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42-660: At its origin, just east of Jasper National Park , the Cardinal River forms in a basin between Tripoli, Cheviot , Prospect, Climax, and Blackface Mountains , as well as Mount Cardinal , in the Nikanassin Range . From there it flows east, through the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies and into the foothills. A portion of Grave Flats Road follows the river before it reaches the Bighorn Highway , where it empties into

84-523: A wildfire destroyed a significant part of the town of Jasper and its surrounding area. Many of North America's most iconic animals can be found at Jasper. There are at least 50 mammalian species in and around the park, including: Jasper, with its varied habitats and remote environments, is home to at least 160 known avian species, mostly belonging to the Accipitriformes , Anseriformes , Galliformes , Passeriformes and Strigiformes . The park

126-560: A road between Jasper and Banff, which ultimately formed the basis for the Icefields Parkway . Internment camps were established again during World War II , when three hundred Japanese Canadians were forcibly sent to three road camps in Jasper. Additionally, 160 conscientious objectors , many of them Mennonites from the Prairie provinces , were interned at Jasper and put to work upgrading

168-467: A tourist route allowing visitors to access and view many of the park's attractions. The Icefields Parkway (also known as Highway 93) is a highway 230 km (140 mi) in length running from Lake Louise, Alberta , in Banff National Park , to Jasper, Alberta , where it meets Highway 16. The scenic highway runs parallel to the continental divide, providing motor and cycle access to the heart of

210-737: Is a 16 km (9.9 mi) scenic park road that runs from Highway 16 to the Miette Hot Springs , one of the parks core attractions. Alberta Highway 93A is a 24 km (15 mi) parallel road to the Icefields Parkway that provides access to several hikes, campgrounds and the Marmot Basin Ski Resort. Marmot Basin Road provides access to the Marmot Basin Ski Area and several trailheads from Highway 93A. Celestine Lake Road

252-519: Is a long gravel road that runs along the north bank of the Athabasca River providing access to several remote trailheads. Pyramid Lake Road is a short road that provides tourists access to the several lakes and resorts just north of Jasper. Jasper National Park is managed by Parks Canada under the National Parks Act . On a provincial level , the park area outside of Municipality of Jasper

294-482: Is administered by Alberta Municipal Affairs as Improvement District No. 12 (Jasper National Park) . The Municipality of Jasper was formed by the Government of Alberta in 2001 and has its own local government. Jasper National Park is featured in the 2010 3D animated comedy-drama film Alpha and Omega as the location the two wolf protagonists are taken from and struggle to return to. A KLM Boeing 777-300

336-596: Is named after Jasper National Park. Jasper House Jasper House National Historic Site, in Jasper National Park , Alberta , is the site of a trading post on the Athabasca River that functioned in two different locations from 1813 to 1884 as a major staging and supply post for travel through the Canadian Rockies . The post was originally named Rocky Mountain House, but was renamed to avoid confusion with

378-621: Is not as well known as the Icefields Parkway, but provides several viewpoints and access to hiking routes such as the Maligne Canyon trails. The road has a speed limit of 60 km/h (37 mph) due to frequent wildlife. Edith Cavell Road is a 14 km (8.7 mi) scenic park road that provides access to the Edith Cavell meadow area from the Icefields Parkway. This road is open only between May and October, and RVs are prohibited due to its tight switchback corners. Miette Hot Springs Road

420-556: Is now Jasper National Park has been inhabited since time immemorial by Nakoda , Cree , Secwépemc , and Dane-zaa peoples. Plainview projectile points have been found at the head of Jasper Lake , dating back to between 8000 and 7000 BCE. In the centuries between then and the establishment of the park, First Nations land use has fluctuated according to climatic variations over the long term, and according to cyclical patterns of ungulate population numbers, particularly elk , moose , mule deer , and occasionally caribou . Starting in

462-593: Is part of the Saskatchewan / Nelson River system which ultimately flows into Hudson Bay . The park is coextensive with the province of Alberta's Improvement District No. 12 . Attractions that can easily be reached by road include the Mount Edith Cavell hiking area, Maligne Lake (which features hiking and boating opportunities), Maligne Canyon , Miette Hot Springs , Pyramid Lake , the Jasper Skytram and

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504-583: Is the largest national park within Alberta's Rocky Mountains , spanning 11,000 km (4,200 sq mi). It was established as Jasper Forest Park in 1907, renamed as a national park in 1930, and declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1984. Its location is north of Banff National Park and west of Edmonton . The park contains the glaciers of the Columbia Icefield , springs , lakes , waterfalls and mountains . The territory encompassed by what

546-486: The Unemployment and Farm Relief Act , which allocated funds for public works projects in the national parks. Labourers, many of them laid-off Canadian National Railway workers, were employed on road and bridge projects within the park, for which they were paid 25 to 30 cents per hour, working eight hours a day up to six days per week. In October, 1931, under the auspices of the relief project , construction started on

588-542: The Athabasca Glacier , (an outlet glacier of the Columbia Icefield which features snow coach tours). The Marmot Basin ski area is the most popular winter attraction in the park. Common summer recreational activities in the park include hiking , fishing , mountain biking (in select areas), wildlife viewing, rafting , kayaking and camping. Winter activities include Alpine skiing , cross-country skiing and snowshoeing . Some companies offer dog sled tours in

630-648: The Austro-Hungarian Empire , including Ukrainians , who made up the largest affected population, and the Ottoman Empire . The interned men were primarily employed in the construction of a road from the town of Jasper, along the Maligne River first to Medicine Lake , and later on to Maligne Lake . In 1931, in response to the Great Depression , the government of Prime Minister R. B. Bennett enacted

672-460: The Brazeau River south of Pembina Forks. The Cardinal river and other surrounding landmarks are named for Jacques Cardinal , a local fur trader . His grave is located on the banks of the river. This article related to a river in Alberta , Canada is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Jasper National Park Jasper National Park , in Alberta , Canada,

714-693: The Canadian National Railway (CNR) by an Order in Council. The railway was later followed by a road built between Edmonton and Jasper. The section between the town of Jasper and the eastern gate of the park was completed in 1928; however, it took another three years for the province of Alberta to complete the remaining stretch of the road into Edmonton. By the time the GTP's railway track cleared Yellowhead Pass in 1911, there were already eight hotels established in Jasper, but they were rudimentary, and did not meet

756-614: The Rocky Mountain House trading post on the North Saskatchewan River , becoming "Jasper's House" after the postmaster, Jasper Hawes, who operated the post from 1814 to 1817. The first location is believed to have been at the outlet of Brûlé Lake , downstream from the present site. The second Jasper House was established at the northern end of Jasper Lake in 1830, primarily serving travellers crossing Yellowhead Pass or Athabasca Pass . The site operated until 1853, and

798-570: The Tonquin Valley , the Skyline Trail, Jones Pass, Jacques Lake and the Fryatt Valley. The remote North Boundary Trail which provided access to the north half of the park is a multiweek backpacking trip. Canoe and kayaking access to the backcountry can be achieved on Maligne Lake. The park contains several major roads, most of which are intended to be scenic routes that provide access to all of

840-664: The 1790s, Haudenosaunee and Nipissing hunters and trappers moved in large numbers to the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains , around the headwaters of the Athabasca and Smoky Rivers in particular, most of them employed by the North West Company. By the time David Thompson crossed the Athabasca Pass in 1810, led by a Haudenosaunee guide named Thomas, there were hundreds of Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe people living in

882-521: The Canadian Rockies and is considered to one of the park's main attractions. Along its length the parkway has many viewpoints, tourist attractions, hikes and campgrounds. The Athabasca and Sunwapta Falls are both accessible by the road. In May 2014, Glacier Sky Walk opened to the public. It is glass-floored observation platform 280 metres (920 ft) over the Sunwapta Valley. Unlike Highway 16,

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924-529: The Icefields Parkway is strictly a tourist route, and all freight traffic is prohibited from using the road. All users must have a parks pass. Maligne Lake Road is a scenic park road that is 44 km (27 mi) in length and runs from Highway 16 near Jasper to Maligne Lake roughly following the course of the Maligne River. It is the park's other major tourist road (besides the Icefields Parkway). It

966-574: The Maligne Lake and Medicine Lake roads, as well as building a road from Geikie to the British Columbia border. In 1984, Jasper, Banff, Kootenay, Yoho, as well as the Hamber, Mount Robson, Mount Assiniboine provincial parks, were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Since 1999, the arrival of the mountain pine beetle has impacted the park with 93,000 hectares of the park's forest infested with

1008-461: The Parks Branch expressly forbade hunting in Jasper and the other mountain parks, deprecating First Nations' centuries-long history of subsistence hunting in the region as indiscriminate slaughter of the local game wildlife. Despite the prohibition on hunting, the park and its tourist facilities became a base of operations for wealthy Canadian and American sport hunters for hunting trips further into

1050-610: The Rockies, beyond the prohibitions in place in the mountain parks and the Rocky Mountains Forest Reserve . In 1930, Jasper Forest Park officially became Jasper National Park with the passing of the National Parks Act . Section 4 of the act further underlined the park's wilderness preservation function, with Canada's National Parks "dedicated to the people of Canada for their benefit, education and enjoyment" and "maintained and made use of so as to leave them unimpaired for

1092-592: The beetle by 2017. In 2016, Parks Canada released the Mountain Pine Beetle Management Plan which includes prescribed burns and removal of infected trees to reduce the fire risk and to prevent the beetles from spreading into provincial land. In 2011, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada designated Jasper National Park as a dark-sky preserve due to its minimal light pollution and ideal conditions for dark sky viewing. In 2024,

1134-464: The enjoyment of future generations." Ironically, given the mandate its mandate to preserve natural spaces, the act also redefined Jasper Park's boundaries, removing 518 square kilometres (200 sq mi) of land from the park—including Brûlé Lake and Rock Lake —opening the excised area to coal mining and hydroelectric development. In 1911, the Grand Trunk Pacific (GTP) laid track through

1176-446: The expectations of the well-heeled clientele to which the GTP advertised. Jasper Park Lodge , the focal point of the GTP's Jasper advertising campaign, did not open until 1922, three years after the company's bankruptcy and only a year before the railway was merged into the nationally owned CNR. Like the GTP before it, Canadian National featured both Jasper park and the lodge prominently in its advertising literature. From its founding,

1218-608: The land, including buildings, ditches, and fences, and ordered to leave the park. In 1911, Jasper Forest Park came under the administration of the newly established Dominion Parks Branch of the Department of the Interior , under the purview of James Bernard Harkin , at which time the name was changed to simply Jasper Park. Under Harkin, Canada's national parks were to fulfill a dual mandate of wilderness protection and economic development—primarily as tourist destinations. In particular,

1260-526: The malaise of modern life. However, the vision of wilderness on which the development plan depended was at odds with the presence of long-established Métis homesteaders within the boundaries of the park, many of whom were descended from the white and Haudenosaunee fur traders and trappers employed by the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company in the 19th century. In 1909, six Métis families were declared squatters , paid compensation for improvements made to

1302-510: The park and over Yellowhead Pass. That same year, the GTP founded the town of Fitzhugh around the company's railway station; the town was renamed Jasper in 1913. The GTP's route across the pass was followed in 1913 by the Canadian Northern (CNoR). Both having both fallen into financial difficulty, the two railways were nationalized —the GTP in 1919 and the CNoR in 1923—and eventually merged into

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1344-797: The park include the Maligne River , the Snake Indian River , Rocky River and the Miette River . The northernmost area of the park is drained separately by the Smoky River . Both the Smoky and Athabasca Rivers form part of the Mackenzie River drainage, the largest river system in Canada, which itself is part of the Arctic Ocean basin. The southeast section of the park is drained by the Brazeau River which

1386-532: The park's front-country attractions. Since a good sample of parks scenery and wildlife can be viewed from the roads themselves, driving them is considered a core part of the park experience. Highway 16 (part of the Trans-Canada Highway and Yellowhead Highway systems) is the main route through the park and is the only major east–west corridor crossing the mountains in that area. It serves as both an important trade and travel corridor for through traffic and

1428-416: The park. Only a small fraction of the parks area is road accessible. The rest forms a large backcountry area which is largely only accessible by trail. Large areas of the backcountry are rarely visited as many areas' trails are poorly maintained or non existent. Access into the backcountry is most often accomplished by backpacking or horseback and in rare cases kayak or raft. Popular backcountry trips include

1470-519: The parks extreme southernmost point at an unnamed lake unofficially known as Columbia Lake due to it being fed by one of the Columbia Icefield 's many outlet glaciers. Despite its misleading name, the well-known Athabasca Glacier is actually the source of the Sunwapta River , a tributary of the Athabasca, not the main river itself. Other major tributaries of the Athabasca River that drain large areas of

1512-623: The region. When Mary Schäffer Warren became the first settler to visit Maligne Lake —known by the Nakoda as Chaba Imne —in 1908, she did so by following a map given to her by Samson Beaver , a Nakoda guide and hunter. Jasper National Park's name originates from Jasper Haws, a Maryland -born fur trader who worked for the North West Company . In 1815, Haws took command of a North West Company trading post, built on Brûlé Lake in 1813, which subsequently became known as Jasper's House. In 1830,

1554-592: The town of Jasper, and later the Jasper Park Lodge, served as a hub for a variety of outdoor sporting activities. Even as Mary Schäffer Warren was becoming the first settler to visit Maligne Lake, outfitters were springing up in the park to rent out equipment and guide hikers and alpinists . The Alpine Club of Canada , formed in 1906 and sponsored through the 1920s in part by the CNR, held seven of its annual alpine camps in Jasper between 1926 and 1950. And while hunting

1596-474: The trading post was relocated further up the Athabasca River , just north of Jasper Lake . The site of Jasper House itself was designated a national historic site in 1924. Jasper House was destroyed in 1910, but it gave its name to both the national park, and the town of Jasper within the Park. Jasper Forest Park was established by a federal order in council on September 14, 1907. The park's establishment

1638-474: Was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, together with the other national and provincial parks that form the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks , for the mountain landscapes containing mountain peaks, glaciers , lakes, waterfalls, canyons , and limestone caves as well as fossils found here. Most of the park's area forms the headwaters of the Athabasca River , which originates in

1680-469: Was forbidden within park grounds, the park's facilities served as a base of operations for outfitters and guides who led wealthy hunters on hunting trips into the forest reserves outside Jasper's boundaries. In 1916, following the precedent set at Rocky Mountains Park, the Government of Canada opened an internment camp for individuals deemed enemy aliens , primarily immigrants from the German Empire ,

1722-512: Was occasionally used until 1858 when it was reopened seasonally by Henry John Moberly , who operated it into the 1860s. The post was officially closed in 1884 after years of inactivity. From 1891 or 1892 to 1894 the house was used by miner Lewis Swift. The building was destroyed in 1909 when its lumber was used to make a raft by surveyors for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway . Apart from a small cemetery, no significant ruins remain. It

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1764-493: Was spurred by plans for the construction of a second Canadian transcontinental railway, which was to cross the Rocky Mountains at Yellowhead Pass ; Jasper Park was intended to be developed into an alpine resort in the mould of Rocky Mountains Park , with a train station, tourist hotels, and a service town. Collectively, the mountain parks were intended as a sort of wilderness playground for middle-class workers, an antidote to

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