When she began descending toward Maligne Lake, she felt a blast of hot air carried by a brisk wind. As she hiked lower towards the lake, a pall of smoke formed
When 71-year-old Jackie Bourgaize emerged from Jasper National Park’s backcountry to a deserted resort earlier this week, she thought the world was ending.
Following 45 kilometres of hiking the Great Divide Trail, the seasoned outdoorswoman said she arrived at the Maligne Lake Lodge Wednesday morning, after Jasper town had been evacuated.
“There was nobody around and it was all padlocked,” said Bourgaize.
“I felt like I was in a movie about the apocalypse.”
She and her husband had decided she’d go alone, said Bourgaize, because they didn’t want to take their dog along.
But on the second day of her trek, she twisted her body while navigating a log, later learning she’d torn shoulder ligaments in three places.
And when she began descending toward Maligne Lake on Wednesday morning, Bourgaize said she smelled what she thought was campfire smoke and called out.
“I yelled ‘don’t you know there’s a fire ban’ but nobody answered,” she said.
But she could still see what appeared to be a wildfire down below, possibly the same blaze that would soon consume parts of Jasper town.
“I saw a red glow below black, there were multiple layers,” she said.
“I was experiencing smoke in my lungs, I began to feel it.”
As the wildfire smoke became thicker, Bourgaize said she moved to the edge of the lake, hoping to better protect herself from the effects of the fire and amused herself about her predicament.
“I thought ‘if I camp here where I’m not supposed to, maybe someone will come and give me a ticket and I can finally talk to someone,’ ” she said.
The woman said she soon found her way to a park warden station beside the lake, where she encountered Parks Canada officials and a half-dozen other visitors kayaking and canoeing who were “high-tailing it out of there.”
She praised the park wardens for their assistance and hospitality, and asked them why the wildfire she’d seen was so layered and multi-coloured.
“They said it’s because it’s from the different kinds of vegetation and fuels burning,” said Bourgaize.
And that mass of flame was accelerating, marching steadily from the south towards the Jasper townsite.
The Calgarian said she hitched a ride with a young Edmonton woman with their vehicle bracketed by Parks Canada pickup trucks, rolling through a landscape densely shrouded in smoke — some it charred.
“There was smoke all around us, everything was blackened and I thought ‘just keep going, don’t stop,’ ” said Bourgaize.
When she made it to Edmonton, she was dropped off at a hotel in northeast part of the city where she hoped to secure a hotel room.
But the hotel staff refused her a room because she couldn’t produce photo identification, though she presented a credit card.
The woman said she resolved to pitch her small tent in a park but “then I found out it was a dog park.”
“Fortunately, I really like dogs and dog people,” she said, adding friendly park users helped her.
On Wednesday, the woman said she caught a bus back to Calgary and her comfy North Haven home.
But the experience, said Bourgaize, won’t deter her from heading out into the same region of the Rockies once the wildfire crisis has passed.
“I’ll have a little sling for my arm and I’ll take it a little easier — my husband will come and carry more,” she said.