Jasper residents have been getting their first in-person look this week at the wildfire that destroyed 30 per cent of structures in town.
While the focus is on controlling the wildfire around the townsite, and getting utilities and essential services ready for residents, questions remain about the future of the visitor services sector, which provides the majority of jobs within the national park.
The Tourism Industry Association of Alberta, the Alberta Hotel and Lodging Association and the Association for Mountain Parks Protection and Enjoyment are calling on the federal and provincial governments to address the “urgent” need to help businesses get back on their feet and stay open until the tourists can return.
A recent survey of 86 Jasper businesses, which represents 38 per cent of the business community, found only 12 per cent believed they could stay viable without incurring debt for more than six months. Another 53 per cent said they couldn’t last another two months.
Businesses set up outside Jasper National Park are open, but most visitors are staying away in the wake of the destructive wildfire that ripped through the mountain town.
Operators are also worried about keeping staff that may move away if they can’t get work within the community.
The groups say measures like employee wages assistance and the ability for businesses to defer lease payments, WCB premiums, utility payments and taxes could help.
They estimate Jasper is losing $4.5 million in revenue each day in the peak summer months.
One of Jasper’s biggest tourist attractions was given permission to reopen Friday when officials allowed Highway 93, the Icefields Parkway, to reopen in the southern part of the park from the Columbia Icefield down to Highway 11 in Banff National Park. The area is about 100 kilometres south of the Jasper townsite and was not affected by the fire.
The opening allowed tourism operator Pursuit to resume operations in the icefields area including the Columbia Icefield Glacier Discovery Centre and the Columbia Icefield Skywalk.
The timeline for when it is safe for residents to return to their homes and businesses to resume operations is still unknown.
Mike Ellis, Alberta’s minister of public safety and emergency services, said Friday that most Jasper businesses, aside from essential services like pharmacies, grocery stores and gas stations, haven’t yet had a chance to return to see what they need.
Discussions about possible supports are underway among all three levels of government but Ellis said it is still too soon to say when a program will roll out..
Waterton fire
Businesses in Waterton Lakes National Park have a good sense of the challenges Jasper is facing.
A September 2017 fire destroyed 19,303 hectares within the park and 80 per cent of its hiking trails.The flames roared over the mountains and came close to the tiny townsite but didn’t reach the majority of structures.
Shameer Suleman, owner of the Bayshore Inn Resort and Spa and president of Waterton’s chamber of commerce, remembers the panic and fear of that day.
He says people in Waterton sympathize with what people in Jasper are going through.
“We really pined and hurt for them because we know exactly what it’s like,” he said.
Suleman said the next season was rough for Waterton businesses. The majority of attractions like trails, Red Rock Canyon, the horse stables and Cameron Lake were closed.
Businesses had to focus on a smaller demographic of visitors who were happy to stay in town and enjoy the views, he said.
The 2019 season was better. Suleman said Parks Canada worked hard to get major attractions rebuilt. Then COVID hit in 2020 which he described as a “gut punch.”
Suleman said Jasper will come back stronger than ever when the time is right to reopen. His advice for businesses is not to reopen prematurely and wait until there are things for visitors to see and do.
“Be ready to accept guests,” he said. “And when you’re ready, it’ll be better than ever.”
Build back better
One Canadian expert says the intensity and frequency of summer wildfires in the Rocky Mountains and its impact on tourism is something the federal government needs to take more seriously.
Daniel Scott is a professor and director of climate change programs at the University of Waterloo who studies how climate change is impacting the tourism industry.
Scott said Australia, in particular, has looked at the impacts of wildfires on tourism, including setting up a royal commission to examine the impacts of the so-called Black Summer of 2019-20 when intense bush fires burned more than 17 million hectares of land.
He argued the Canadian government needs to follow the lead of the Australians and take the sector more seriously.
“We don’t have a solid number of what this is even costing the industry,” Scott said.
“How many jobs are being affected? How many businesses potentially are not going to be there three years down the track?”
Scott said Jasper can become more climate resilient when it rebuilds what was lost in the fire.
“They’ll face this sort of challenge again in the future,” he said. “You want to build back in a way that this kind of tragedy, or at least in those parts of towns that were affected, wouldn’t be able to happen again.”
Beth Potter, president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, said the federal tourism minister is speaking to her group more and more about the impacts of climate change.
Potter said operators are already learning to adapt.
“Resiliency, adaptability, looking for ways in which to continue to evolve,” she said. “These are all earmarks of the tourism operators from coast to coast to coast in our country. And they are looking already at how do they start to rebuild?”