PORT ANGELES – The last few weeks have been depressing for me.

Last week I was supposed to go on vacation to one of my favorite places in the world, which I had been looking forward to all summer.

Alberta, Canada.

As most of you have heard, a third of the village of Jasper burned down in a fast-moving wildfire in late July. It was shocking to see the footage. If you’ve never been to Jasper, it’s one of the prettiest idyllic mountain towns you’ll ever find. It’s like Switzerland or Austria. It’s an old railroad town surrounded on three sides by the high peaks of the northern Canadian Rockies.

I first visited Jasper when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old, and even then I fell in love with it. Banff, about 300 kilometers further south, is much more famous and in some ways a little more spectacular, but Jasper is much quieter and more low-key, and only gets about half the number of visitors of Banff. Banff feels a little too much like Yosemite or Yellowstone in the height of summer. It’s incredibly crowded and not always relaxing.

I’ve returned to Jasper every few years and climbed some of the peaks around town. Last summer was my first time back in nearly a decade. In the spring and early summer of last year, the fires in Western Canada were terrible, but by the time I got to Jasper in late summer, the fires were mostly out or under control. I was optimistic.

Unfortunately, the day I drove there, a whole new series of fires broke out. Jasper was very smoky most of the time. I had one blue sky morning and that was it. I tried to make the best of a less than ideal situation, but vowed to return to Jasper in 2024 to enjoy the blue skies and stunning views. The worst part was the drive back, with two huge fires south of Kamloops, BC. I drove 100 miles through dark orange, apocalyptic-looking skies, paranoid that the highway could be closed at any moment, before getting out of the smoke south of Merritt. I’ll have better luck next year, I told myself.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

I was planning to hike the entirety of Maligne Canyon and do a hike to Bald Hills, a hike I had to cancel last year because of the smoke. Everything was looking good until late July when a fire broke out just a few miles from town and then swept through the village’s downtown area. It just didn’t seem possible that something like this could happen.

Fortunately, no one was killed and Canada has promised to rebuild the city.

From a purely selfish perspective, I was also lucky to get my non-refundable room refunded. In October, I plan to spend a four-day weekend in Whistler, BC, where the prices are incredibly cheap, to make up for the loss of my vacation. There’s not much to do in Whistler in October, which is why it’s so cheap, but as long as I have a hiking trail in the morning and afternoon and a brewpub in the evening, I’m happy. That’s all I need.

I hope to return to Jasper in three years. I was wondering if they need volunteers over the next few summers to help them rebuild the town, but I have back problems and am not sure how much I could help.

I believe that as the climate changes and summers in the Pacific Northwest become hotter and more fire-prone, weather, smoke and fires will need to be considered more and more in travel planning. This is becoming a reality.

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Sports Editor Pierre LaBossiere can be contacted at [email protected].