the hardest parts for her was the loss of her gardens. She had lovingly cultivated her flowers and landscaping plants—so many different kinds—and her three birch trees at the center of it all.
“Ah, now I’m going to get teary, talking about my plants,” she said, choking on her words and reaching over to pat my arm. “I loved them. My favorite thing to do was just be outside with my plants, getting my hands dirty and nurturing them just so. How silly to get emotional over plants, right?”
I assured her it was not silly at all and told her about my childhood friend, Alison, whose house was burned down by a serial arsonist in 2010.3 A profound part of Alison’s loss centered around the gardens and landscaping she had so lovingly designed and cared for over the years.
The worst part about living in the rental house now is Anna can’t garden. Rentals and their rules, you know. She asked us where we were going to camp that night and, when I admitted I didn’t yet know—a common occurrence in our nomadic lifestyle—she lamented the fact that she couldn’t offer for us to park at her house. There was barely enough parking at the rental for themselves. But at their old house, before the fire . . .
All of Jasper’s town history and culture will forever be divided, it seems, into before and after the fire.
Isabella
Isabella had lived all of her twenty years in the same house until last July. As a college student-athlete, she is now home for the summer, working toward a career in tourism marketing and resuming her hobbies of trail running and mountain biking. Isabella and I sat down on a log park bench, the sun illuminating her already glowing face and the light breeze tugging at strands of her long, tied-back, strawberry-blond hair. I asked her about the day the fire broke out.
“I was downtown,” she began. “We ran into one of our family friends who’s on the volunteer fire department—it was super windy—and he’s like, ‘Do you feel that wind? That’s the devil’s wind.’” A storm cloud passed briefly over Isabella’s eyes. “That’s what he called it, and that just stuck in my brain. But, I mean, we live in wildfire country, right? So, it’s always a threat.”
This time, the threat was more serious than the smaller fires of the past. A little while later, she was contacted by some of her family members who work for Parks Canada. They had inside information shortly before it was released to the general public. “They were, like, ‘Hey. This fire is NOT contained. Get outta here.’”
She and her mom packed the car with their camping gear—the tent and air mattresses, then each grabbed a few personal belongings. When she opened her suitcase later, she was appalled at the odd assortment of things she’d thrown in, and the lack of things she actually needed. She realizes now she was panic-packing. “Yeah, all the things you’re supposed to do? It wasn’t happening. My brain was off.”
Isabella and her mother, along with much of their extended family and neighbors, pitched their tents in a school yard in Valemount, British Columbia, one of many tiny towns who opened their arms to thousands of Jasper refugees. “At first, when we were evacuated, I was kind of like, ‘If our house goes, I’m gonna be fine. It’s gonna be fine.”
“Because it’s just stuff,” I suggested.
“Right. It’s just stuff, and that’s what my mom kept telling me—’Oh, it’s just things. You still have all your memories.’ But it’s hard after that because we’re getting all these photos. The first one we got was—there was this white church kind of in front of our house—and it was, like, a photo of that church . . . in flames. So, then we were, like, ‘Oh.’”
“People were texting you photos?” I clarified.
“Yeah. Me and my mom finally shut our phones off because there’s nothing you can do about it.”
A week later, the evacuees were given a map of the town, with the buildings that had burned noted in red.
“And did you lose your home?” I hated to have to ask the question.
Isabella bravely maintained her eye contact while she chewed on her bottom lip and gave me a tiny nod of the head.
“My house was on the last street to burn. Down by the park, one side of the street was fine—green grass, no problems—but my side, . . .” She spread both hands apart and toward the ground. “. . . it was leveled.” She continued. “Once we found out ours was gone, it’s almost like when someone dies and you have that reality—like, it’s not real, ‘cause that’s the house I grew up in. I’ve only ever lived in that one house.”
I let out the breath I realized I’d been holding. “So, that house is more than a house. It’s more than a building. It’s your entire identity.”
Isabella gave me another grim nod, accompanied by a sad smile. “Yeah. Totally.”
The entire town remained evacuated until the 3rd week of August, only three days before Isabella was scheduled to return to her studies at a university in Nova Scotia. Her mother gave her the option to fly back to school without returning to Jasper first to see the site of their missing home.
“What was your decision there?” I asked.
“I wanted to see the house. I wanted to see what my house looks like now—I saw the photos—I just wanted to be standing in front of it.”
The sight of the town filled with twisted metal, singular brick chimneys and useless stone walls, monochrome shells of cars, and enormous piles of debris, was more impactful than she had anticipated. She suddenly didn’t feel the courage to face regular life as a college student. Her mother convinced her to go anyway. “It’ll be better for you if you do go. If you’re there and you hate it, you can come home.” Despite her struggles, Isabella stayed.
Now home on summer break, Isabella and her mother are living across town with a family member whose home was spared. Life goes on in Jasper, but the fabric of the community has changed. “A lot of our friends and our neighbors, they didn’t come back. A lot of them.”
“So not only did you lose your home, but your community’s all ripped up, too.” I sighed. “You lost a lot.”
Isabella nodded. “I feel like part of me, in a sense, burned down with my house, and the town, and the park.”
I paused, allowing the depth of her words to sink in, then asked her what her message would be to others going through loss.
“Grief isn’t like a straight line. It’s almost like a flow. You’ll go in and out of really hard times. Then you’re better. Then you go back in. It’s not a straight line.”
There is a serious housing crisis in Jasper now, with new construction not yet underway. The insurance process is predictably frustrating, and renters’ insurance is now nearly impossible to obtain. Plus, the permits required for building in a town that exists wholly within the confines of a national park are complicated and slow to be approved. With a third of the buildings gone, Jasper must find a way to house the remaining year-round residents, the seasonal staff, the tourists, and the scores of construction workers still cleaning up the rubble, repairing the damaged structures, and preparing to rebuild. And beyond the housing crisis, of course, most of the town is still grieving, having lost a home, or a business, or some friends, or their church, or just their basic sense of security.
The question is, will the tourists come back? Jasper’s economy is entirely dependent upon tourism. The town is gearing up, the best it can, to be ready for the tourists this season, assuming they will still come. I asked Isabella, pursuing a career in the industry, about the outlook for tourism this year.
“We hope this summer there’s going to be a lot of people, but we do get a lot of phone calls, like, ‘Is the park ugly now?’ It’s not ugly. It’s just different. At first when I came home from school, I was like, this is horrible. But now, when I go running or biking, there’s fireweed and mushrooms, and it’s really neat to see. This is a natural process.”
“Are people in a panic about the livelihood of the town being so dependent on tourism—that may be slow to return?”
“I don’t think so. Like my mom said the other day, ‘The mountains didn’t melt. They’re fine. They’re still here. It’ll all regrow. Everything’s gonna come back. There’ll be new life, new growth.’ So, I don’t think people are worried. Ninety-seven percent of our national park didn’t burn.”
I’m sorry this was so long, dear reader, but I wanted to share our time at Jasper with you. The beauty is stunning—even in the little pockets that burned. The people are lovely, so many genuine and caring individuals crammed into one small town. The conversations I had there will stay with me a very long time. If you have any encouraging words for Diana, or Anna, or Isabella, or for any of the others I mentioned, please do leave them a comment here. They are sure to see it.
Remember my new friends in Jasper.
Remember—creating art can promote healing.
Remember—it’s ok to cry over plants.
Remember—everyone’s grief journey is different; and it doesn’t follow a straight line.
Remember—the mountains didn’t melt.
Until next week,
Sherry
P.S. Andy is making a video for our YouTube channel about our time in Jasper National Park and the people we met in the town. I do think you will enjoy it, but it’s not quite ready yet. Check the channel, linked above, in the next couple of days.
This post is part two of a series featuring our interviews of local people in Canada’s small towns, as we make our way to Alaska. To start with part one, a faith-building encounter with a man named Vic, click here.
For more information on the fire, as well as numerous gut-wrenching videos and photos to help you understand its scope and scale, please click here on this exceptionally well-done article by the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, only a few weeks after the fire.
Alison’s book about the family’s experience with the fire, as well as the silly little dog who ended up bringing so much comfort to the family, was published by Zondervan in 2016. Learn more about it here.
The mountains didn't melt 😀. Love that quote ♥️.
We never hear about the aftermath of tragedies like this in the news. Thank you for telling your stories. Great writing, Sherry.