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Jasper, Alberta

municipality in Alberta, Canada

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ999429
Source-derived summary

Jasper is a specialized municipality and townsite in western Alberta within the Canadian Rockies. The townsite is in the Athabasca River valley and is the commercial centre of Jasper National Park.

History

Established in 1813, Jasper House was first a fur trade outpost of the North West Company, and later Hudson's Bay Company, on the York Factory Express trade route to what was then called "New Caledonia" (now British Columbia) and Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia River. Jasper House was 35 km north of today's town of Jasper.

Jasper Forest Park was established in 1907. The railway divisional point at the location of the future townsite was established by the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1911 and originally named Fitzhugh after a Grand Trunk vice president (along the Grand Trunk's "alphabet" line). The Canadian Northern Railway began service to its Jasper Park station in 1912, about 700 m from GTP's Fitzhugh station. The townsite was surveyed in 1913 by H. Matheson. It was renamed Jasper after the former fur trade post. An internment camp of Ukrainian Canadians, suspected by virtue of their place of birth of having enemy loyalties, was in operation at Dominion Park in Jasper from February 1916 to August 1916.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Jasper, Alberta” as municipality in Alberta, Canada. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Jasper, Alberta and municipality.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1813, 1907, 1911, 1912—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1813. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Jasper, Alberta and municipality providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Jasper, Alberta”, the useful work is to connect “municipality in Alberta, Canada” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q999429. VIAF identifies the subject as 141825711. The Library of Congress control number is n85144641. Authority coordinates are 52.873, -118.082. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1813, 1907, 1911 and 1912.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Jasper, Alberta”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Jasper, Alberta primary sources, Jasper, Alberta archive and Jasper research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Jasper, Alberta”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Jasper, Alberta” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.