Jacques Lake Realignment

The Jasper National Park Trail Crew is proposing to realign the Jacques Lake Trail. Historically seasonal melt had been mitigated using mechanical equipment to keep the creek in its original bed, off the trail, and away from the Beaver Creek cabin. Since then, the cabin has been removed and efforts to contain the creek have ceased. In the past five years, flooding of the trail has occurred at increasing volumes and efforts to reroute the trail within the gravel plain have failed. In the spring of 2022, bridges have been undercut, washed over, and washed out causing extensive erosion to the trail tread, damage of infrastructure, and closure of the trail due to visitor safety concerns. Jasper Trail Crew is proposing to relocate the trailhead to the Northwest side of the existing parking lot and create a reroute on the west side of the creek on higher ground. The reroute will be approximately 650m in length and will return to the original trail above the flooded area. This project as proposed, falls outside of the scope of the Land-Based Trails PRIA (2021). The PRIA does not apply to rerouting the trail such that the new alignment is more than 50 meters from the old trail center line or vegetation is removed with heavy equipment. The new proposed route for Jacques Lake Trail is up to 150m from the original trail in some areas and a mini-excavator will be used to cut a bench to create the trail tread. Therefore, the BIA pathway is a more suitable level of assessment to determine if the project is likely to cause significant residual environmental effects.

Latest update

September 16, 2022 - The assessment decision statement has been issued to the proponent.

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Contacts

Jasper National Park
Box 10
Jasper, Alberta T0E 1E0
Telephone: 780-852-6141
Email: evaluationdimpactjasper-jasperimpactassessment@pc.gc.ca


  • Location

    • Jasper National Park of Canada (Alberta)

  • Nature of Activity

    • Recreation and Tourism

  • Assessment Status

    Completed

  • Start Date

    2022-07-11

  • Proponent

    Parks Canada

  • Authorities

    • Parks Canada Agency

  • Assessment Type

    Project on federal lands

  • Reference Number

    83781
Disclaimer

This map is for illustrative purposes. The markers represent the approximate locations based on available data. More than one marker may be identified for a given assessment.

 

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...within 200 kilometres
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