Parks Canada is planning two prescribed fires in Jasper National Park this year at Douglas-fir Hillsides and the Southdesk.

“Water is the most expressive element in nature,” Canadian watercolor painter Walter Phillips once mused. “It responds to every mood from tranquility to turbulence.”

At least one black bear has been spotted in the valley bottom near the townsite of Jasper, and grizzly bears are expected soon in Jasper National Park.

Keith Diakiw deftly wraps a red-striped Métis sash over my winter coat and around my waist, tying it loosely on the left to signify that I’m taken and not single. One of my fellow “geo-explorers” opts to have her sash tied in the middle as a hard-working Voyageur would have during the fur trade era. Another chooses to be a Métis princess with the sash wrapped over her left shoulder across her heart.