IF YOU LOVE TO GO a-wandering along a mountain trail, Jasper National Park offers a volunteer opportunity you might enjoy this summer.

Visitors who appreciate the ecology of the Rockies and want to help preserve a natural habitat can join Volunteer Trail Work Days on the second Tuesday and last Saturday of every month from June through September.

The Jasper Trails Project is an ambitious plan to improve about 190 kilometres of multi-use trails near Jasper, Alta., and to change the routes to protect animals and delicate vegetation.

Older hiking trails around the town have deteriorated over time, exposing gnarled roots and rocks that encourage hikers, cyclists and horseback riders to leave the paths. Watching with remote cameras, parks biologists have also discovered that visitors in search of solitude use game trails. Few animals can tolerate human trespassers on wildlife routes through the valley.

With a $1.7 million federal grant to support the park’s ecological goals and three years to do the job right, project manager Jennifer Dubois and 10 community representatives recruited the people of Jasper, along with park visitors, to create a solution together. Their innovative trail plan should be ready this summer.

If Trail 2a, a popular path near the townsite, for example, looks better, it’s thanks to 30 teenagers from Kansas who worked on it last summer.

“This has been a fabulous experience,” says Dubois. “I love the trails too, and I’m out on the land all the time.”

For more information or to register as a volunteer, call the Jasper Trails Project office at (780) 852-9467.

— Linda Goyette

top