The outlying accommodations south of the Jasper townsite were among the first properties to face the encroaching wildfire.
Rena Allin described the weather as “very, very hot and very, very dry” at Alpine Village Cabin Resort prior to the evacuation on July 22. Just before the evacuation order was issued that evening, the power had gone out around 6 p.m.
“Already, the guests were starting to come in, getting a bit anxious, because, of course, a lot were from all over the world, and they were unsure [what was happening],” Allin said. “There was a huge windstorm that knocked over chairs and everything, so it just gave us maybe a warning of what was to come.”
Once the evacuation order was issued at 10 p.m., Allin and her maintenance manager went around knocking on all the guests’ doors, and around 170 guests left in an orderly fashion.
Because an evacuation plan had already been in place, they were able to evacuate their 28 staff relatively smoothly and book them motel rooms in Kamloops, B.C. After doing their best to prepare their property, the Allin family soon had to leave as well.
“The next day or two, we were waiting, wondering what happened, and then when we did find out that our home was safe, it was so very reassuring but to find out that 25 of our cabins had burnt down, half our cabins, we were just shaken,” Allin said. “This whole Jasper Wildfire Complex, it’s affected so many of us in Jasper, and there’s so many that have lost their homes, have lost their businesses or they’ve lost both. It’s just so upsetting, and we just feel for everyone.”
Allin and her husband Chris have owned and operated Alpine Village for nearly 40 years, with their daughter Cassi serving as general manager for the last six years. Their son Sean works part-time at the village and full-time with Parks Canada as a resource conservation officer, also assisting with the wildfire response.
Outlying commercial accommodations is an all-encompassing term by Parks Canada for accommodations located outside of Jasper where visitors can stay in a more natural setting. These include cabins, bungalows, chalets and lodges.
“The cabin culture of Jasper is very well known, and people, guests, tourists would search out the cabins,” Allin said. “It [is a unique style of accomodation] in Jasper National Park, where people would expect to stay in the Canadian Rockies.”
The four outlying accommodations south of the Jasper townsite are Alpine Village, Becker’s Chalets, Tekarra Lodge and Jasper House Bungalows. The fire caused extensive damage to all four sites and completely destroyed Jasper House Bungalows.
Alpine Village lost 25 of its 55 log cabins. Most of these had been new cabins built in the last six to 12 years. As well, around 200 live trees had blown over on still-standing cabins and the grounds.
The resort will be fully shut down until the infrastructure of the whole property is restored and the burnt cabins are demolished. Allin noted their family home, front office, maintenance and housekeeping areas remain intact.
“Ironically, Chris and I, we’ve been here almost 40 years, and when we started here in ‘86, we had 30 cabins, so we’re actually back down to 30 cabins again,” she said.
Alpine Village is working to get the remaining 30 cabins open for next May. Allin noted they had always been a seasonal operation that closed after Thanksgiving.
Restoration companies have already cut off utilities to the destroyed cabins and maintained the remaining ones. The burned cabins need to be demolished and cleared out, the surviving ones will be cleaned and the fallen trees are still being removed.
Replacing the existing cabins will be an even lengthier process.
“With log cabins, it’s not an easy, quick build,” Allin said. “Most log builders – and there’s not that many of them in Western Canada – they have to source the logs [and] have them dry out for a good length of time before they start building. Then they would bring them in on foundations that we would build prior to them coming with the logs. And then, of course, [there'd] be all the finishing work.”
With so much of the natural beauty devastated, the Allin family will have to plant trees and do landscaping to make the property look presentable for guests.
“It’s just going to take up, definitely, a few years.”
Many guests with cancelled reservations have offered to donate their deposits to aid in Alpine Village’s rebuilding efforts.
While the Allin family refunded their deposits, they have started the Alpine Village Green Fund, which will be dedicated to purchasing and planting as many five-to-eight-foot trees as possible at the resort.
“The Allin family feels for everyone that’s in the same situation, to all our friends in town and our local Jasper businesses and people,” Allin said. “We’re going through a lot, and it’s going to be a long winter, and hopefully, next summer, things will return somewhat to normal, but the landscape is going to remind us of this fire for a long time.”
