Fourteen households have moved back to the Alberta mountain community of Jasper, about 1½ years since a wildfire destroyed a third of the townsite.

While the vast majority of displaced residents are still waiting to go home, the municipality’s latest statistics show 16 homes and buildings are back on the map, and another 75 are under construction.

Stephen Brake considers himself one of the lucky ones. Rebuilding in the heavily impacted residential corner of the townsite, he got his building permit on Canada Day in 2025, and poured his foundation in October. Now, he’s framing walls and shovelling snow off his roof.

“It’s coming along. The neighbourhood is popping up fast,” said Brake, looking around at the dozen or so houses close-by under construction.

The July 2024 wildfire destroyed 374 properties, wiping out 800 units of housing in an already sparse housing market. 

Almost half are still in planning stages, meaning they haven’t applied for any permits, and many are stalled by the back-and-forth with insurance.

With $1.3 billion in insured losses, it is the second-costliest natural disaster in Canadian history after the 2016 wildfire in Fort McMurray.

For Brake, who is acting as the general contractor on his own home, dealing with insurance adjusters, lawyers, and paperwork is the hard part.

“It’s come a long way … but there’s still people hurting bad,” said Brake. “I try to pick the positives out of things the best I can but there are down days. There’s not always a smile on my face.”

While hundreds of lots remain empty, Michael Fark, director of recovery at the municipality, said progress is about what they projected. 

That prediction of having 100 homes under construction by the one-year mark is based on the logistics of operating within a national park, the distance from a major city centre, and how other communities like Fort McMurray were able to rebuild — where about 20 per cent of homes had been rebuilt at the two year mark.

Behind those statistics and benchmarks are 374 different rebuild stories, all dictated by insurance policies, location and financial realities.

“Everybody’s recovery and rebuild journey has been unique,” said Fark.

Just a few hundred metres northwest of Brake’s framed house, David Hatto and his neighbours are facing a starkly different reality.

Over a year after the fire swept through town, Hatto received notice that before a building permit can be issued, he needs to get geotechnical testing done to make sure the bank behind his home is stable. Hatto and his neighbours live along the outer side of Cabin Creek Drive, situated on Pyramid Hill, which consists of glacial till.

Because Hatto and his wife, Jenny, lived in a duplex, moving forward also requires co-ordination with the co-owner of the structure, complicating the process.

“There are periods where you are frustrated because you want to get things going,” said Hatto, “But I would describe our main feeling as stress.”

Like Brake, Hatto said most people he knows find the back and forth with insurance providers incredibly challenging, compounded by the time it takes different levels of government to process approvals.

That stress lessened when he and his wife Jenny bought a house in nearby Hinton, said Hatto. If you asked them a year ago if they’d return, it would be an easy “yes,” but now they’re not so sure.

Building back better

While the Municipality of Jasper and Parks Canada are guiding individuals through the emotional and financial toll of the rebuild, they are also trying to seize the opportunity to “build back better.”

Fark said this means upgrading the townsite’s fire resiliency with new materials to better withstand future disasters, as well as addressing pre-existing structural issues in the housing market. 

Jasper has endured a housing unit vacancy rate of zero per cent for decades. Fark said a housing survey showed a 600-unit deficit before the fire.

Because Jasper cannot expand its borders outward into the park, the municipality’s only option is to densify its existing footprint.

The provincial and federal governments are funding two side-by-side affordable housing developments along Connaught Drive. The first is expected to be finished by 2027.

The complexes will offer below-market housing, geared towards the lower and middle class, which historically struggled the most to find housing, said Fark.

It’s critically important for lower- and middle-class residents to have access to appropriate and affordable housing, said Fark, because, “if they can’t secure housing, then our businesses can’t staff up, they can’t meet the demand that our tourism economy provides in terms of the visitor experience.”

The municipality has also introduced a grant program, which aims to incentivize residents to add additional units to their lot, backed by the federal Housing Accelerator Fund.

Fark said the program has over 70 applicants. Property owners can receive up to $30,000 to build net-new rental units like a basement or garage suite.

Parks Canada is also onboard with densifying Jasper’s footprint, and have taken steps to reduce barriers to rebuilding. The federal agency recently approved changes to Jasper’s Land Use Policy, and simplified the permitting process to reduce wait times to an average of 24 days.

“I think there’s certainly some muscle memory there, perhaps of Parks [Canada] permitting being slow, or there being some bureaucracy challenges,” said Amy Cairns, director of recovery for Parks Canada. 

“But I think what we’ve been able to achieve over the last 18 months is just showing what is possible when we’re all working together with a shared purpose.”