By Eric Higgs, August 8th, 2024
Thinking of You, Jasper.
*****
The Mountain Legacy Project (MLP) was born in Jasper. Starting in 1996 with the uncovering of a set of 1915 survey images of the area, we began to realize the power of historical and repeat photographs for understanding mountains and the forces that shape them. Over the last three decades, we have returned many times to honour friends, colleagues, and that remarkable landscape. We cherish our memories and are devastated by the impacts of the recent fires.
In 1998 and 1999, then graduate student (now Associate Professor in Forest Sciences and Conservation at UBC), Jeanine Rhemtulla, and Eric Higgs (Professor, University of Victoria) climbed or helicoptered to 92 survey stations in Jasper National Park, capturing 735 repeat photographs from exactly the same location as the original surveyors using a large format film camera. This was the origin of the MLP, which is now the largest systematic mountain repeat photography project in the world. Since then, intrepid field teams have repeated more than 10,000 photographs in Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon. We are grateful for a long-term partnership with Library and Archives Canada and the support of Parks Canada and the Government of Alberta. All of our images are open source and available here, at our Explore website: explore.mountainlegacy.ca.
View up the Athabasca valley towards the town of Jasper captured by MLP field crew on July 11, 2024
Continuing decades of work, PhD student Claire Wright, along with her field team (Darcy Benham and Ben Wright), spent three weeks exploring previously unvisited survey stations in Jasper this summer. They stood atop Mt. Hardisty on July 11, 2024 and took a series of photographs with no idea quite how poignant they would turn out to be. The images show the Athabasca Valley leading up to the town of Jasper just ten days before the South fire erupted. While we sit with heavy hearts knowing the community of Jasper is partly in ruins and the surrounding landscape searingly altered, we are also thinking ahead to photographs as yet untaken that will witness the recovery of this remarkable place.
View up the Athabasca valley towards the town of Jasper photographed by surveyor Rheo C. McDonald in 1938 and repeated by MLP crews on July 11, 2024. Historic images courtesy of Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada.
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To view the historic photographs and modern repeats of the Mt. Hardisty Station, visit: https://explore.mountainlegacy.ca/stations/show/3934