The Province of Alberta Records of the Jasper House 1872 Census shows the following population:

The 1872 and 1906 Census provides a glimpse of the community at Jasper House in 1872 and in 1906.

• Shuswap -17 men, 14 women, 40 children
• French Halfbreeds – 30 men, 30 women, 150 children
• English Halfbreeds – 0 men, 0 women, O children
• Whites – O men, 0 women, 0 children
• Total Jasper House Population – 47 men, 44 women, 190 children

The Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta 1906 Canada Census details 196 people living in Jasper, the year after Alberta was made a Province. There were 115 newcomers who increased Jasper’s population, as they were working on the newly constructed railroad that was being pushed through the Yellowhead pass. The census included 81 Metis descendants of the original Coureur de Bois, Voyageurs, Northwest Company and Hudson Bay Factors. The men and women who helped open Canada-coast to coast. The families included:

Several families packed up and left the Athabasca valley prior to 1906, after the Canadian government threatened to turn their homesteads into a National Park. This was the land that their families had lived on for more than 100 years. Seven families held out hoping to remain:

“In 1910, shortly after the boundaries of Jasper National Park had been established, J.J. Maclaggan came from Ottawa to buy out claims of residents who had homes in the Jasper area. The families included Lewis Swift, the four Moberlys: Ewan, John, Adolphus, William (Bill), as well as Isadore Findlay and Adam Joachim.” (Quote from “Overland by the Yellowhead” by James MacGregor.)

All of the families evicted from Jasper were Métis and, in some cases, had inhabited the Athabasca Valley for close to a century. Many of these mixed bloods had legendary forefathers who were unsung heroes of the Canadian fur trade, some of which were Alberta’s first businessmen known as free traders, ‘otipemisiwak. Several documents refer to these mixed mountain families as ‘Iroquois halfbreeds’, or the ‘Iroquois Métis’ We share an historical account of the descendants of the fur trade who have over 200 years of wildlife and wilderness management on Alberta’s eastern slopes.