Jasper National Park

Text and Photography by John Marriott

In Jasper, your best bets for seeing, watching and photographing wildlife are driving along Highway 93A, Highway 16, or the Maligne Lake Road early in the morning or late in the evening. The slow seasons for visitors (the fall and spring) tend to be the best times of the year to see animals, particularly bears, caribou and moose.

Following is an introduction to the large mammals that call Jasper home.

Jasper has a robust elk population numbering in the thousands. Highway 16 East, Highway 93, and the Maligne Lake Road are all excellent venues for seeing and photographing elk, and the town of Jasper itself is frequented by elk intent on eating the greenery in local's yards and escaping the predators they would face anywhere else in the park.

For the best viewing opportunities, visit the park in the summer months to see the big bull elk in velvet along Highway 16 East or near Medicine Lake, or come in September and join photographers and wildlife watchers from around the world for the famous elk rut along the banks of the Athabasca River.

Moose are abundant throughout the park. Your best bets are along the upper portion of the Maligne Lake Road from Medicine Lake to Maligne Lake, on Highway 16 heading west towards Mount Robson Provincial Park, and on Highway 93A. Moose are most visible in late spring (June) while they're down in the valley bottoms feeding on the new shrubbery.

The park is home to both whitetail and mule deer, although whitetails are scarce and are only found in the Athabasca River Valley. Mule deer are common along the Maligne Lake Road, particularly in spring and summer, and can be found year-round on the Pyramid Lake Road, the Snaring River Road, and in the vicinity of the town. The mule deer are larger and have a black tip on the end of their tail in contrast to the smaller, more slender whitetails who have a white underside to their tail.

Bighorn Sheep

Bighorn sheep are abundant throughout the park, and are most commonly seen on Tangle Ridge near the Columbia Icefields and on Highway 16 East near the town and at Disaster Point. The large rams are best viewed in the winter months when they are at lower elevations; in the summer, most of the rams and many of the ewes can be found by hiking into the high alpine meadows in the park.

Mountain Goat

Mountain caribou are fairly common in Jasper, migrating between summer range in the alpine and subalpine forest in the winter. They are often seen in winter and spring in the Beauty Creek area on the Icefields Parkway and along the Maligne Lake Road between Medicine Lake and Maligne Lake. Watch the far shore and the alluvial fan at the end of Medicine Lake in spring for small groups feeding on the sedges. Summer and fall backpackers can run into caribou in many areas of the park, and chances are particularly high on the trails through Jonas Pass and the Tonquin Valley.

The size of a large deer, caribou have dark brown bodies and white manes, and large curved antlers.

The park is home to a large healthy wolf population, with a number of packs that roam frontcountry areas and can occasionally be seen by car. Try the Snaring River Road and Highway 16 East (Pocahontas area) year-round, and the Maligne Lake Road in winter. Backcountry enthusiasts should watch and listen for wolves along the North and South Boundary trails in particular, two of the wildest trails in the park.

Coyotes are fairly common in most areas of the park where there are open meadows and good hunting grounds. Maligne Lake Road, Highway 16 and the Pyramid Lake Road are each good places to spot them, as is most of the area around the town.

The park supports a small population of mountain lions, however, sightings of these wily cats are extremely rare. They prey upon the park's deer, bighorn sheep and elk populations, and cat tracks are occasionally sighted in the winter in the Athabasca River Valley and along the Snaring River Road. Larger and more viable populations of cougars live to the south of the park in the southwest corner of Alberta.

Jasper has approximately 300 black bears, making up a large and fairly healthy population. Sightings are common along the Icefields Parkway, Highway 93A, Highway 16, the Maligne Lake Road and the Miette Hot Springs Road. Black bears are even common in and around the town itself. The best times of year to view black bears safely from your car are in spring when they're eating the dandelions along the roadsides, or in summer when they're feasting on berries in the valley bottoms.

Black bears come in a variety of colours, including black, brown and cream, and eat everything from ants to carrion to buffalo berries. They go into hibernation in late October and usually don't emerge from their slumber until late April or early May.

Jasper National Park is one of the few wilderness areas left in the world that still supports a large protected population of grizzly bears (approximately 150-200 grizzlies use the park as part of their range). Grizzlies can be distinguished from black bears by the large hump of muscle on their shoulders and from the shape of their face: grizzlies have very broad round faces, while black bears have narrow roman profiles much like a dog's face.

Sightings of grizzlies are more common in Jasper than they are in neighbouring Banff National Park. Watch for these magnificent animals along the Icefields Parkway, Highway 16 East, the Maligne Lake Road and just about anywhere in the backcountry. They are unpredictable creatures, so please remain in your vehicle if you do encounter a grizzly.

For further information on bears in Jasper National Park, visit a park information centre when you arrive and pick up a copy of the You Are in Bear Country brochure.