JASPER – Sabrina Charlebois never realized how resilient she could be until last summer when she lost her childhood home built by her late father.
Her home was in the Cabin Creek neighbourhood, one of the areas hit hardest by the Jasper wildfire, which reached its one-year anniversary this week.
“I actually wasn’t in Jasper at the time of the evacuation, so I only had my pack to go to Edmonton for the weekend, and my friend got my cat and my dad’s ashes, and we lost everything else in my home,” Charlebois said. “It was a big lesson in letting go.”
The salon where Charlebois worked as a hairstylist had also burned down, although she has since found a new job at the Jasper Hair Collective. She has also found a basement to live in until her house is rebuilt, although she described the process as “very slow.”
“What I thought was a two-year process is going to be more of a three-year process at least,” she said.
Charlebois was one of the organizers behind the rally early this year protesting the provincial government for not providing interim housing amid intergovernmental disputes.
“I was just pretty frustrated by the lack of communication around when the interim housing was coming and also just frustrated on why it was taking so long,” she said.
Parks Canada has since provided modular housing to several hundred residents. Although acknowledging this was already in the works when the rally happened, Charlebois believed it was good for the community to get together and important to “stir the pot” and put pressure on officials.
She expressed gratitude to Parks Canada for providing the interim housing and said housing should remain a priority. In particular, she noted some residents looking to rebuild have had to test their soil multiple times.
“I think it’s really unfortunate that I’ve been hearing that people are on their fifth soil test, and it’s coming back negative,” she said.
She also advocated for mental health supports, although acknowledged the work of Community Outreach Services.
“I think a lot of people are struggling and will be for a long time,” she said. “It’s been a pretty traumatizing year.”
She hoped the wildfire would indirectly solve the housing crisis by letting property owners rebuild with multiple housing units in their homes, while more apartment buildings would be added to town.
“It can actually be a real positive thing, but obviously it’s just going to take a while to get there,” she said. “But yeah, I’m hopeful. I mean, you have to have hope, right? If you don’t have hope, what do you have?”
Greg Deagle, a former Indigenous relations administrative assistant for Jasper National Park who now serves as president of the Jasper Artists Guild, has been “incredibly busy” over the past year with community arts event programming and is striving to find balance and normalcy.
“While friends and neighbours are focused on rebuilding their homes and businesses with traditional materials, I am dedicated to enriching the future Jasper with art, music and other creative outlets, aiming to improve the quality of life as they move forward from the rebuilding process,” Deagle said.
His home and studio, as well as the Jasper Art Gallery, were mostly unaffected by the fire. However, he had worked for years to find homes for his paintings in residential collections and local businesses, many of which were destroyed, particularly in Cabin Creek.
He described the way that neighbourhoods had vanished and the slowness to rebuild as “emotionally challenging and mind numbing,” while the disappearance of friends and neighbours, whether temporary or permanent, has been both “mystifying and destabilizing.”
“Jasper has always been a revolving door as people come and go, but these days, trying to maintain even an approximate census of where people have ended up is impossible,” Deagle said.
He hoped that tourists to Jasper would recognize the significance of their visit this year and witness “a resilient and visionary Jasper.”
“I trust they will leave with optimism, believing in nature’s ability to recover, our capacity to rebuild and Jasper’s potential to be spectacular in a new way, albeit different from its past,” he said.
Beth McLachlan, a local artist and volunteer who works for various businesses in Jasper, described the last year as “a daily battle.”
As an artist member of the newly opened creative space, The Creative Residence, she was preparing for another event when the wildfire struck. She lost roughly 90 per cent of her artworks and operating materials being stored in the town’s industrial area.
The biggest challenge for her has been the loss of opportunity.
“Pre-fire, I was crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s of my business license application,” she said. “Now I am back to searching for an affordable, long-term commercial space, which no longer exists in Jasper. I did not have insurance yet either, so I did not qualify for any business-related financial aid from the Red Cross or elsewhere.”
She described each day as “up and down” and repeatedly saw a therapist post-fire, a necessary support that has helped her move forward.
Susan Cesco, a retired resident, spends her spare time volunteering for the Jasper Rotary Club, which has been able to provide support for the community during this trying time, such as funding for the food bank.
At first, she found it difficult to grasp the reality that the town was not the same.
“I felt grateful for all that remained, but felt like so many people were missing,” she said. “I miss so many faces and light up when I cross paths with friends and neighbours that have not been able to return home.”
She was hopeful for the future of the community, saying, “The heart of Jasper is beating and will get stronger. Everybody loves Jasper.”
“I’ve seen a lot of people pouring themselves into the recovery,” she added. “Neighbours are helping each other, and visitors want to contribute. Pulling together has been a great source of strength and inspiration.”
