Representatives from Town Council and Jasper Tourism and Commerce are in Japan this week visiting Jasper’s sister city, Hakone, for the first time since 1999.

The partnership between the two communities has existed for 33 years, but this is the first trip to Hakone since Jasper’s incorporation as a municipality. Mayor Richard Ireland, who is leading the delegation, also journeyed to Hakone in 1999 as the chairperson of the Town Committee.

“The intention is for a visit to happen every two years, but they are stronger adherents to this,” said Ireland in an interview last week. A group from Hakone last visited in 2002, to mark the thirty-year anniversary of the partnership.

Hakone, located some 80 kilometres west of Tokyo on the island of Honshu, is within the boundaries of Fuji Hakone Izu National Park. Known as “Japan’s Yellowstone”, the park is home to the iconic Mount Fuji. It is one of Japan’s most popular domestic destinations, with nearly 20 million tourist visits each year.

“Because of the fact that we’re both municipalities in a national park, it’s a chance for us to compare ideas,” said Ireland. “We all have to deal with the same issues.”

Also representing the municipality on the trip are Councillors Mike Day and Brian Nesbitt. The cost of the town representatives’ trip is covered by the municipality at an approximate cost of $3800 per head. 

Day is on the trip for the first time and he goes with a particular interest in ensuring that the student exchange program between the two towns continues as it has in the past. The exchange, which sees Jasper students spend several weeks in Hakone and Japanese students billeted with local families, is a big deal in the community, Day has discovered.

“I don’t think I realized the extent of the Hakone exchange until I started talking to people who had been over there, to parents who had billeted kids,” he said. “People have been asking me to say hi to this person or drop by this sushi bar.”

The municipal delegates are joined by two past-presidents of Jasper Tourism and Commerce, Doug McPhee and Bert  Journault. It is the first trip for both men and McPhee is confident that the delegation will help reinfrorce Jasper as a high-visibility destination for the Japanese market.

“I have a sense that the Japanese market is coming back around,” McPhee said, referencing the fact that visits from across the Pacific have fallen in recent years in the wake of SARS, the mad cow crisis and 9-11. Ireland agrees that the trip has a lot to do with exposure.

“It will keep our profile high in an area where people travel and there is an interest,” he said.

The Jasper-Hakone relationship predates the partnership between Alberta and the Japanese island of Hokkaido, which celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary this month. 

”As far as I know, we have the longest-standing exchange program in Canada,” said Doug McPhee. 

Jack Pugh was one of the Jasperites who arranged the sister city relationship with Hakone. The Japanese community had also considered a partnership with Kelowna and North Vancouver, but signed a partnership agreement with Jasper in 1972. Pugh was part of Jasper’s first delegation to Hakone that year, and was an official delegated on three other occasions. He also visited the region twice on his own.

Pugh understands why Jasper has been unable to muster a delegation in the past six years.

“We’re a very small community and it’s difficult to get a group of people together too often,” he said.

Having been involved with the pairing from the very beginning, Pugh believes that it is the cultural exchange that has made the most impact.

“There’s been some business derived from it I suppose,” he said. “The biggest thing has been the student exchange...There have probably been about 100 Jasper kids who’ve gone over and spent time living with a family in a different culture.”