One year on: Jasper residents still waiting to rebuild after wildfire

CBC

5 days ago

Social Sharing
One year after a devastating wildfire swept through Jasper National Park, destroying a third of the structures in the townsite and forcing thousands to evacuate, many residents are still grappling with a slow and arduous rebuilding process.
Kim Stark watched her home burn down last year while working as a volunteer firefighter for the town.
She's currently living in a condo with her young family, while she waits for her new home.
She said she has just finished rebuilding her two businesses, the Bear's Paw Bakery and Lostlands Cafe, and now have all the equipment they need to be fully operational.
"We were just muddling through the best we could with what we had available, so it's really nice to have that all up and running," she said.
She said Jasper is starting to look the way it did pre-wildfire, with tourism seemingly on track. But when it comes to her rebuilding her home, things have not gone as smoothly
She's still in the process of getting her soil tests approved before she can get a permit to build a new home.
While she originally wanted to break ground on a basement structure before the first frost, she thinks she won't be able to start on construction until next May at the earliest.
Jasper residents gathered at Commemoration Park on Tuesday morning to hear from speakers like Mayor Richard Ireland, Ron Hallman, president & CEO of Parks Canada and Elder Bruce Cutknife of Samson Cree Nation.
Brian McCleary was one of those residents who made the journey to Jasper to attend the event. His home was among the 358 structures destroyed by wildfire.
"It's been a year and nothing's happened. Parks [Canada] is dragging their feet on this, the rebuild is yet to be seen," he said.
Currently, McCleary is living on a campsite, and has not made any significant progress in rebuilding his home.
He said for him, there's an additional stressor to not having access to stable housing.
Around 520 residents are currently set up in interim housing, according to the municipality.
Heidi Perren, interim director of the Jasper Recovery Coordination Centre for Parks Canada, said that only one per cent of demolition work is left to do in the townsite.
"This means that properties have been cleared, tested, and confirmed to be safe to rebuild on," she said at a news conference on Monday.
Janet Woods, 72, is waiting for her opportunity to return to the community she has lived in for almost her entire life.
She said was reluctant to make the trip out to Jasper for the anniversary, but spending time with the community for the anniversary lifted her spirits.
"There's little bits of progress, but they're not very big yet, so it's a long road," she said.
Woods still visits Jasper often, although she's staying at a place just outside Banff, Alta. Recently, she's made some progress submitting permits to rebuild her home, but like McCleary, it's been a slow progress.
This week, she met with a potential builder who could work on her new home. She said she would rather wait the extra year it would take to rebuild a new hom, than live somewhere else.
"I'm just at the beginning of it really," she said.