This is a big year for some very important projects that have been on Jasper National Park officials’ desks for a long time.
For starters, Superintendent Alan Fehr said that the caribou recovery program is getting ready for a running start. It is now more than halfway constructed, and Parks Canada expects to take ownership of the breeding facility within the year.
The Jasper Indigenous Exhibit is also set for a fall grand opening after several years of consultation and development, construction and some delays.
“On both counts, these are long-standing projects,” Fehr said. “In both cases, we're coming to some milestones that are highly significant.”
There is no downplaying the importance that the caribou recovery facility has for the ecology in general. Caribou is an iconic species to the country. It is also a priority species that has seen many struggles to survive and thrive over these last decades.
One of this national park’s three herds has been considered extirpated for several years now. The other two are struggling to build their numbers. Parks Canada is working to change that.
Jasper National Park has also made a commitment to build strong and mutually beneficial working relationships with its Indigenous partners. Their collaboration in the caribou recovery program has involved them offering their Indigenous oral histories and inherent traditional knowledge related to the species itself, to the land, and to the relationship between the two.
Their involvement symbolizes their importance toward Parks Canada achieving its mutual goals of conserving natural and cultural heritage.
Those goals, Fehr said, aren’t necessarily concepts that can be achieved once and then they’re done.
“The journey of reconciliation is just that: it's a journey. It's made up of many initiatives, many small steps, big steps, big milestones, incremental milestones. The caribou program is so important to reestablishing that strong, positive connection between the Indigenous partners that are involved in the Jasper Indigenous Forum. There are many ways for them to be involved.”
Jasper National Park has a number of representatives from its Indigenous partners on its Caribou Relations Group. Those partners are integral to helping Parks make decisions around governance, ceremony, animal care and management, animal selection for the program and more. When the newly bred caribou are released, the Indigenous partners will be involved with that, too.
The Indigenous partners have their eyes on the weekend of Sept. 7 and 8 for the grand opening of the Jasper Indigenous Exhibit. The immersive and artistic truth-telling space in Athabasca Park will forever establish a place where the Indigenous Peoples can tell their story of how they were forced to leave the area now known as Jasper National Park. It will also serve to emphasize the impact that it continues to have on Indigenous communities.
To have this in a prominent location in a major national park in Canada highlights who the target audience is, Fehr said.
“We want the youth from Indigenous communities to see that they are a part of this place and always have been and will be into the future. We want Canadians and visitors to know that story so that we can move forward in a positive way and continue to develop and nurture our relationships amongst ourselves … so that we're all coming at it from the same perspective.”
Fehr said that he wants it to help Indigenous communities and the rest of Canada to journey together with a stronger relationship.
He expects that the exhibit is going to really be something for everyone and for the country to be proud of. There have been too many tragic stories in the past, he continued, and he hopes that the exhibit can help heal those old wounds and help create connection while educating people through awareness.
