In another summer of wildfires, the town of Jasper and Jasper National Park in Alberta were put on watch when fires began on July 22nd. It wasn’t long before the worst happened and the town had to be evacuated. But as we’ve reported on before, the surrounding communities rallied to save horses that had been left behind.
(River Valley Agricultural Society photo)
On July 23rd it started with a phone call from an RCMP search-and-rescue officer to Shauna Cruden, president of the River Valley Agricultural Society in Hinton, Alberta, about 80 km from Jasper and 50 km from the national park. He wanted help rescuing horses that were trapped near the town. Most were owned by the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, and were used to transport tourists on trail rides. Others belonged to Parks Canada for backcountry wardens to ride, and a few others were privately owned.
As Cruden tells Horse-Canada, it’s a small community and they look out for each other. In other words, she didn’t have to be asked twice. She posted the following to social media: Hinton search and rescue has been deployed to evacuate horses from JPL they are looking for our help. If you have a trailer and are willing to drive with police escort please call me…”
“The outcome was overwhelming. Within 45 minutes, I had 15 trailers ready to go, and there were hundreds of people from all over the province reaching out as far as south as Sundry, as far east as Lloydminster,” says Cruden. “We could have had a convoy of hundreds of people, but we only had one shot. We were given one chance. We weren’t allowed to do this back-and-forth thing.”
One shot, one chance was all Cruden and her volunteers needed to swoop in and load all 75-80 horses, although in a video interview with the CBC, Cruden admits she had expected only 20-25 horses. When she arrived at the Fairmont, the horses were alone in their field, as all humans had been evacuated the previous day.
“They were happy to see somebody, and happily let us catch them, and they hopped on the trailers,” she tells the pubcaster.
Safe and sound. (River Valley Agricultural Society photo)
Currently, there are no plans to return the horses until their stables in Jasper can be assessed and deemed safe. For now, the horses remain safe and happy, with some taken to a private property for grazing due to hay shortages in Alberta. You can see posts from locals on the River Valley Facebook page offering pasture space and hay. Other folks are raising funds to buy hay and help with their care.
It’s moments like these when it’s clear that horse people help horse people, and come together to help horses in need.
