Judgement day has come and gone and now the community will have to wait until September to find out how it faired in the international Communities in Bloom competition.
This year’s judges, Lucie Gagné of Quebec and Piet Boersma of the Netherlands, were treated to the royal tour, July 21, seeing everything from the Jasper-Yellowhead Museum and Archives to the Visitor Information Centre, waste water treatment plant, cemetery, Alpine Summit Seniors Lodge and the industrial park.
“I don’t think there’s much that we didn’t see,” said Gagné during the wine and cheese event following the tour. “We really want to thank the people who toured us around. I know how much work it represents and they really did a good job. It was well balanced, not too rushed, and we were able to see a lot in a short period of time.”
Shannon Greer, of Jasper’s CiB committee, joked that it really is surprising how much there is to show, considering Jasper is such a small town, with a strictly defined boundary.
But, as the committee discovered, when you set the goal of showing everything, both the beautiful and the not so beautiful, you need a full eight hours.
CiB is a Canadian non-profit organization committed to fostering civic pride, environmental responsibility and beautification through community involvement.
This is Jasper’s second year competing in the international competition, and it’s up against six other communities, ranging from Fogo Island, Newfoundland to Stettler, Alta.
In order to reach the international level, each of the communities had to first win at the provincial and national levels. Jasper won provincially in 2010 and nationally in 2012.
With each community having so many years of success with the program, Gagné said it can be difficult to judge.
Boersma agreed, noting that each town is so different, so they have different challenges and successes.
“Sometimes it’s hard to compare: one is better than the other in certain things, but it depends on the climate or the elk, for example, it depends on a lot of things.
“[In Jasper,] finally you have a plant that will grow and then the elk will eat it. It’s hard,” he said.
That’s why the judging is so rigorous, with each of the judges filling out an 18-page evaluation that considers each of the eight criteria laid out by Communities in Bloom.
“There’s a really tight grid for each category and then we have got to make observations and recommendations,” said Gagné, noting that the eight criteria are: tidiness, environmental action, heritage conservation, urban forestry, landscape, turf and ground-covers, floral displays and community involvement.
Tidiness and community involvement were two that really stood out for the judges while they were in Jasper. Boersma said he was shocked at how clean the town is considering the number of tourists that pass through each day.
“It’s still very tidy here. It’s amazing,” he said.
Gagné, on the other hand, was blown away by the overwhelming community support for the program.
“There’s so many people involved, the committee, and it seems that everyone wants to be part of it and works in the same direction to make things happen. Sometimes we think that we can’t change the world, but I think that communities like this, they’re the ones that make things happen.”
The 2014 CiB winners will be announced at the organization’s annual symposium, which will take place Sept. 17–20 on Prince Edward Island.
Nicole Veerman
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