Jasper Park Lodge

The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, formerly and commonly known as Jasper Park Lodge, is a 442-room hotel on a 700 acre site along Lac Beauvert in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. The hotel was established in 1921 by Canadian National Railway and is one of Canada's grand railway hotels.

Hotel history

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway

In the early 1900s, the Government of Canada envisioned a new northern transcontinental railway to complement Canada's first transcontinental railway which ran closer to the Canada–US border. The Grand Trunk Railway under the subsidiary Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was contracted to construct and operate the Western Canadian portion of the new line after legislation was passed by Parliament in 1903. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway followed the original Sandford Fleming "Canadian Pacific Survey" route from Jasper, Alberta through the Yellowhead Pass, which reached the Alberta/British Columbia border in November 1911. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway's lines largely through the Yellowhead Pass were largely duplicated by Canadian Northern Railway

Early years, 1921–1939

In 1921, the newly nationalized Canadian National Railways purchased "Tent City" and began plans for a hotel on the site, with the first bungalow opening in June 1922 under the name "Jasper Park Lodge".

The Canadian National Railway's chief architect, John Schofield, envisioned a hotel that altered the Athabasca Valley's view as little as possible, and blended seamlessly into the natural surroundings. Schofield planned for a number of small cabins made of rustic logs and fieldstone sprawling across the landscape, rather than the traditional large resort hotel.

Henry Worth Thornton, the new president of Canadian National Railways, visited Jasper in January 1923, and viewed the development favourably, as he sought to expand tourist developments along the rail line. During the winter of 1922–23, construction began on the new $461,000 Central Lodge and a number of new outlying bungalows designed by English architect Godfrey Milnes. The design of the Central Lodge used peeled logs on a fieldstone foundation, included lounges, dining room, snack room, kitchen, administrative offices, a large stone fireplace mounted animal heads, and was touted as the largest single-storey log building in the world. The Central Lodge was built using logs from the construction site and others cut from the nearby Maligne Canyon, with planed lumber hardwood floors brought from out of the area by train, and western red cedar from British Columbia for upright pillars. By 1925, Jasper Park Lodge consisted of over 50 log structures, and by 1927 there was accommodation for 425 guests.

In 1927 and 1928, the central lodge was expanded more than doubling the size of the building, and more cabins were built around Lac Beauvert. Additional new cabins were built between 1928 and 1931, including the luxury cabins Point, Outlook and Viewpoint, and other small cabins lifting the hotel's capacity to 550 guests. King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth visited Jasper during the 1939 royal tour of Canada, staying in the Outlook Cabin.

alternate names	Jasper Park Lodge
location	Jasper, Alberta, Canada
coordinates	52.88611°N, -118.05694°W
opened date	June 1922
architectural style	Rustic architecture
operator	Fairmont Hotels and Resorts / Accor
owner	Oxford Properties‡R1R‡
number of restaurants	5
number of rooms	442
website	fairmont.com/jasper

Hotel history

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway

Tent City, 1915

Early years, 1921–1939

1940s and the Second World War

1950s and 1952 fire

Later history

Jasper Park Lodge Golf Club history

In popular culture

External links

References