SHOUT HOTELS · JASPER
Where to Stay in Jasper, Alberta
Jasper is a railway town of a few thousand people sitting inside the largest national park in the Canadian Rockies, and the park is the reason to come. Within an hour of the last street you can be on a boat crossing Maligne Lake, standing at the lip of Athabasca Falls, riding a tramway to 2,263 metres, or soaking in hot springs at the end of a mountain road. It is quieter, wilder and further from anywhere than Banff, and elk graze the verges as though the town were theirs.
One thing has to be said plainly before anything else. On 24 July 2024 a wildfire complex entered the townsite and destroyed roughly a third of its buildings. Two years on, Jasper is open, busy and worth the trip, with visitor numbers back within about five per cent of the record 2023 season, but it is a mountain town with construction sites in it and a handful of famous places still shut. Most travel guides you will find were written before that day and quietly describe a town that no longer entirely exists.
So this page does the thing those guides do not: it says what is open, what is closed, and what that means for how you plan. Verified August 2026, and worth re-checking against Parks Canada before you travel.
Best areas to stay in Jasper
This is not a city with districts. The real choice is whether you sleep in the townsite, out by the lakes, or outside the park altogether, and whether you are prepared to drive.
The townsite grid
Connaught Drive, Patricia Street, Geikie Street and the residential streets behind them. You can cross the whole town on foot in about half an hour, and the restaurants, shops, the Parks Canada information centre and the railway platform are all inside it. Best for: anyone arriving by train or coach, and anyone who wants to walk to dinner rather than drive to it. Skip if: you want seclusion or a lake outside the window. Getting around: on foot in town, with a car or a commercial shuttle for the outlying sights. Our stay here: The White Brick Inn on Geikie Street.
The lakes and bungalow properties outside town
Cabins and lodges scattered up the Pyramid Lake road, out by Lake Annette and Lake Edith, on the grounds beside Lac Beauvert, and east toward Miette. Quieter, more scenic, and the closest thing here to a resort stay. Best for: couples and families who want water and trees at the door and do not mind driving in for a meal. Skip if: you have no car, because nothing out here is walkable and there is no scheduled bus. Getting around: a car is effectively essential.
Outside the park: Hinton and Valemount
Hinton sits about 80 km east on Highway 16, outside the park boundary and its pass requirement, with the chain motels that implies. Valemount, British Columbia, is roughly an hour west. Best for: late bookers in high summer, and anyone watching the budget when the townsite is full. Skip if: you want early starts at the lakes, because you are adding an hour of driving to each end of the day. Getting around: a car, and you will still pay for a park pass on the way in.
Getting to Jasper and around
Everyone needs a Parks Canada pass, including you. This is the rule visitors most often miss: sleeping in the townsite does not exempt you from the park entry fee. Buy a day pass, valid until 4pm the following day, or an annual Discovery Pass, which pays for itself in about seven days of park visits. Online, at the gates, or in person at the Jasper Information Centre, 500 Connaught Drive. For 2026 there is an unusual exception worth knowing: under the Canada Strong Pass, admission is free from 19 June to 7 September 2026, with normal fees applying from 16 January to 18 June.
There is no airport at Jasper. No scheduled air service reaches the town. The two practical gateways are Edmonton International, about 365 km and four hours east on Highway 16, and Calgary International, about 412 km and five hours south via the Icefields Parkway. Both have car hire.
By road, and the Parkway deserves respect. Highway 16, the Yellowhead, comes in from Edmonton to the east and from Prince George and Kamloops to the west. From Lake Louise and Banff you take the Icefields Parkway, Highway 93, which is 232 km and three to three and a half hours without stopping, though nobody manages that. In winter it is a serious road: winter tyres or chains are legally required from 1 November to 31 March, there is no mobile signal for long stretches between Athabasca Falls and Lake Louise, and the only mid-route fuel at Saskatchewan River Crossing closes for the season. Fill up in Jasper or Lake Louise. Avalanche-control closures happen.
By rail, which is genuinely lovely. Jasper station sits right in the townsite at 607 Connaught Drive. VIA Rail's transcontinental Canadian, running Toronto to Vancouver, calls twice weekly in each direction, and the Skeena to Prince Rupert via Prince George runs three times a week. The Rocky Mountaineer is a separate seasonal daylight-only tourist train rather than scheduled transport.
By coach and shuttle. SunDog Transportation and Tours runs a daily year-round service between Edmonton and Jasper, calling at the airport, West Edmonton Mall and downtown, with stops at Hinton and Edson. It also runs the Jasper to Lake Louise and Banff corridor, Calgary services and a Marmot Basin ski shuttle, some of them seasonal. Brewster Express also works the Banff corridor.
Getting around once you are here. The town is walkable end to end in about thirty minutes. There is no scheduled public bus to the major outlying sights, so car-free visitors use commercial shuttles and tours for Maligne Lake and the SkyTram. Taxis exist but are limited, and bikes can be hired in town in season.
Parking. Paid parking runs in the downtown core and along Connaught Drive from 1 May to 31 October, and the residential streets behind the core are permit-only. Rates went up for the 2026 season. In July and August the core simply fills, so the practical advice is to park once and walk, or leave the car where you are staying.
What catches people out. Elk and bears on and beside the road at dawn and dusk: the limits are 90 km/h on the major routes and 60 km/h on secondary roads for exactly that reason, and stopping in the carriageway to look at an animal is an offence that can draw a fine. Miette Hot Springs Road and Cavell Road are seasonal, and Cavell is closed entirely for now. And a practical one born of the fire: two of the town's four fuel stations were lost, which produces real queues in summer, so arrive with a reasonable tank.
Things to do in and around Jasper, and what is actually open
Every entry below was checked individually for the 2026 season, because the stale “top ten” lists still circulating send people to two places they cannot get into.
Maligne Lake and Spirit Island. Open. About 48 km and an hour southeast along Maligne Lake Road. The Pursuit cruise runs from 29 May to 11 October 2026 and is the only way to reach Spirit Island, the small stand of firs on a shingle spit that is among the most photographed views in Canada. Medicine Lake, which drains away through the rock beneath it every autumn, sits on the same road.
Maligne Canyon. Closed for the whole 2026 season. Parks Canada is holding it shut while it assesses conditions and plans extensive rehabilitation after wildfire damage. If a guide recommends it, that guide is out of date.
Mount Edith Cavell and the Angel Glacier. Access closed until further notice. Cavell Road remains shut for assessment and rehabilitation, so the Path of the Glacier and Cavell Meadows trails cannot be driven to in 2026.
Valley of the Five Lakes. Closed until further notice for wildfire rehabilitation.
Jasper SkyTram. Open, 15 April to 25 October 2026. Canada's highest and longest guided aerial tramway, seven minutes to 2,263 metres on Whistlers Mountain, a few minutes' drive from town. Ticketed.
Athabasca Falls. Open. About 30 km south on Highway 93 and 93A, reopened in October 2024. The whole river forced through a quartzite slot, loud from the car park. Sunwapta Falls, further south on the Parkway, also reopened then.
Miette Hot Springs. Open seasonally. The 2026 season ran from 15 May to 12 October, about an hour east at the end of a seasonal road. Pool admission is charged separately from the park pass.
Pyramid and Patricia Lakes, Lake Annette and Lake Edith. Open. The easy ones, all within about ten minutes of the townsite. Annette and Edith reopened in October 2024.
Old Fort Point. Open. A short, sharp viewpoint hike close to town; reopened October 2024.
The Columbia Icefield, Athabasca Glacier and Glacier Skywalk. Open, 1 May to 12 October 2026. About an hour and a half south on the Parkway. Ice Explorer and the glass-floored Skywalk are ticketed.
Marmot Basin. Open in winter. Canada's highest base-elevation major ski area opened 26 November for the 2025/26 season and typically runs to early May. Parks Canada has flagged slope-stability and drainage work on the access road's Mile 5 Hill for autumn 2026.
Jasper–Yellowhead Museum and Archives. Open. At 400 Bonhomme Street, and one of the buildings that came through the fire. Admission by donation, daily 10am to 5pm through the summer season and Thursday to Sunday in winter.
What has changed lately, and what it means for your trip
The fire, and the size of it. On 24 July 2024 the Jasper Wildfire Complex entered the townsite. Around 30 per cent of structures were destroyed, 358 of the town's 1,113 by the initial rapid assessment and later counted at 374 by the municipality, wiping out roughly 800 homes, and about 32,700 hectares of the park burned. It was the costliest fire event in Canada since Fort McMurray in 2016.
Where the rebuild has got to. Parks Canada calls the current stage transitional recovery. Debris has been cleared from every affected lot, construction is under way at 118 properties, and interim housing is in place for more than 415 families. On 30 June 2026 the federal government announced a further CAD 520 million to accelerate rebuilding on top of roughly CAD 385 million already committed, extending interim housing to March 2028 and speeding up permitting.
What it means for finding a bed. Two well-known lodges were destroyed outright and one is being rebuilt from the ground up, due to reopen in June 2027. Another lost about half its cabins and reopened for the 2026 season. More than two dozen hotels and lodges are trading and taking bookings, and roughly 300 to 500 additional beds are expected as rebuilt properties come back through 2027. Until then the town is running with less capacity than it had, so book earlier than you would have in 2023, particularly for July and August.
Closures inside the park. Maligne Canyon is out for the 2026 season; Cavell Road and Valley of the Five Lakes are closed until further notice. Maligne Lake Road itself reopened in October 2024. Wabasso and Whirlpool Group campgrounds stay closed for 2026, while most other front-country campgrounds are open.
Passes, parking and fuel. The Canada Strong Pass gives free park admission from 19 June to 7 September 2026. Townsite paid-parking rates rose for the season. And two of four fuel stations were lost in the fire, which is why summer queues at the pumps are a real thing here now.
When to visit Jasper
The sweet spot is July and August if you want everything open and the warmest weather, and it is also the busiest, the hardest for parking and the hardest for last-minute rooms. September and October bring the elk rut, thinner crowds, golden larches and the clearest night skies of the year.
The value windows are May and late October. Both are quiet and both are a gamble: expect variable weather, lingering or early snow at altitude, and some attractions not yet open or already shut for the season.
Winter runs roughly late November to April or May, which is ski season at Marmot Basin. The town stays open and the Icefields Parkway stays open but demanding, with most services along it closed. Miette Hot Springs, the Maligne Lake cruise, the Columbia Icefield attractions and the SkyTram are all shut.
Dates worth planning around. Verified for 2026; several 2027 editions had not been announced when we checked.
- Jasper Dark Sky Festival — 16 to 25 October 2026. Jasper is the world's largest accessible Dark Sky Preserve, and the festival came back after the fire with planetarium events, star parties and a symphony under the stars.
- Jasper in January — the 38th edition ran 16 January to 1 February 2026, with the pond hockey tournament and a street party. The 2027 dates had not been announced when we checked.
- Marmot Basin season — opened 26 November 2025 and normally closes in early May. The 2026/27 opening date is not yet confirmed; historically it is mid to late November.
- Canada Day and the summer programme — 1 July, with Parks Canada interpretive programming running across the season.
Food and drink
Eating out in Jasper takes a little more planning than it used to, because the town lost restaurants along with everything else and the ones trading fill up. Book where you can, and treat a kitchen in your accommodation as a genuine asset rather than a nice-to-have.
Bear's Paw Bakery is the town's institution and reopened at 4 Pyramid Road after the fire, which is where the morning queue now forms. Jasper Brewing Co., The Raven Bistro, Evil Dave's Grill, Fiddle River, Olive Bistro and Lounge on Patricia Street and Jasper Pizza Place are all trading again, along with the usual run of cafés along Connaught Drive. Hours move around with the season, so check before you set off on a winter evening.
Our Jasper stays
The White Brick Inn — a self-contained adults-only suite for two on Geikie Street, two blocks from the middle of town and about ten minutes' walk from the railway platform. Its own entrance, a full kitchen, free private parking outside and hosts living upstairs. Choose it if you want to walk everywhere, cook for yourselves and have the place to yourselves; look elsewhere if you are travelling with a child of any age, because the licence caps it at two people.
Elsewhere in the Canadian Rockies and western Canada we also cover A Good Nite's Rest and Riverfront Estate in Banff, three hours south down the Icefields Parkway, and Crystal Star Inn at Edmonton Airport, which is the obvious first or last night when your flight lands too late to start the drive west.
Jasper questions, answered
Where should I stay in Jasper?
In the townsite if you are arriving by train or want to walk to dinner, out by the lakes if you want seclusion and have a car, or at Hinton about 80 km east if the town is full and the budget is tight. Our Jasper stay is The White Brick Inn on Geikie Street, two blocks from the centre.
Is Jasper worth visiting after the 2024 fire?
Yes. The park and the town are open, most attractions are running, the mountains are untouched, and visitor numbers are back within about five per cent of the 2023 record. You will see active rebuilding and a few closures, and visiting supports the recovery. Just plan around the closed sites rather than turning up expecting the old list.
Do I need a park pass if I am only staying in the townsite?
Yes. Everyone inside Jasper National Park needs a valid Parks Canada pass no matter where they sleep or how they arrive. Buy it online, at the park gates or at the information centre on Connaught Drive. Admission is free from 19 June to 7 September 2026 under the Canada Strong Pass.
Is Maligne Canyon open?
No. It is closed for the entire 2026 season while Parks Canada assesses conditions and plans rehabilitation after wildfire damage. Maligne Lake, at the far end of the same road, is open as normal and the boat cruise to Spirit Island runs from late May to mid-October.
Can I drive to Mount Edith Cavell and see the Angel Glacier?
Not in 2026. Cavell Road is closed until further notice for wildfire assessment and rehabilitation, which takes the Path of the Glacier and Cavell Meadows trails with it. Valley of the Five Lakes is closed on the same basis.
How do I get to Jasper without a car?
Take VIA Rail's Canadian, which calls at Jasper station twice weekly in each direction from Toronto or Vancouver, or a SunDog shuttle from Edmonton, which runs daily all year. In town you can walk everywhere; for Maligne Lake, the SkyTram and the Icefields Parkway you will need a commercial shuttle or a tour, because there is no scheduled bus to the outlying sights.
Which airport do I fly into for Jasper?
Edmonton International, about four hours away by road, or Calgary International, about five hours via the Icefields Parkway. There is no airport at Jasper and no scheduled air service to the town.
What is the parking situation in Jasper?
Paid parking runs in the downtown core and along Connaught Drive from 1 May to 31 October, with rates raised for the 2026 season, and the residential streets behind the core are permit-only. The core fills through July and August, so park once and walk. Somewhere to leave the car for free is worth real money here.
When is the Jasper Dark Sky Festival?
16 to 25 October 2026. Jasper is the world's largest accessible Dark Sky Preserve, and the festival runs planetarium events, star parties and a symphony under the stars. October is also one of the best months here for clear night skies and thin crowds.
