Jasper's rebuild taking shape, but not without early challenges

Looking through the wire fence blocking off one of his former construction sites, Jasper contractor Toby Gifford scans the burned wreckage of what's left of a home he was building for a family. 

"The ultimate goal was just to get a family into their home for Christmas," said Gifford.

Now, that dream is dashed.

July's wildfire in Jasper destroyed 358 structures — including the site Gifford had been working on — equalling one-third of the town's buildings.

People on the front lines of the community's recovery say the rebuild will be an immense challenge complicated by the number of workers needed, the limited availability of skilled tradespeople, and the amount of housing that will be required for the workforce of contractors imminently flooding into the damaged townsite.

Gifford owns Wild Mountain Construction. He started the general contracting and construction project management company in 2019, working exclusively in the Jasper area. In recent months, he's been planning multiple rebuild projects, including one on the grounds of the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge.

"The scale of this is massive. We're used to only doing maybe six homes a year between the builders that are in town here. So to look at doing 300-plus structures in a year is daunting," Gifford said.

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Availability of local tradespeople, Gifford said, is one significant challenge to physically getting rebuilding work done.

"A lot of our building community shares the same contractors. We have a small subcontractor base that we use. So we have a few electricians, a few plumbers, a few mechanical guys that we use … that's going to be strained," said Gifford.

To add to the complexity, some local tradespeople Gifford works with lost their homes in the fire, and are now living out of town. That means they will need somewhere to stay if they come back to work on the rebuild. Any non-local contractors that are brought in for work will need somewhere to stay, too.

The Government of Alberta recently announced a $112 million investment to build to modular homes for displaced Jasper residents. Priority for those units is being given to essential workers who lost their homes.

The Municipality of Jasper has sites designated for the housing, but Gifford wonders whether there will be enough space for everyone working in construction.

"It's kind of hard to foresee what that's going to look like, because we don't know where some trades are going to stay. Are there going to be work camps for people from out of town to help us with these builds?"