To Jasper With Love
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It’s the fall of 2016. I’m sitting in a bright red Adirondack chair on the edge of the Athabasca River. My eyes are closed, letting the rush of water fill my ears and wash over me like a balm.
The tears come anyway - uninvited, yet familiar - but the sound of the river somehow makes them feel like part of the healing. The air smells green, alive, tinged with pine and underbrush and a whisper of winter waiting just around the bend.
A rustle. I open my eyes. An elk, careful and graceful, walks along the river’s edge. I hold still, breath caught, heart caught, and something inside me - something cracked and raw - begins to gently stitch itself back together. I had come to Jasper hoping to begin the long, uncertain journey of healing after the wildfire that devastated my community and scorched my spirit.
It may not seem obvious, but there is a deep, natural connection between Fort McMurray and Jasper. The mighty Athabasca River that runs through our city is born in the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park. We are linked by water - by something ancient and essential.
I didn’t really know Jasper before 2012. After my divorce, Banff felt heavy with memories of a former life, and I needed somewhere new, somewhere I could make memories that were mine alone. That place became Jasper.
Richard Ireland, Mayor of the Municipality of Jasper
“Tourism is the lifeblood of Jasper’s economy and a cornerstone of our identity. Every visitor who chooses to spend time in our community helps support local jobs, families, and our collective recovery.
After experiencing such loss, it can feel difficult more so for some than for others - to invite the world back in. We also know, however, that healing so often happens when we come together. The support of visitors who understand through experience what it means to lose—and rebuild—will be especially meaningful to us this year.
We will be honoured and grateful to welcome the people of Wood Buffalo to Jasper. Your region’s strength and resilience is an inspiration; your presence here will be deeply impactful.”
It’s quieter than Banff, more genuine somehow. I’d find myself in line at Jasper Pizza beside a bear researcher or a mountain-dwelling local. It welcomed me when I needed it most. Jasper didn’t just open its arms - it opened its heart and let me in.
That’s what Jasper is. It’s not just a place - it’s a feeling. A belonging. A breath. A refuge.
In the years after 2016, Jasper became where I could go to quiet my mind. As someone who works with purpose and intensity, it became one of the only places where I could fully let go. To lose myself in trees, in silence, in stillness. To just be.
As I planned my usual fall 2024 trip, I watched with dread as wildfire crept toward Jasper. The anxiety was immediate, visceral. Every time I hear of a wildfire now, it takes me back - to May 3, 2016, and the long, painful days that followed. I listened to the news, watched social media, and felt my heart ache as it became clear that Jasper, too, would bear scars.
When wildfires touch a community, they do more than burn land and structures - they singe souls. First, there is the shock of what’s gone. Then, the lingering question of what’s next: Will people come back? Can we rebuild? Will it ever feel whole again?
I went back to Jasper this April. I needed to see it with my own eyes - the place that has become a second home to me.
Some sights took my breath away for all the wrong reasons. Homes gone. Pockets of devastation, eerily reminiscent of Fort McMurray. That unfair lottery where one house stands and the one beside it doesn’t. Standing at the Maligne Canyon overlook, I saw only charred forest. The smell of burnt wood drifted in the air, that same scent that clung to everything I owned in 2016. A haunting echo of a past we know too well.
And yet, hope and life and beauty remain.
The mountains still stand, the mountain goats and elk still wander the paths, and much of the forest is untouched. Becker’s Chalets - home of that red Adirondack chair – survived despite so much loss around it. Many homes also survived the flames, and children ride bicycles in the streets again. Temporary housing has arrived. Businesses, restaurants, and hotels are open, welcoming, preparing for a new season.
When I spoke with local business owners, their fear wasn’t just of the fire - it was of the aftershock. They survived the flames. But will they survive the silence that follows if visitors don’t return?
And this, Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo, is where we come in.
We know this story. We’ve lived it. We carry it in our bones. And we live close enough to do something meaningful - to be part of Jasper’s healing, just as others were part of ours.
Sandy Bowman, Mayor of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo
“The people of Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo know what it means to face devastation - and what it takes to recover. In the aftermath of the 2016 wildfire, we were lifted up by the kindness and support of others across Alberta and beyond. Now, Jasper is walking a similar path. This is our chance to pay that support forward.
I encourage everyone in our region to visit Jasper if they can - not just to experience its incredible beauty, but to stand with a community that needs us. Our stories are connected by fire, yes - but more importantly, by resilience, by compassion, and by the unshakable spirit of coming together in hard times.
Let’s show Jasper the same care that was shown to us.”
If you’re planning to travel in Canada this year, I ask you to consider Jasper. Whether it’s for a weekend, a day trip, or a longer stay, choose this place that needs us now. And when you go, tell them where you’re from. Share our story - the recovery, the path to rebuilding, the hope that bloomed again. The way time, and kindness, helped us rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
Jasper needs us. And maybe - just maybe - we need Jasper, too. Not only as a place to visit, but as a way to pay forward the love, the grace, and the understanding we once received when the world felt like it had burned down around us.
Let’s answer Jasper’s quiet call with the same fierce compassion that once carried us through our own darkest days. Let’s show up - not just as tourists, but as neighbors, as kin, as people who understand what it means to lose and to rebuild. In choosing Jasper, we’re choosing empathy. We’re choosing connection. And in doing so, we become part of a larger story - one where healing flows both ways, like the river that links us, steady and strong.
About the author
Theresa Wells
Theresa is a communications and stakeholder relations professional with a passion for the people of Fort McMurray Wood Buffalo, the written word, and, of course, cats and shoes. She is proud to share stories of life in the community she has called home for twenty years, and believes that every person has a story worth telling.