Bumped to second place
Jasper is no longer the largest dark sky preserve in the world. That title was taken by Wood Buffalo National Park last week.
Wood Buffalo is the largest national park in North America at 44,807 square kilometres.
On Aug. 2, it was announced that the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada had designated the park as the newest and largest preserve. Within the park are large populations of bats, night hawks and owls and there are also opportunities to see the aurora borealis, as well as millions of stars.
To celebrate, Wood Buffalo will be organizing it鈥檚 own Dark Sky Festival from Aug. 23-25.
Jasper鈥檚 third annual festival will be held Oct. 25-27.
Council meeting cancelled
Council unanimously voted to cancel its Sept. 3 meeting, as too many councillors will be absent to make quorum. The meeting will be rescheduled for a future date, but council has not yet agreed upon one. A decision will be made in time for an advertisement to appear in the paper, informing the public of the new date.
Off leash area open
The temporary off-leash dog park located at the corner of Centennial Park is closed for maintenance.
The municipality is requesting that dog owners now take their pets to the new park, located on Sleepy Hollow Road.
Fencing for the new park was completed at the end of July and ever since dog owners have been in the space pulling out speargrass and removing old broken glass, to make it safe for their canine pals.
Skywalk reaches milestone
The skeleton of the controversial Glacier Skywalk is now complete. The final piece of the puzzle was placed with a massive crane on July 26.
The 400-metre interpretive walkway at Tangle Ridge is set for completion in the spring of 2014.
As construction continues on the structure, there will continue to be one lane traffic with three-minute delays on either side.
When the walkway鈥攚hich won an international architectural award鈥攊s complete, the viewpoint will be closed to vehicles, whose drivers will instead have to take a free ride to the site from the Icefields Centre, located about six kilometres to the south.
