Few know it, but the area that encompasses Jasper National Park is one of the most historic regions in Canada, North America and even the world.The area around Jasper Lake has been continuously inhabited since at least 8000 BC according to carbon dating of arrowheads and other artifacts.Since then, habitation has fluctuated with the ebb and flow of glaciers and cyclical patterns of wildlife, particularly elk, moose and deer, which were hunted for food..Starting in the 1790s, native and white trappers moved into the region, particularly around the headwaters of the Athabasca River where the Hudson’s Bay Company established a trading post at Henry House and Lac Boisvert, which is now the site of the Jasper Park Lodge that was destroyed in this week’s fires.Boisvert was the name given to David Thompson’s Haudenosaunee-Iroquois guide, who was simply known as ‘Thomas’.Pierre Hastination, or Tete Jaune — the ‘Yellowhead’ — was a native trapper and fur trader who worked for both the Northwest and Hudson’s Bay Companies. He was so named for the colour of his hair after his mother was raped during a massacre by the Dunneza and settlers against the Iroquois for encroachment onto the Eastern Slopes.He died in 1828. His hoard — or Tete Jaune’s Cache, a town across the border in British Columbia — has never been found..By the time Thompson crossed the Athabasca Pass in 1810, on an epic quest to beat the Americans to the Pacific Coast, there were hundreds of fur traders and natives living in the region.In his published journals, Thompson recorded seeing large footprints “which measured fourteen inches in length by eight inches in breadth” near what is now Jasper in 1811. It has been suggested that these prints were similar to what has since been called the Sasquatch.In 1810-11, Thompson and crew trekked across Athabasca Pass searching for an easier passage to the West Coast. En route, he lost a leather bag of musket balls that he guessed had been taken by wolverines. Remarkably, a party surveying the interprovincial boundary in 1921 found pieces of leather that had been preserved in the ice as well as 114 of Thompson’s musket balls, some of which can still be viewed at the Jasper Yellowhead Museum and Archives..Mary Schaffer Warren became the first settler to visit Maligne Lake — known for a unique geological phenomena that drains and refills itself — in 1908. According to ancient legend, the lake is haunted, hence its name ‘Maligne’ or ‘Malignant’.Legend has it, Warren found it after being given a map by Samson Beaver, a Nakoda guide and hunter because locals considered it forbidden to go there.The Maligne Lake Chalet — also destroyed in the fire — is an historic landmark, built in 1927.Other historic landmarks include the Canadian National rail station, built in 1925; the CIBC bank building which has housed the branch since 1928; the Jasper Fire Hall built in 1914; and the Jasper Park information centre — formerly a fish hatchery — built in 1914.The Athabasca Hotel, one of the oldest in Alberta, was built in 1921..Over the years Jasper became known for a more laid back vibe compared to the bustle of Banff. Some of this writer’s first memories are of the statue of Jasper the bear, which dates back to 1948.The loss for locals and others is absolutely crushing, as evidenced by countless Twitter (‘X’) posts on social media. To quote Sir Alec Guinness, acting as Obi Wan in Star Wars: “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”
