Page 15 - AEF-AlbertaBits_Summer-2025

W
hen the first evacuation order for Jasper
National Park was issued on the evening
of Monday, July 22, 2024, Scott Jackson
immediately began preparing to leave the mountain
community that he had called home for more than 50
years. As his neighbours began to pack up and leave,
Jackson’s mind turned to his two horses, and three of
a friend’s horses he was responsible for, at the Pyramid
Lake Stables, located about a 10-minute drive outside
the Jasper townsite.
“It was quite stressful, because of course there
was a mass evacuation, and you know, that’s tough
for everyone,” says Jackson, whose family has been
involved at the Pyramid Lake Stables since 1976, and
the Cottonwood Corral Association since the early ʼ90s.
“You go to get your trailer and get up there, but when
the roads were totally packed, you couldn’t even leave
town to get up to even hook onto your trailer and get
your horses out of there.”
By the next morning, about 100 horses remained at
three sites: the Pyramid Lake Stables, Parks Canada’s
Jasper Park Riding Stables and the Jasper Park Lodge.
Some owners, unable to arrange safe transport for their
horses out of the area the night before, had instead
opened their corrals and let the animals loose in hopes
they could find their way to safety. By the time Jackson
arrived at the Pyramid Lake Stables that morning, he
found many other horses still on the property.
“A horse, being a herd animal, you know, they stick
around a home, which fortunately the fire didn’t get
there, but the horses stuck there,” he says.
Thankfully, Jackson notes, the community response
to safely evacuate these horses was swift, well organized
and diligently executed.
IT WAS AROUND 6 A.M. on the morning of July 23,
2024, when Shauna Cruden received a message from
a friend at the Hinton Search and Rescue team. Jasper
had been evacuated the night before, and the note had
a sense of urgency to it: teams had a brief window to
enter the park with police escort to get the horses.
What they didn’t have was the manpower or trailers
to do it.
As the president of the Hinton-based River Valley
Agricultural Society, Cruden jumped to action. She
posted to the group’s social media about the pressing
need, and within minutes, the community responded
in droves.
“My phone just exploded, like there were people
calling from I think as far south as High River, just
saying we can come, but we can’t be there for five hours,
but I think we had to meet at the park gates within the
next 45 minutes,” she says.
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