Jasper National Park a Social and Economic History
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Parks Pares •• Canada Canada Microfiche Report Series 198 JASPER NATIONAL PARK A SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY by Great Plains Research Consultants 1985 Jasper National Park A Social and Economic History by Great Plains Research Consultants 1985 The Microfiche Report Series is intended for internal use by Parks Canada and is printed in limited numbers. Copies of each issue are distributed to various public depositories in Canada for use by interested individuals. Documents are reproduced exactly as received and have not been edited. Many of these reports will appear in Parks Canada publications and may be altered by editing or by further research. iii Jasper National Park A Social and Economic History by Great Plains Research Consultants 1 Part 1 Yellowhead Interpretive Management Unit 2 Transportation in the Yellowhead Corridor 2 Jasper House: A Transportation Depot 1 2 Seekers of a Railway Route 16 Two Northern Transcontinental Railways 23 The Advent of the Automobile 29 Airplanes in the Park 35 Oil Across the Mountains 38 Conclusion 39 Settlement of the Yellowhead Corridor 39 The Native People of the Park Area 49 Lewis Swift and the Townsite Frontier 54 The Railway Camps of the Yellowhead Corridor 60 From Fitzhugh to Jasper: The National Park Townsite 75 Conclusion iv 76 Resource Development in the Yellowhead Corridor 76 Laying the Groundwork 82 The Work of the Geological Survey of Canada 87 Resource Development and National Park Policy 1 01 The Coal Towns of the Corridor 11 0 Conclusion 11 2 Part 2 History/Wilderness Interpretive Management Unit 11 3 Jasper Park: A Frontier of Discovery 11 3 The Fur Trader as Explorer 120 The Scientific Quest 128 Wayfarers of the 1840s 1 40 Passage of the Goldseekers 150 Milton and Cheadle: The Travelogue as Literature 156 The Search for a Northern Railway Route 1 63 Conclusion 164 Recreational Exploration in Jasper National Park 1 64 The New Leisure Class 166 The Origins of Mountaineering in the Northern Rockies 170 The Irrepressible Mary Schaff er 1 81 The Big Game Hunters 187 The Quest for Mount Robson 1 93 Life on the Trail 205 Conclusion v 207 Jasper National Park: Establishment and Early Policies 207 The Philosophies of Canadian National Park Creation 210 The Creation of Jasper Forest Park 217 Early Park Development 224 The Park During the Great War 230 The Warden Service 238 The Administration and the Park Residents 243 Conclusion 245 Jasper: The Evolution of an All-Season Resort 245 From Wilderness to Destination 251 The Expansion of Tourist Facilities 263 Automobiles in the Park 272 The Growth of Winter Recreation 278 Endnote Abbreviations 279 Endnotes 303 Bibliography 315 Index Illustrations Following page Caption 17 a "Chee You, Chinese cook for Grand Trunk Pacific surveyors" 20 b "Rock cut on Grand Trunk Pacific railway line near Jasper, Alberta" 21 b. "Jasper Round-house" 26 9, "Automobile on railroad tracks near Jasper, Alberta" vi 34 b "Jasper Airport" 36 b [Construction of the Trans Mountain Oil Pipe Line through Jasper National Park] 54 a "Foley, Welch and Stewart cache, Jasper park, Alta" 63 b [Sketch of proposed subdivision for the townsite of Fitzhugh Alberta] 64 a "View of part of Jasper, 1 91 3 11 65 a "Administration Building at Jasper, Alberta" 66 b "Canadian National Railway Depot, Jasper" 67 a "Jasper from top of coal chutes, Al ta • , 1 91 4 " 68 a ''Pupils at school, Jasper, Alberta'' 91 b "Coal mine buildings at Pocahontas, Alta; looking north across Athabasca River" 98 b "Coal cars, Jasper area, Alta" 169 b "Three climbers on glacier on Mount Resplendent" 184 b "Pack horse outfit, Jasper, Alberta" 195 b "Charlie Matheson, Hinton, Alberta" 201 b "Lunch at Maligne Canyon, Jasper, Alberta" 21 6 b [Map of Jasper National Park] 227 b "Prisoner of War Camp, 4 miles southwest of Jasper" 239 b "Superintendent of National Parks, J.A. wood, Jasper" 249 b "Hot spring, Jasper, Alberta" 250 b "Tent City, Lac Beauvert, Jasper Park Alberta" vii 251 b "The Bungalows, Jasper Park Lodge" 252 b "Jasper Park Lodge" 253 b "Jasper" 260 b "Jasper Fish Hatchery" 262 b "Mona Harragan, guide for Brewster in Jasper National Park, Alta" 264 b "Cars on the Edmonton-Jasper Trail" 266 b "Jasper National Park Entrance" 267 b "Wapiti Campground, Jasper" 268 b "Pine Auto Camp" 270 b "Tourists riding snowmobiles on Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park, Alberta" 271 b "Jasper and Banff" 272 b "Jasper Winter Carnival" 274 b "Canadian Junior Ski Championships, Jasper" 276 b "Canadian National Railway Station, Jasper" viii Pref ace In April, 1984, Parks Canada (Western Region) engaged Great Plains Research Consultants to prepare a series of interrelated histories of selected topics in the history of Jasper National Park. It was intended that those histories would meet the needs of in-park interpretive staff who routinely require concise information about specific facts relating to the park and its history. This report is the result of the past year's endeavour. Based on primary, secondary and oral sources, the report is divided into two sections, each corresponding to the interpretive needs of established Interpretive Management Units. Within each section are discrete chapters on single topics. In order that each chapter be self-contained, some repetition of material was essential, but it is to be hoped that repetition has been kept to a minimum. The report is fully indexed to facilitate use. Many people had a hand in the preparation of this report. W.B. Yeo and R.G. Stuart of Parks Canada willingly shared their abundant knowledge of many topics within the report. The staffs of the Archives of the Canadian Rockies, the Provincial Archives of British Columbia, the Glenbow-Alberta Institute and Archives, the Provincial Museum and Archives of Alberta, the Public Archives of Canada, the McCord Institute, McGill University, and Canadian National Railways proved most co operative, as always, and repeatedly steered the author in the right direction. Mary Porter and Shirley Klettl of the Jasper-Yellowhead Historical Society participated in the project with enthusiasm from the beginning, provided the author with unlimited access to the Society's impressive collections, and helped develop the oral history programme. And Merna Forster, Interpretive Officer at Jasper National Park, contributed much to the betterment of the report by providing access to numerous historical files, by putting the author in contact with local informants, and by sharing her own critical insights into the park's development. Any errors that remain in the report are, of course, solely the author's responsibility. Finally, it should be noted that the opinions expressed in this report are exclusively those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies or views of Parks Canada. 1 Part 1 Yellowhead Interpretive Management Unit 2 Transportation in the Yellowhead Corridor Jasper House: ~ Transportation Depot In his later years, Henry Moberly often muddled his facts. When sketching Jasper House as it was in the 1850s, the veteran fur trader neglected to include an entire building. When describing his association with the old post, he declared his pack train to have been the first to travel west from Fort Edmonton, although it was well known that several had preceded him. Such confusion was also evident in his claim that Jasper House "always was one of the best paying posts in the Saskatchewan district, as 1 nothing but the most valuable furs were brought there." During its sixty-odd years of operation, Jasper House brought its resident traders an abiding sense of loneliness, frequent famine, and crude, uncomfortable quarters, but very few furs of any description. It was never, in fact, a fur trading post of significance, but rather a small depot in a vast fur trade transportation network. The North West Company started Jasper House in about 2 1813 as a way-station between its fur trade posts on the 3 North Saskatchewan River and those of the New Caledonia district across the mountains. This northern route through the Rockies had been blazed by David Thompson just three years earlier, after hostile Peigan Indians forced him to abandon a shorter passage through Howse Pass. With a party of twenty-four men, an equal number of horses, and an Iroquois guide named Thomas, Thompson became one of the earliest white explorers to cross the mountains by way of the Athabasca Pass. Only obscure fur traders had ever travelled there before. Even before departing, Thompson wrote that use of a northern pass "would place us in safety [from the Indians], but would be attended by great 3 inconvenience, fatigue, suffering and privation." Thompson's intuition foretold the arduous way of life that awaited several generations of traders and travellers. Nevertheless, with death as the possible price of using the Howse, Thompson became an eager supporter of the Athabasca Pass route to the Columbia River Valley. Thompson's employer, the North West Company, had traded for furs on the west side of the mountains since 1 805. The company partners believed that by harvesting the furs of the western slope, the North West Company could eventually establish British sovereignty over that territory and gain a trade monopoly for itself. For these reasons, the discovery of a satisfactory mountain pass was all important. The company's partners seriously considered and then rejected Thompson's new Athabasca 4 route as the main transportation route to the west, but the defiant traders who manned the canoes and pack trains soon made the Athabasca one of the few regularly-used passes south of the Peace River. Two brigades crossed the Rockies annually, between about 1813 and 1846. The first came east from the Columbia in the spring, its canoes laden with furs from the Shuswaps, Kootenays, and other tribes of the interior plateau.