A jackknifed tractor trailer, a single vehicle rollover that resulted in serious head injuries for one person and a dozen other slippery accidents that involved crashes: just business as usual for the Valemount RCMP detachment when the snow came down on Friday, March 12.

“Nothing different than what we normally get,” said Cpl. Ed Burstrom of the Valemount RCMP detachment about the accidents that occurred on the wet and cold Friday and carried over onto Saturday. “It’s just so commonplace in the winter time. We can get up to four to five rollovers a day when the snow is falling.”

The jackknifed trailer occurred on Friday, March 12 on Highway 16 near Blue River. Slippery conditions caused the driver to lose control and block both lanes of traffic, said Cpl. Burstrom. The road was not blocked for a significant amount of time and no one was seriously injured in the incident, he added.

The rollover of a small vehicle containing four people occurred on the same day on the same highway, said Cpl. Burstrom. One person inside the vehicle struck their head as the vehicle rolled and did require attention at a hospital.

Cpl. Burstrom said that he was not entirely sure about the condition of the person injured in the accident, but he did not believe that their injuries were life threatening.

Of the dozen or so other accidents on roads and on the main highway through Valemount, Cpl. Burstrom said none of them involved serious injuries.

“Just a lot of broken or stuck vehicles,” he said.

Cpl. Burstrom said that Valemount typically gets snowier, wetter weather than Jasper, due to its location on the western, windward slopes of the Rockies.

Icy patches form very easily on the lower sections of the highway. As such, drivers in Jasper fared better during the snowy weather, which was not as treacherous as in Valemount.

According to Jasper S/Sgt. Dave Maludzinski, there were only three fairly minor fender benders in Jasper and no serious injuries.

“Nothing too serious at all,” he said.

He said that the Jasper detachment covers accidents all the way from Jasper down Highway 93 to the Columbia Icefields, east to the park gates leading to Hinton and more. Despite the wet and slippery conditions on those roads, S/Sgt. Maludzinski said most people managed to avoid crashing and seriously damaging their vehicles.

“There may have been a few who got stuck in the ditch, but nothing serious,” said S/Sgt. Maludzinski.

Cpl. David Vandenbrink of the Lake Louise RCMP detachment said that there were no major accidents on the Icefields Parkway leading north from his detachment either.

Still, he advised that everyone travelling on the Parkway make sure that they are following the laws of the road and that they have either snow tires or snow chains on their vehicle.