Fresh off of a week learning about the basics of Parks Canada, the newly recruited park wardens are now stationed at the Palisades Centre, preparing for a career in uniform.

The small groups are spending their first few days in the classroom, learning about the history of the warden service, and receiving detailed instruction about ecosystem science management. They’ll get a chance to get hands-on before too long, with public safety training scheduled in the weeks ahead. In one exercise, the recruits will spend up to two days in the backcountry, responding to a mock emergency situation.

Jasper is just the first stop in an eleven-week comprehensive training journey that will continue in Regina and conclude at Prince Albert National Park in northern Saskatchewan. By the time they’ve graduated from the program, the recruit wardens will be full-fledged park wardens, and they’ll be ready for most situations their complex jobs might throw at them.

“What we provide is a set of skills and knowledge so that they can hit the ground running,” said Sylvia Frahner, in Jasper for the start of the annual program. Frahner is usually esconced in a fourth-floor office in Gatineau, Quebec where she works to supervise the training program.

“This is the high point of my bureaucratic life,” she said, smiling in the slushy open space at the Palisades Centre.

The wardens are billeted at the Palisades, and they live side-by-side with their instructors and trainers in Regina and Prince Albert too, leading to a very complete learning environment. 

“It makes for a different sort of instruction,” said Frahner. “Seeing your teachers after hours, eating meals with them.”

Not every one of the recruits are freshly graduated from university. 

“There are people in that room with master’s degrees,” Frahner said. “These are people who absolutely want this job, some people have applied three or four times.”

There is a fairly consistent demand for new wardens, with between 15 and 30 attending the training program every year. Frahner can only recall one year when training did not run, and that was soon followed by a year that required two separate sessions.

All of the current class have already accepted an offer with a specific park, including one who will be starting work in Jasper after she completes the training program.

“Jasper is a very strong recruitment park,” said Frahner. 

Most people arrive with a pretty good idea of what the job entails, but some are surprised by the physicality of some of the tasks a warden must do.

“It could happen that people find the learning or the demands too much, but in most cases the recruits really rise to the challenge,” Frahner said. The recruits are all evaluated over the course of the training, by instructors and by their peers. It’s all meant to leave the new wardens in a good position to start their jobs.

“We get feedback regularly from new wardens themselves, as well as from their managers. They concur it’s a good program, and it’s not just the skills, it’s a level of confidence.”

The recruits pile out of the classroom to stretch their legs with an energetic game of frisbee. Their instructors look on, eager to continue preparing the next generation of wardens.