Jasper at Christmas

We hit the road for Calgary on boxing day. The plan was to travel to Jasper, spend the night, then visit Maligne Canyon before continuing on to Calgary.

The morning of December 27 was beautiful in Jasper, after breakfast we went for a little walk in the downtown before heading up to Maligne Canyon. Once we got to the 5th bridge, which is the best spot to access the frozen canyon on the low end, the rapidly running water in the Maligne River told us that heading into the canyon on the river was unlikely, as we are not closely related to Jesus, walking on water was (is) not an option.

A new plan was required. It is only about a 20 minute drive up to Medicine Lake, a favourite spot of mine for winter photography if the light is right. Fortunately the light was amazing so we spent some quality time photographing the Medicine Lake area before moving on the upper end of the Maligne Canyon, which was after all the primary objective.

Late December is a little early to see ice climbers as the best time for that activity is late winter at the end of February and into March, no problem though, it still pretty spectacular.

A quick time check told us we were running out of daylight and needed to get moving towards Calgary. Jasper National Park was not letting us go without one last show however, and we needed a few more stops on Highway 16 to capture the last light of the day on the Rockies.

We did not make Calgary, it simply got too late to be safe, but the CanAlta Hotel in Rimbey was a hospitable, comfortable place to stay one last night on the road.

I’ve included a sample of shots we got in Jasper on December 27, I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Happy Holidays!
Dean.

Christmas Day at Prince George

On Christmas day we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went on a little adventure to explore the city.

Prince George is a diverse city, with magical meadows, historic railway infrastructure, and a world class university all within the city limits. Candy Cane Lane is a favourite attraction on the nights during the holidays.

I’ll prepare a more detailed feature on my home city in the future, for now here are some photographs I made on Christmas day.

Happy holidays!!
Dean.

East Line on Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we went for a drive out the "East Line" which follows the Fraser River east of Prince George.

The term "East Line" came about as the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad was built and operated from 1914 to 1919 between Prince George and Jasper Alberta. In 1919 the Grand Trunk was nationalized and the name was changed to Canadian National (CN).

Along the East Line a series of small towns developed as section points that maintained the track in the age before centralized maintenance. In the early 1940s many of these small towns had sawmills open which diversified the economies of the small towns.

The East Line communities including Willow River, Giscome, Newlands, Aleza Lake, and Upper Fraser had regularly scheduled passenger rail service. Things were booming on the East Line until the early 1970s when Northwood Pulp bought up all the small independent sawmills and closed many of them to consolidate operations. One by one the small towns started dying as the mills closed and the CN Rail maintenance was centralized into Prince George and McBride to the East.

In 2003 the last sawmill on the East Line at Upper Fraser was closed marking the end of an era between Prince George and Jasper. trains still run on the East Line but there are many empty buildings and the towns are now gone, only a few families still live out this way. Only Willow River still has a store with perhaps 150-200 people living in town.

The logging trucks still roll down the East Line moving logs to Prince George Sawmill, we had to keep a sharp eye out to stay safe on Christmas Eve. I've included a few photographs from our little exploration. There are many more ghost towns farther out, but they are better explored in the summer.

Happy holidays!!

Dean.