Jasper Alberta Historical Timeline

You will find that Jasper National Park still looks much like it did when Canada's fur-trade-era explorer David Thompson, first saw it.

Jasper Alberta has seen many changes in the last two centuries from first visits by native people to 3 million + visitors a year today. Below is a brief history of Jasper National Park, Alberta.

1810 - David Thompson, surveyor, makes first recorded visit to Alberta's Athabasca Valley.


1813 - North West Company builds supply depot on Brule Lake, which becomes known as Jasper House after clerk Jasper Hawes.

1820 - Iroquois trader, Pierre Bostonnais, guides Hudson's Bay Company through northern Rockies. His light-coloured hair results in nickname "Tete Jaune" or "Yellowhead."

1845 - Father P.J. deSmet, Jesuit missionary, records the name "La riviere maligne," or "wicked river", now known as Jasper's Maligne River.

1859 - The Earl of Southesk, first recorded "tourist", visits what is now Jasper National Park.

1862 - The Overlanders, 115 adventurers suffer many hardships on their journey through Yellowhead Pass to seek fortunes in the B.C. goldfields.

1884 - Jasper House is abandoned as fur trade declines.

1897 - A.E. Snyder, of the North West Mounted Police, makes first patrol from Edmonton, Alberta

1898 - Columbia Icefield discovered.

1907 - Dominion Government establishes Jasper Forest Park, setting aside an area of 13,000 km.

1908 - Mary Schaffer, widow from Pennsylvania, follows Stoney Indian trails to discover Jasper's Maligne Lake.

1910 - Payments made to settlers forced to leave Alberta's Athabasca Valley due to formation of Park; with the exception of Lewis Swift.

1911 - Grand Trunk Pacific Railway reaches Fitzhugh (now Jasper, Alberta) Station.

1911 - Interprovincial Boundary Survey started by A.O. Wheeler, takes 14 years to complete. This process named many geographical places in Jasper, Alberta.

1913 - Present Jasper Information Centre is built as Jasper Park Superintendent's residence.

1914 - First school opens in Jasper Alberta.

1915 - Tent City built at Lac Beauvert during railway construction, eventually becomes Jasper Park Lodge.

1916 - Jasper Park's Mount Edith Cavell is named to honour heroic British nurse executed during WWI for assisting prisoners of war to escape German-occupied Belgium.

1925 - First Ascent of Mount Alberta by Japanese Mountaineers

1928 - The Jasper-Edmonton road opens.

1930 - Jasper officially established as a National Park in Alberta.