Yesterday’s (September 3rd) image featured a picture of the Athabasca Glacier, part of the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park.

The photograph was taken be renowned photographer Steve Vidler who specializes in stock photography from around the world.  Vidler has traveled the world taking photos for over 40 years (a good interview with him is here).

Given the size and color of the  building, I’m guessing the photo is from the 1980s or at least pre-1996.  In those older days, the building was home to a Jasper hotel known as the Columbia Icefield Chalet.

Athabasca Glacier Featured on Bing.com Homepage

The building has since been updated.  Today you’ll find it home to the Icefield Information Centre, museum, restaurants and the 32-room Glacier View Inn.

I’m no Steve Vidler, but here’s a picture of the Icefield Information Center from July, 2010.

Columbia Icefield Information Centre

When Steve Vidler shot the picture featured on Bing, he must have been standing on the somewhere up high in the hill behind the building.

Another thing I noticed was that the Athabasca Glacier has receded since Vidler’s picture – as the glacier seems to do every year.  Someday it will be gone.  If you want to learn about the retreating Athabasca Glacier, an article on the thestar.com entitled “The alarming redefinition of ‘glacial’” provides a good overview.

Simple.  Buy locally grown food on your way to Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada.

The region’s local farmers’ markets and many small farm stands offer green travelers and budget-conscious travelers a way to get locally grown produce at surprisingly low prices.  Buying locally grown produce reduces your travel carbon footprint because the foods were shipped less and have less packaging than foods typically found in a grocery store.

Buying local has added benefits.  For the traveler from lands faraway, visiting a market on the way to Jasper National Park is a way to experience the local food heritage.

For instance, have you ever tried saskatoons, a sweet fruit that looks like blueberries? Saskatoons grow in western Canada and northwest/central US.  Even if you buy saskatoons at local restaurants and ice cream shops, the saskatoon berries will have traveled less than, say, bananas shipped from South America.  Your travel carbon footprint will be reduced.

How to make the most of a trip to a farmers’ market in Alberta?

Make it easy to be a green traveler.  Make the habit of always bringing silverware in your suitcase when traveling.  Carry it in your backpack when out and about.  If you happen upon a farm stand and pick up an assortment of fruit, vegetables, bread, crackers and jam, you have a way to eat it.

The Alberta Farmers’ Market Association recommends buying what is seasonal, appealing and fresh.  They also recommend asking questions of the growers.   It is a great way to learn about local farming and meet new people.  The Association also suggests being selective as buying too much will result food can result in food going bad before it is eaten.

Farmers’ markets and farm stands can also be places to find unique locally made handicrafts and gifts.

The farmer’s markets in the region tend to be open seasonally (July and August, usually June and September, and sometimes beyond) and for only a day or two each week – and for limited hours. Be sure to know the hours before planning a trip to a farmer’s market.

Where are the farm stands and farmers’ markets in Alberta?

While a listing of farm stands is unavailable, farm stands tend to be open during the mornings and early afternoons.  If you are out driving in rural areas, keep a look out for the opportunity for a spontaneous stop at a farm stand.  Some farm stands even have DIY u-pick farms where you can pick your own fruits and vegetables.

Farmer’s markets are easier to find.  The following links will help you find farmer’s markets in the vicinity of Jasper and Banff National Parks.

Hinton, Alberta

Just minutes from the eastern entrance to Jasper National Park is the town of Hinton, Alberta.  The Hinton Farmer’s Market at the Hinton Centre, 965 Switzer Dr, is open Thursdays from 11AM to 2PM for most of the year.  The same organization comes to Jasper a few times a year, making use of the Jasper Activity Centre.

Edson, Alberta

The little town of Edson is midway between Edmonton and Jasper National Park.

The Edson Farmers’ Market is on Fridays from mid-April to min-December from 10:30am to 2pm. If you happen to be passing by Edson at this time, give the Edson Farmers’ Market a try. The market is held at the Edson Friendship Centre.

Keep an eye out for farm stands along the highway.

Edmonton, Alberta

The West Edmonton Mall is by no means the only place to shop in Edmonton.  Edmonton has plenty of farmers’ markets for shopping.  Farmer’s Market Online lists 8 different farmer’s markets in Edmonton.

Check out Edmonton’s Old Strathcona Farmers Market (website), open Saturdays from 8AM to 3PM, which has around 130 vendors and can sometimes see 10,000 visitors on a busy Saturday.  Be on the look-out for street performers as well.

Farm stands can be found in the Edmonton suburbs.

Calgary, Alberta

The Calgary Farmers’ Market (website) and the Millarville Farmer’s Market (website) are the big farmer’s markets in the Banff National Park area.  Stop by on the way to Banff and Jasper National Parks.

A nice photo album of the Calgary Farmers’ Market can be found here.

Besides being environmentally friendly, buying locally grown food can save on food costs, making for a cheaper Jasper National Park vacation.  It can also be a lot of fun!

Be sure to buy locally grown foods from farmers’ markets and farm stands on your Jasper National Park vacation so that you may be a green traveler.

You can also opt for some scenic drives to see nature. The scenic Columbia Icefield shouldn’t be missed. You can go out onto the glacier in an ice buggy, a view they won’t soon forget. Older kids will enjoy a river float trip, which is a fun way to spend the day. Visit Maligne Canyon. Here you’ll find six bridges you can walk over to view the limestone gorges and waterfalls. The Jasper Tramway is a great way to see an aerial view of Jasper along with the entire Athabasca Valley.

When planning your vacation with kids you’ll want to find a hotel that has the perfect family accommodations. Look for hotels that have kid-friendly pools. There are also resorts with suite accommodations that are great for families. These offer separate bedrooms and kitchenettes so you can feed the small ones their usual snacks. One of the best ways to find the best accommodations is to visit HotelsCombined.com. This site takes the best of all the travel sites and puts it together to give you the best hotels at the best rates.

Related posts:

1. Visiting with Bighorn Sheep at Miette Hot Springs, Jasper National Park

Ibis has sought to read the entire new Canadian literature library and has invited others to join her in what has become known as the CanLit Project. Ibis also participates in Canada Reads, a 3-month long celebration of reading and books that includes a debate about Canadian books.

The book is called Icefields and was written by Thomas Wharton. The story is about a fictional 1898 physician exploring the Canadian Rockies who stumbles upon a mystery.

It turns out that Icefields is part of the 2008 Canada Reads debates, an annual battle of 5 great works of Canadian fiction. As part of the debate, Canadian astronaut/book fanatic Steve MacLean had the honor of defending Icefields against the competition. Audio recordings of the debates have been made available here.

While reflecting on his choice of the book, MacLean recalls his personal experience seeing the icefields from space: “They were visibly smaller compared to my first flight 14 years earlier.”

Canada Reads also provides several excellent audio recordings where Thomas Wharton reflects on the book and on Jasper National Park. The recordings are available here on the Canada Reads website.

In one of the recordings, Thomas Wharton gets at the essence of Jasper National Park while describing his book (slightly paraphrased):

“The main character…over the course of the book comes to have a more environmental understanding of this place (Jasper),….at first he’s a scientist…and slowly comes to see himself as more part of this landscape and part nature…I think that’s one of the things that a place like Jasper can do for people…In way I think people should spend more time in a place that is more wild than they normally do. On the other hand, the more people who come, the less wild it gets. It’s kind of a contradiction and I don’t know how to resolve it. There are times I feel I shouldn’t go to the mountains… I should just be happy knowing that they’re there…”

Great stuff. That is the Jasper National Park experience. The contradiction of having more people in the park is a real issue as has been mentioned here before. The park service limits development as much as possible to the benefit of Mother Nature. Wharton has a blog here.
For an overview of the book and more resources from Canada Reads, click here. Wharton provides further reflections on the book here. On Amazon, readers offer mostly positive reviews for the Icefields book.

The Canada Reads competition includes a People’s Choice Award. At the time of this writing, Icefields is beating out its 4 competitors for the award.

Chief astronaut Steve MacLean says of the book “When I finished reading it and put the book down, I wanted to read it again…”

The spectacle of the animals is almost dwarfed by the stunning river and Canadian Rockies landscape in the background. There are not many places in the world to have this type of experience.

With Jasper becoming a Canadian National Park in 1907, there’s a strong probability that this view will be preserved.

Photo by laszlo-photo

See a larger version of the picture here on Flickr.

The picture captures a piece of the experience of being in Jasper National Park. The experience is completed by being there with the smell, the sounds and the scale of the place. That’s why I recommend visiting.

The air is crisp, clean, cool mountain air. Breezes come through carrying the smells of nature, the trees and water.

The sounds come from the occasional passing cars and the ohs and ahs of people nearby gawking at the same sites. Sometimes even animal noises can be heard. Baaaaa!! Baaaaa!!

The mountains seem to be everywhere with no end in sight. The scale of the Canadian Rockies inside Jasper National Park makes travelers feel like ants and puts human existence into perspective.

Related posts:

1. Visiting with Bighorn Sheep at Miette Hot Springs, Jasper National Park

Nature Canada is involved in national conservation issues like bird conservation, wilderness protection, endangered species and national parks preservation. These are topics relevant to Jasper National Park, a large wilderness and mountain national park and housing several bird, animal and plant species.

Nature Canada points out several recent cutbacks to Environment Canada including a 70% cutback in Environmental Assessment and Monitoring, 40% cutback to the migratory bird program, and a short-term freeze on scientific field work.

The organization is urging people to speak out and wants a “fully funded, fully supported Environment Canada and Canadian Wildlife Service”.

Nature Canada (via this Nature Canada “Action Alert”) wants the following commitments from the Canada Prime Minister and Environment Minister:

“- Ensure healthy populations of migratory birds
- Establish and maintain a protected area network from coast to coast
- Monitor and protect endangered wildlife
- Provide realistic solutions to slow or adapt to climate change
- Maintain the quality of our air and water
- Protect native ecosystems from invasive species
- Keep our international commitments”

Learn more on this Nature Canada “Action Alert” page.

• “On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind – the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.”

For Jasper Journal, the task is easy. Jasper National Park is not so much about tourism as it is about nature. In other national parks, the tourist industry wins. In Jasper National Park, nature wins.

So instead of writing about the park, I’ve compiled photos I’ve taken of the park showing the wide range of nature within the park. These pictures have been compiled into a YouTube video.

Let’s look at a forum post here on TripAdvisor where a traveler had a tough time finding a hotel last minute and vented some justifiable frustration.

Basically, the traveler arrived in Jasper on a Wednesday night in August and couldn’t find a single place to stay. So he went to a hotel in Hinton, which is an hour from Jasper townsite past the eastern border of Jasper National Park. Needless to say, this was probably not a very enjoyable travel experience.

Another contributor on the forum, krp329, wisely explains why (bolding added by me for emphasis):

“The town of Jasper itself has its own growth constrained by park regulations – the town has almost completely filled the footprint allowed for it by the National Parks Act. Further commercial growth is problematic, considering where we are already: there are staffing shortages at this time of the year, made worse by the chronic housing shortage.” (Source: TripAdvisor post)

Krp329 goes on the say:

“The “remedy” would be to make it busier, ie. increase the accommodation infrastructure so that you would have had a place to stay too. Which raises a whole bunch of interesting questions about development and tourism in the national parks vs. their roles as wilderness preserves, and ‘how much is enough?‘” (Source: TripAdvisor post)

Most people would agree that the right thing to do is not change a thing as the ‘enough’ point has already been reached. To quote myself (is that possible?), here’s my simple and subsequent response to the troubled traveler:

“If you want every last convenience, DisneyWorld has Jasper beat. The problem with Disney is that it is so artificial. Jasper is authentic.

The area around Disney has more hotels, stores and restaurants than you can imagine. But they cover every last inch of land. That’s what would happen to Jasper is restrictions were not in place.

Minimizing the human impact on the park is key to the survival of the remaining wildlife that live there.

For example, here’s something on woodland caribou that I think puts the importance of Jasper National Park in perspective.”

If you book in advance you could instead have a great time.

In contrast, look at the experience of traveler Andrew Sawadisavi. Andrew shows what a great time in the park is like in this nice Jasper National Park trip report he did here. He took lots of great photos and appeared to have a memorable experience. He had his hotel room reserved in advanced.

So the lesson learned is to book in advance. Limited last minute accommodations are the necessary reality of the park.

Since Jasper Journal celebrates Jasper National Park and the park is so tied to the environment, I look forward to participating and adding to the voice.

As one of the few websites dedicated to Jasper National Park, I will be sure to write about the importance of Jasper to preserving the environment, a popular topic on Jasper Journal.