Dan Lencki and his sister Rebecca Lencki in Jasper. The evacuation from Jasper reminded Mr. Lencki of the instability he felt after graduating from university during the COVID-19 pandemic.Hannah Mackenzie/Supplied
Mitchel Philp was an outlier in Jasper’s tourism worker community. In a town of trekkers, mountaineers and all-around nature fanatics, the Australian was never even much of a hiker.
But after a friend in Canada shared an opportunity to make some cash in Jasper, he seized on it. Arriving on an International Experience Canada visa, he says he felt a warm welcome in the chilly Rockies and quickly grew close to a small-knit community of tourism workers.
“All the people there are awesome, everyone’s catching up all the time, we had a good little setup,” he said. “It was just getting warm so we could go for more swims … sitting by a lake having a few beers.”
Like hundreds of seasonal staff and temporary foreign workers who make up Jasper’s tourism industry – about 63 per cent of all jobs in town – Mr. Philp was looking for a way to combine employment with adventure; travelling and paying his way through gigs as a barista.
But with the tourism season cut short by wildfires, many have found themselves not knowing what comes next. The situation is even more urgent for temporary foreign workers, whose ability to remain in Canada is tied to their jobs.
“We’re in limbo still, just waiting on information and stuff, I think they’re still dealing with a few fires,” said Mr. Philp, who along with a group of foreign workers, has been provided with temporary accommodation at a hotel in Calgary.
“We’ve been left up in the air a bit at the moment, sort of just hanging.”
The townsite of Jasper is working on a phased re-entry plan for residents. But they may not even have homes to return to, owing to the damage caused by the wildfires. One-third of the town’s structures – including not only homes but also hotels and other businesses – were destroyed and more than 32,000 hectares of the Jasper National Park were scorched by fire.
The impact on the area’s lucrative tourism sector is expected to be long-lasting. More than 2.4 million tourists visited the national park in 2022, the most recent data available, and tourists in the Alberta side of the Rockies spent $2.3-billion that year – about 22 per cent of all tourism spending in the province.
For Dan Lencki, originally from Guelph, the evacuation from Jasper reminded him of the instability he felt after graduating from university during the COVID-19 pandemic. “I was struggling a lot at the time and was really feeling like I was in a rut,” he said in a text message.
After finding an opening as a cook – and eventually a boat captain – in Jasper, things changed. “My first year in the Rockies was a breath of fresh air,” he said. “The community and the environment helped me figure out who I was and what I wanted.”
Kyra Kestrel/Supplied
Mr. Lencki and his friends would set up 'hammock cities' after work in front of their home, a rundown but beloved building called Cavell Apartments.Carolyn Burt/Supplied
Mr. Lencki said it’s hard to overstate just how close the tourism workers’ community was or why it felt like home to him. “Everyone works together, adventures together, sleeps in the same building – we sleep three to a room so there isn’t a ton of privacy,” he said. “We’re always hanging out in each other’s rooms, chatting, watching movies – people show up unannounced and make themselves at home in other people’s rooms.”
Mr. Lencki and his friends would set up “hammock cities” after work in front of their home, a rundown but beloved building called Cavell Apartments. “We’d just sit around listen to music, play sports.”
Last Monday was supposed to be no different. Instead, Mr. Lencki joined a small group evacuating to Vancouver Island, where friends have let them camp in their backyard.
Mr. Lencki doesn’t plan on going back to Guelph. “I don’t have a lot for me back in Ontario; I don’t feel at home there … I’d rather stay with friends, make the best of the situation.”
There are added challenges for Jasper’s temporary foreign workers, many of whom are on an employer-specific work permit as part of a path to permanent residence.
Sanjiv Naik, who arrived in Canada from India on a closed work permit in 2023, said he lived a “perfect” life in Jasper until last Monday. “It was one of the most beautiful towns I’ve seen, ever,” he said. He secured a job at a restaurant that was a 10-minute walk from his home, and worked alongside a close group of colleagues from different countries.
In a year or so, he’d be eligible for Alberta’s provincial nominee program before applying for permanent residency.
But in the span of just a few days, everything changed for Mr. Naik.
“I lost my job, we don’t know what will happen; my employer’s place is still standing, but the thing is, you don’t know when he’s going to come back,” he told The Globe and Mail by phone. “We cannot wait here in the hotel forever.”
While he appreciates the support he’s received from the government, including temporary hotel accommodations in Calgary, Mr. Naik worries about how long it will last.
Heidi Veluw, director of Jasper Education and Employment Centre, which provides support and resources to many of Jasper’s temporary workers, said she’s been inundated with questions in the last few weeks.
“They’re asking where their work permits are, what the future holds for us, what’s going to happen with their housing,” she said. “They don’t have homes here and their jobs are gone.”
Mr. Naik said an open work permit would allow him to look for another job and support himself. But he’s nervous that trying to switch permits would affect his path to permanent residence.
So far, he’s received mixed messages from government representatives on the ground and online.
Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada spokesperson Sofica Lukianenko told The Globe that temporary workers on an employer-specific work permit who are unable to attend their authorized workplace on account of the wildfires may apply for an extension of their authorization to remain in Canada, and can apply to transition from an employer-specific work permit to an open work permit.
Mr. Philp said he’s unsure what his future in Canada holds. But he doesn’t intend to separate from the team he’s grown so close to.
“No one talks about leaving,” he said. “Everyone’s pretty intent on staying and seeing what happens and potentially going to other places in Canada together.”
'My first year in the Rockies was a breath of fresh air,' Mr. Lencki said. 'The community and the environment helped me figure out who I was and what I wanted.'Carolyn Burt/Supplied