Page 16 - AEF-AlbertaBits_Summer-2025

By 7:30 a.m., Cruden had secured 16 horse trailers,
ready to evacuate the horses left in the park. Under
the direction of the Hinton Search and Rescue team
and RCMP escorts, the volunteer drivers entered the
park. Half were escorted to the Pyramid Lake Stables,
while the other half — including Cruden — went to the
Jasper Park Lodge.
“It was so well orchestrated because Dave Dower
and the Search and Rescue crew are so amazing,” she
says. “It was very much, ‘This is what is happening.
This is where we’re lining up. This is how many people
are going to JPL. This is how many people are going to
Pyramid, and this is the amount of time we have.’”
The evacuation ran smoothly, in part because the
Hinton Search and Rescue team’s mounted division was
prepared for this kind of emergency activity. Colette
Walker, logistics director with the team at the time of
the evacuation and a member of the group’s mounted
division, explains that the group is continually learning
new skills and techniques for emergency response. She
also notes there was something special about being
involved in evacuating horses.
“The equine community, no matter where we are,
we are always there to help one another, so it was
absolutely beautiful to see it all come together so
quickly,” she says.
Over at the Pyramid Lake Stables, Jackson was also
impressed by the speed, efficiency and organization of
the rescue efforts.
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Alberta Bits Summer 2025
“Those people coordinated that from 6 a.m.‘til 7
a.m., and showed up with all these trailers,” he says.
“And all the horses were gone by nine o’clock — loaded
up and moved up. It was absolutely one of the most
coordinated efforts I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.”
All told, Cruden estimates the Agricultural Society
and Search and Rescue teams evacuated nearly 80
horses that day — not one was left behind. She credits
the horses themselves for being easy to work with,
which also made the process that much easier.
“All those horses were so calm, there’s no Bronc’y-
like wild horses in the group because they’re used to
taking tourists around, so they were all just pretty chill,”
she says.
THE EVACUATION WAS just the beginning of a
difficult summer for many Jasperites who were forced
to leave everything behind as the fires approached. In
the aftermath of the fire, displaced residents still faced
many hurdles along the path to normalcy.
Sandra Coombe, an endurance equestrian rider, has
lived in Jasper for nearly 40 years. She spends much
of the summer on the road, officiating and attending
endurance events across Alberta, British Columbia and
Saskatchewan.
As luck would have it, due to that busy schedule,
Coombe’s two horses — Luna and Georgie — were
safe at a friend’s property close to Hinton when the
evacuation order was issued. But being displaced