Jasper Lutheran Church and Lutheran House

Rocky Mountain Gothic

This edifice began its life in 1924 as the home for the Roman Catholic congregation in Jasper - Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church.

It has a firm foundation of field stone and exterior walls of brick.

The upper part of the tower and the nave have exterior wooden shingles.

The presbytery (residence) was completed in 1927.

While many people have sung in this church, the most famous is Bing Crosby. Der Bingle fell in love with Jasper while he was here filming The Emperor's Waltz. He often worshipped and sang at this church when in Jasper and - through the church -made some sizable donations to the community .

In 1967, this edifice became Jasper Lutheran Church - home to the Lutheran congregation - largely through the efforts of Pastor John Ekstedt. Under his guidance, much of the interior was refurbished to make the church look and feel more Protestant and not so much Catholic.

The baptismal font, altar candle-holders and wooden cross were all made from local materials by members of the congregation.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the residence (manse) was used as a retreat centre in winter. In summer, it was home to Lutheran House - a group of young adults living together in Christian community.

In 2008, John Ekstedt returned  as pastor of the Jasper congregation. On his last Sunday (June 2010), the church got a new cross for its steeple - replacing the one that been there since the building first became Jasper Lutheran Church.

Good Medicine: Magical Lake in the Maligne Valley

 Summer visitors assume that Medicine is a normal mountain lake, but it isn't.

During the summer, glacier melt waters from Maligne Lake flood the lake, sometimes overflowing it. In fall and winter the lake disappears, becoming a mudflat with scattered pools of water connected by a stream. But there is no visible channel draining the lake – so where then does the water go?

The answer is, "out the bottom", like a bathtub without a plug. The Maligne River pours into the lake from the south and drains out through sinkholes in the bottom. The water then streams through a cave system formed in the slightly soluble limestone rock, surfacing again in the area of Maligne Canyon 16 kilometers downstream. This is one of the largest known sinking rivers in the Western Hemisphere and may be the largest inaccessible cave system anywhere in the world!

Summer melt water coming into the lake exceeds the capacity of the sinkholes to drain it. Decreased melt water in the late summer and fall means that the lake's sinkholes can drain the lake faster then the Maligne River can fill it. This creates the disappearing lake phenomena. 

Aboriginal peoples called the lake Medicine because of its seemingly magical powers, and the United Nations created the Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site partly because of this unique drainage system.

Source: Parks Canada

Little White Church in the Rockies: Jasper Park Baptist Church and Bedford Inn Coffeehouse

This church in Jasper, Alberta was originally home to the "Union" church in Jasper - a congregation of Protestant Christians who weren't members of the Church of England in Canada (Anglican) congregation.

Famed author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), laid the cornerstone in 1914, while he was visiting Jasper. The church was officially opened in the fall of 1915, but it took several years to complete.

In 1925, the Union Church in Jasper voted to join the newly formed United Church of Canada - a merger of the Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Methodist churches in Canada.

In 1939, the Jasper United Church was visited by another famed author, John Buchan (The 39 Steps). Of course, at the time he was known as  Governor General of Canada, Lord Tweedsmuir, and was accompanied by Lady Tweedsmuir.

In the early 1940s, the place became known as "The Little White Church in the Rockies."

 In 1965, this building was sold and became home to the Jasper Park Baptist Church congregation. 

For many summers (1968 to the mid-1980s) the church basement was home to to the Bedford Inn Coffeehouse. The coffeehouse, styled like a 17th Century English inn, was named after Bedford, England - the home of another famous author, John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress).

The Travelling Treasures of Tutankhamun: It's Worth the Trip to Toronto to Catch the King

 “He gave his life for tourism.”
That's how comedian Steve Martin once characterized the life an death of Tutankhamun (King Tut for all you Saturday Night Live fans) — the Boy King who reigned in Egypt for only 10 years, yet became the most famous pharaoh of the ages...
 

By Stephen A. Nelson

The Brandon Sun

December 11, 2009