Jasper campers take in radically new landscape, one year after wildfire

Camping in Jasper National Park may be a surreal experience for returning visitors and a startling one for first-time tourists, nearly one year after wildfire ripped through sections of the park. 

Two of Jasper's biggest and most popular campgrounds — Wapiti and Whistlers — have few trees. 

"The landscape will look quite different," said Graham Wylde, Jasper's visitor experience manager with Parks Canada. "It is radically changed in terms of the viewscapes."

On the mountain slopes flanking Highway 93 peering over the Wapiti and Whistlers campgrounds, trees stand stiff like charred match sticks. 

"Everyone will come to it in a different way in terms of their previous connection to it or their perception of what a fire impacted area is," Wylde remarked. 

Parks Canada crews have been working since last fall to get the park ready for visitors by clearing debris from trails, roads, grounds and facilities; taking down hazard trees, reconnecting utilities, reinstalling signs.

Many of the washrooms were undamaged and didn't have to be replaced, but Parks rebuilt more than 1,000 picnic tables this past winter. 

"There's a whole gamut of work that needs to be done," Wylde said in an interview with CBC News last week. 

With the little tree cover now, people should plan to bring wind shelters or sun shelters, Wylde said, with the heightened exposure to the elements. 

About 30 per cent of the Wapiti Campground, or 120 of the 400 sites, are open for campers this season.

Down the road at Whistlers, 100 per cent of sites are open.

Nearly 25,000 people were evacuated from the town and the park on July 22, 2024, as the wildfire that was started by lightning quickly turned into a monster fire and destroyed a third of the town's structures. 

Of the available sites to rent at Wapiti the week of July 7-13, 97 per cent were occupied, while 99 per cent were booked at Whistlers, Wylde said. 

The campgrounds had their regular visitors, like Yudit Normandeau from Edmonton, who makes the trip every year with her extended family to their favourite site in Wapiti.