Jasper is a specialized municipality and townsite in western Alberta within the Canadian Rockies. The townsite is in the Athabasca River valley and is the commercial centre of Jasper National Park.
History
thumb|The Jasper Welcome Sign at the north entrance to town, 2022.
Established in 1813, Jasper House was first a fur trade outpost of the North West Company, and later Hudson's Bay Company, on the York Factory Express trade route to what was then called "New Caledonia" (now British Columbia) and Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia River. Jasper House was 35 km north of today's town of Jasper.
Jasper Forest Park was established in 1907. The railway divisional point at the location of the future townsite was established by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1911 and originally named Fitzhugh after a Grand Trunk vice president (along the Grand Trunk's "alphabet" line). The Canadian Northern Railway began service to its Jasper Park station in 1912, about 700 m from GTP's Fitzhugh station. The townsite was surveyed in 1913 by H. Matheson.
Jasper Forest Park was renamed Jasper National Park in 1930. By 1931, Jasper was accessible by road from Edmonton. In 1940, the scenic Icefields Parkway opened, connecting Jasper to Lake Louise and Banff in Banff National Park.
The first step towards incorporation of Jasper occurred on August 31, 1995, when the Jasper Improvement District was formed from a portion of Improvement District No. 12 (Jasper National Park). The improvement district was subsequently incorporated as a specialized municipality under the name of the Municipality of Jasper on July 20, 2001. and the surrounding balance of the specialized municipality as a rural service area that was deemed equivalent to a municipal district.
The Jasper wildfire began on July 22, 2024 and destroyed 358 buildings, one-third of the town's structures, causing an estimated $1.23 billion in damages. The high cost was partly due to Jasper's geographical isolation, which made transporting materials into the town and moving debris out more difficult. By May 2025, insurance companies had finished clearing debris, and Parks Canada had issued 100 permits to start rebuilding houses destroyed in the fire.
Geography
The Municipality of Jasper is in the western portion of the province of Alberta within Jasper National Park. It borders the province of British Columbia to the west and Improvement District No. 12 to the north, east, and south.
- Bedson
- Decoigne
- Geikie
- Henry House
- Jasper
- Jasper Lodge
- Jasper National Park
- Jasper Park Lodge
- Medicine Lake
- Miette Hot Springs
- Sixth Bridge
- Wynd
Climate
Jasper experiences a borderline Humid Continental/Subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb/Dfc). The highest temperature ever recorded in Jasper was on June 30, 2021. The coldest temperature ever recorded was on January 24, 1916.
Summers in Jasper are pleasant, with daily highs usually around 21.1 °C (70 °F) and lows around 7.2 °C (45 °F). Winters are cold, though may be considered mild by Canadian standards, with daily highs around −2.2 °C (28 °F) and lows around −11.7 °C (11 °F).
<div style="width:70%">
</div>