Another online home for Jasper

A Calgary couple that’s decided that Canada’s mountain parks need a new online home are in the process of researching, compiling and designing a new website that will feature all that the mountain parks have to offer visitors.

For Jason Cheever, a South Dakota-born web designer, the outdoors mountain lifestyle that he’s come to love is something that should be shared and that’s exactly what his wife and he will be doing when they unveil their new website, www.travelcanadianrockies.com, in June this year.

A quick Google search of the word “Jasper” returns 27 million results. So, how does Cheever’s website differ from these other sites?

“It actually covers more than just Jasper,” he said. “It’s all four national parks (Jasper, Banff, Yoho and Kootenay) and it’s designed not only to promote businesses, but it’s orientated towards more visitor activities, hiking, camping, that type of stuff.”

As Cheever is designing the website, there is no need for advertising revenue to fund the site, which means they can be brutally honest and give opinions on the different services in each park. This will also help to distinguish the site from the rest, he said.

For Cheever, the focus is on the tourist coming to Jasper and how best they can spend their time, so they’ve visited nearly all the campgrounds in Jasper, Banff, Yoho and the Kootenay National Parks in order to detail the amenities as well as the the pros and cons of each one.

“We offer opinions, not only our opinions but we’ll give information so visitors can form their own opinions,” he said adding that the couple’s aim was to give people “straight talk” so no time is wasted doing something they won’t enjoy.

The site will eventually expand to cover all basic services – grocery stores, bakeries, post offices, good hotels, bulk foods and much more, so Cheever will be enlisting the help of local businesses and people throughout the parks to provide the information needed.

If you ask Cheever, the key to a successful website is its overall functionality, which means having a straightforward navigation system, photographs to make the site aesthetically pleasing and both internal and external links to guide people through the site. Cheever’s experience as a software developer means the site will have it all.

The new website will come to fruition slowly over a period of five years and over 2,000 hours that don’t financially cost him anything. Eventually the site will offer history, ecology of the region, good hikes and a range of information, he said.

“Basically, try and take information from a large variety of sources and combine it into a single source. This website, probably five years down the road, will be over 1,000 pages of information,” he said.

It’s not just Cheever that thinks there’s something lacking in the online world of Jasper. The municipality has budgeted $35,000 for the renovation of the town’s online presence.