“Business as usual.” That’s how Jasper National Park Visitor Safety Specialist Garth Lemke described the rescue responses from Parks staff on the just passed July-August long weekend.

There were no deaths or significant injuries that Parks Canada had to deal with this weekend, but that does not mean that things were quiet.

While Parks Canada was called out to numerous rescue calls over the weekend, many of which were common long weekend emergencies, there were some standout moments.

A Parks helicopter flying in the Old Fort Point region on the Athabasca River on Sunday, August 1 around 7 p.m. was searching for people from an overturned kayak. However, it ended up making a different kind of discovery; two other people in inflatable Canadian Tire rafts were spotted on an island in the engorged river. Both people, a man and a woman who appeared to be extremely drunk, were not wearing life jackets or thermal wear.

Wind gusts were starting to pick up and a rain storm was obviously brewing around this time. The gusts were strong enough that the two people were struggling to keep their rafts stable, least they blow away in the wind into the near freezing, glacial fed waters.

Lemke said that Parks Canada rescuers offered to assist the couple get off the island, but the couple said they didn’t want any help and were fine. The man later became quite belligerent with Parks staff and was given a drunk in public related ticket by a Parks warden.

Lemke said that the woman was so drunk that it appeared she could barely stand up.

Without Park’s help, the couple was able to wade and swim from the island to the mainland. Lemke said Parks staff were watching the couple the entire time, in the hopes that a disaster did not take place.

The whereabouts of the couple’s Canadian Tire rafts is unknown.

The people from the runaway kayak near Old Fort Point, a mother and son, that Parks Canada originally spotted were also able to get onto land without any assistance from Parks Canada.

Parks Canada was also busy with a variety of calls earlier in the evening on Sunday.

Between 4 and 7 p.m. they were dealing with an injured cliff jumper in the Horse Shoe Lake region. A woman there, 21, had injured her back while jumping into the lake from a cliff. The woman was indicating some major pain in her lower back and was unable to walk. She reported tingling in her legs but paralysis appears unlikely, said Lemke. Parks Canada rescuers used a stretcher to evacuate the woman from the lake and took her to Seton General Hospital for medical attention.

It is not known whether she is from Jasper or a tourist.

While that rescue was going on, the RCMP was also prepping a potential rescue at the Moberly bridge heading into Jasper Park Lodge. An overturned canoe had been spotted coming down the Athabasca River and a rescue could have been necessary.

However, Parks only got one call about the overturned canoe. Traffic at the time of the call was backed up over the Moberly bridge back to Lake Edith, said Lemke, and more people would have likely called had there really been an emergency. 

A rescue of any floundering and submerged canoeists was not necessary and Lemke said the canoe was pulled ashore later, most likely by its owner, who was safely on land.

While Sunday was busy for Parks rescuers, Saturday proved to be less eventful.

The most significant call regarded a 27-year-old man who had fallen unconscious, apparently due to heat stroke. The man had gone under in the Whitehorse area, near Cadomin, outside of Jasper National Park, said a caller who had left the man on the ground to make the emergency call.

Parks Canada officers began to prepare a helicopter and sling to airlift the man out as night was beginning to fall, but conservation officers with Alberta gathered info that quelled the entire operation. They told Parks they had talked to other people in the region where the man was last spotted, and apparently he was up and moving around just fine on his own.

Lemke said that the man was probably suffering from something other than heat-stroke as people who fall unconscious due to the heat usually are not able to raise themselves under their own willpower.

Lemke also said that despite the many calls Parks Canada received, it probably does not touch on all the dangerous situations that arose over the long weekend.

“There were probably many things happening out there where people just used their own strengths and rescued themselves and we didn’t even hear about it,” he said.