Last weekend, staff from Jasper National Park travelled to the West Edmonton Mall to promote the park’s latest offering of exciting winter activities and to inspire people to dream up their own winter adventures in the park.
By bringing the park experience into cities, Parks Canada can showcase the connections to the environment and Canadian heritage that give visitors memorable lifetime experiences. Parks Canada also seeks to increase its overall profile in the daily lives of new Canadians by being more accessible in cities through targeted outreach and engagement efforts.
People dropping by the Parks Canada kiosk had the opportunity to discover the new experiences available in Jasper National Park, including the new winter hub at Marmot Meadows and expanded fat bike and snowshoe trails.
Parks Canada representatives were also able to meet several individuals who had recently moved to Canada and encourage them to visit the park.
To help passersby connect with the experience of visiting Jasper, holiday shoppers were invited to “picture” themselves in Jasper this winter with the help of Jasper National Park’s green screen booth. Participants could instantly capture themselves in some of the park’s iconic settings and choose to share their photo with family and friends by email or on social media in a unique holiday card. With toques, snowshoes, hockey sticks and even caribou antlers as props, the cards were a huge success with 200 people taking their picture in the virtual Jasper.
The most popular card featured Jasper’s very own caribou with a guest appearance by Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer himself. Shoppers were introduced to Rudolph’s relatives in Jasper National Park—the deer family, including moose, elk and closely related, caribou.
Visitors to the Jasper National Park booth could also look at antlers, hair and hooves that revealed why caribou are true winter specialists—perfect for helping Santa!
As year-end is drawing near, a Happy New Year card featured fire restoration with wishes for a year of good health and renewal. A fire and vegetation management display looked back on two of 2015’s significant fire events, the Vine Creek prescribed burn and the Excelsior wildfire. Highlighting the benefits of fire in forest health and renewal, spectacular video footage from timelapse images captured the attention of people passing by and stimulated many interesting discussions.
Many West Edmonton Mall visitors left that day with Jasper National Park holiday cards waiting in their inboxes and future winter adventures in mind. We look forward to these ideas and memories inspiring Edmontonians to get out and explore Jasper this winter!
If you are already in Jasper, share photos of your winter adventures on Facebook at “Jasper National Park” or on Twitter with the hashtag #jasperNP.
Parks Canada
Special to the Fitzhugh
