Peter Shokeir | [email protected]
Jasper in January has adjusted its programming to offer private versions of winter activities and dazzle the community with light installations from Jan. 15 to 31.
Tourism Jasper, which organizes the festival, had to cancel all the usual large-scale events in order to ensure the 32nd annual Jasper in January adhered to provincial COVID-19 restrictions.
“The festival will continue,” said James Jackson, president and CEO of Tourism Jasper. “We’re just really focusing on a more COVID-friendly program.”
Jasper in January typically lasts three weeks with a theme or anchor event each weekend. Last year, the festival featured more than 120 events, including the ATCO Street Party, fireworks, Food-A-Palooza and the After Dark series.
While these offerings won’t be available to kick off 2021, Jackson said they would focus on winter activities still allowed under the current restrictions, such as cross-country skiing, ice climbing, sleigh rides, snowshoeing, ice skating and more.
“As well, we’re really trying to promote all the take-out options for businesses,” he said.
The light installations are already adding their glow to the town.
“A lot of the funding that we would normally put towards events, concerts and activations that aren’t permissible, we reallocated those dollars to try to still be able to lift people’s spirits,” Jackson said.
As of Jan. 8, most of them have been put up and are visible at the Visitor Information Centre as well as Centennial Park.
Jackson said they normally wouldn’t have installed the lights at Centennial Park but wanted to offer a warm winter sight not just to tourists but residents as well.
“We believe it’s really important that the investments that we’re making are for the benefit of visitors and locals alike, and so we think the installation in Centennial is really for locals,” he said.
“We know people are cooped up in their homes, and we really want to be able to give them a little bit of light in some of this darkness.”
As for what lies beyond the month of January, Tourism Jasper will have a better idea once the Alberta government reassesses the mandatory health measures that go until at least Jan. 21.
“It’s a really challenging situation in trying to predict the future,” Jackson said.
“We’ll try to program the rest of the winter when and where appropriate. Right now, we’re really just focused on getting through the winter… and making sure we have a really successful summer coming up.”
A full list of programming and more information can be found at www.jasper.travel.
