Joanne McQuarrie, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter | [email protected]
A deep love for his family and nature, a passion to learn and keen focus on whatever he does: those qualities characterize Alan Westhaver, a former park warden who raised his family with his wife, Lisa, in Jasper.
Westhaver was born in Calgary on July 18, 1954, to Mona and Larry Westhaver. His sister Maureen was born two years later. He’s a fifth-generation Albertan, and his ancestors landed in Nova Scotia way back in 1754, from Germany.
Westhaver noted he grew up three blocks away from Greg Van Tighem’s family; Van Tighem is a longtime friend who Westhaver is working with currently on the Forest Fuel Reduction Project in and around town.
Westhaver has had a love of nature since he was a sprout. Three weekends out of four, he and his family or his buddies headed to the mountains. Although these days, thousands of people trek to Kananaskis Country, it was an undeveloped wilderness in his teenage years.
When Westhaver, about 16 years old at the time, was backpacking and fishing with friends in the Egypt Lake area in Banff National Park, he bumped into a park warden, Julian Richaud.
“This was a place that I loved to be, and I learned there were people responsible for managing these national parks,” Westhaver said. “I thought maybe…”
After he graduated from high school in 1972, Westhaver moved on to the Northern Alberta Institute for Technology (NAIT) and earned a two-year diploma in forestry and bio sciences. He met a number of forestry professionals during that time. In the summer of 1974, through the Canadian Forest Service, Westhaver landed a job in Yoho National Park.
“That turned into a four-year stint: one year in Yoho, the next three in Banff, doing ecological inventory,” he said.
Westhaver put on a lot of miles - about a thousand each summer.
“I got to know the mountain parks extremely well, and had the huge advantage of working with many scientists,” he said. “It inspired me to get further education.”
And that he did - at the University of Montana at Missoula. Remember the keen focus that is characteristic of Westhaver? He used that focus to earn two degrees there, from 1976 to 1980, one in Forestry and another in Wildlife Biology.
Halfway through his studies - in the summer of 1978 - Westhaver was hired as a term park warden at Elk Island National Park. Here, he was introduced to prescribed burning, law enforcement and resource management. That was an important year for another reason.
“I met a young Park interpreter, Lisa, who lived next door in Parks housing,” Westhaver said. They got married a couple of years later in Fernie, B.C. Their daughters Heather, Robin and Theresa were born over the next few years.
The following summer, Westhaver got a job as a seasonal warden at Saskatchewan River Crossing. In 1980, he became a full-time park warden in Banff National Park, focusing on law enforcement, public safety and bear management.
“Those days, bears were everywhere,” he said. “We were handling 60, 70 bears every summer, who were attracted to garbage in occupied areas. In 1980, there was a series of maulings by a grizzly bear. A blue-ribbon panel of biologists looked at the bear problem. At the end of the day, the superintendent gave us marching orders to solve the garbage problem.”
Westhaver teamed up with a town engineer and Steven Herrera at the University of Calgary to design the lids of garbage cans made by a company in Lethbridge. Parks Canada invested in the design and a few years later the problem had declined greatly.
In addition to being used across Canada, Westhaver said they can be found all the way to California and Texas.
“That’s an example of the kind of challenges that park wardens have been able to deal with,” he said. “I felt that was a fulfilling part of the job.”
From 1983 to 1986, Westhaver served as the district warden in the Egypt Lake district where he had worked years before. During the three years there, Westhaver got together with Parks staff and they wrote the Back Country Management Plan for Banff, Jasper, Kootenay and Yoho national parks.
“About that time, I was introduced to fire management,” Westhaver said. “Cliff White, a park warden, started an initiative to create a national fire management plan.”
Understanding the role of fire in ecosystems, White helped create the birth of modern fire management.
“That became a big passion for me,” Westhaver added. “I spent most of the rest of my career working in that area - fire and vegetation management.”
Westhaver and his family left Banff in 1988 for Elk Island National Park, where he worked as the warden in charge of natural resource management. Then it was on to Winnipeg where he was the regional fire management officer for Prairie and Northern Parks.
“It was at that time the national program was gaining strength,” he said. “Those were important years.”
In 1990, Westhaver joined a small group of fire professionals and municipal managers, which evolved into the nationwide FireSmart program. Westhaver said he was supported by Parks Canada in his initiative to help develop the program.
He was called to Calgary in 1993 to work for the National Fire Service Centre.
“We amalgamated my positions in Winnipeg and Calgary,” he said. “(I was) the resource management co-ordinator.”
In 1996, Westhaver was given the opportunity to move to Jasper as a park warden in charge of fire and vegetation management.
“We leapt at the chance to come to Jasper,” he said. “It was our longest position and our most rewarding.”
Jasper is where Westhaver worked with Van Tighem and Ron Stanko, now a retired deputy fire chief, to refine the FireSmart program.
“Jasper became the template for the FireSmart Neighbourhood Recognition Program,” Westhaver said. “We have six or seven neighbourhoods in Jasper that are nationally recognized by FireSmart Canada.”
He encourages residents to work with the fire department in implementing FireSmart measures.
Westhaver retired in 2012. These days, he and Lisa live in Salmon Arm, B.C. They have fond memories of Jasper. Westhaver lauded the generosity of people in Jasper, their community spirit and their friendship.
“We were involved in all kinds of community activities,” he said. “We got so much out of it. It still feels like home. We continue to come back.”
The same year he retired, Westhaver created ForestWise Environmental Consulting Ltd.
He has taught hundreds of fire professionals how to implement the FireSmart Program across the country, and has published three research documents about fires in Fort McMurray, Slave Lake and Kelowna.
