JASPER, ALTA.-If you step beyond the borders of a pathway marked by multi-coloured rope lights at Lake Annette, the surrounding landscape will become indiscernible. Your eyes, although fully adjusted to the darkness, might only make out two or three fellow stargazers in the near distance. There are however, hundreds of others around you, respecting the darkness of the midnight hour with hushed voices and soft steps.

A visitor to this dark sky preserve will find out soon enough those foggy specks are a reflection of the upper atmosphere upon the lake just ahead. Yet in that moment, the horizontal realm won’t matter in comparison to the vertical. And forgetting the fact you might have worn the wrong shoes and the night grass is harnessing the cold as dew that is soaking its way toward your skin, you’ll deny all things downward, forward or backward and simply look straight up.

“When you stare into an impossibly star-filled sky, there’s no experience like it . . . it’s primal,” says Nadia Drake at a roundtable discussion in downtown Jasper. An award-winning science journalist and daughter of famed astrophysicist Frank Drake, Drake is one of four astronomy experts slated to deliver a keynote speech as part of the town’s annual Dark Sky Festival.

The festival, held every October as Jasper’s daylight hours begin to recede, aims to connect wanderers from across the globe in mutual celebration of all things beyond the Earth’s surface. Over 10 days, programming that includes DIY rocket launches, state-of-the-art telescope exhibits and science-centric seminars is almost entirely free.

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Massively popular are night excursions to sensational star-watching spots, such as Lake Annette. During these excursions, hundreds of participants are shuttled to and from a drop-in dark-sky destination for a free night of expertly guided telescoping, photo-taking and star-spotting, all beneath Jasper’s shimmering upper canvas.

“You think about how these cultures all inscribed their own stories in the constellations,” Drake continues, “And the fact that kind of thinking is ubiquitous — you see it everywhere you go on Earth. Finding places in the world to preserve the sky and make it so anyone can still get a glimpse of that . . . I love that.”

Jasper is, officially speaking, one of those places. At 11,000 square kilometres, it’s considered to be one of the world’s largest dark sky preserves in the world. Having received the formal designation in 2011 by the Royal Astronomy Society of Canada, the Alberta mountain town of about 4,500 permanent residents is one of 40 around the world taking active measures to reduce light pollution within the community.

“Essentially a dark sky preserve is an astronomy park where local rules and bylaws defend the night against light pollution,” says Jasper’s astronomer-in-residence Peter McMahon, who fronted the endeavour to secure the town its preserve status. “It can’t simply be a place that’s just dark — it has to have infrastructure to help make it so.”

And while the remote expanse of Lake Annette, six kilometres from the town, makes for an unforgettably brilliant vantage point for stargazing, Jasper’s central strip offers just as spectacular a spot for star-seekers. During a downtown astronomy excursion offered as part of the Dark Sky Festival, it is explained that the street lights along Connaught Dr. have been affixed with full cutoff fixture lighting — or casings that discourage glare from spilling out into the sky. This and other measures enable visitors to Jasper, even on overcast evenings, to take in the brilliant offerings of space from the comfort of the core’s main street.

“I remember there was a woman who came here from Beijing, whose husband was a little bit older than her,” says McMahon, recalling a night sky excursion he led up a mountain via the Jasper SkyTram. “A staff member noticed this woman was crying. Sometimes you see that up there — and the staff member asked if she was OK, to which the husband answered, ‘It’s because she was born too late.’”

The husband’s meaning, as it turned out, was that his wife had been born soon after stars had become invisible to the people of Beijing, and she was witnessing the first of her life. It’s a memory McMahon retells to many who visit Jasper, and who come to see the power of darkness as it’s harnessed to shed light upon the universe.

“She came on a mostly cloudy night, and it suddenly cleared,” says McMahon. “She was able to see the Milky Way. She was able to see everything.”

Liz Beddall was hosted by Tourism Jasper, which did not review or approve this story.

When you go

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Get there: I flew to Calgary International Airport via WestJet, where I transferred to a Sun Dog Tours bus to Banff. From the Banff Greyhound bus station I took my final and spectacularly scenic trip to Jasper via a Sun Dog van. If you’re going straight to Jasper, Edmonton is the closest gateway.

Get around: Jasper as a town is highly walkable but visitors could certainly benefit from having a car to travel to its many surrounding parks and lookout points. Avis, Budget and Hertz are all available downtown along Connaught Dr.

Stay: I stayed at the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in one of its many log-cabin suites, which came complete with a pre-stoked, wood-burning fireplace.

Take part in the Dark Sky Festival: Drawing specialists in the field of astronomy from across the globe, this annual festival offers a variety of events throughout the month of October, including outdoor excursions, children’s programming, and seminars with a focus on the night sky. Most of the festival’s programming is free to the public, with a few ticketed events available for purchase online.

Eat: One of Jasper’s more unique culinary experiences can be found at Cassios Italian Restaurant. Located within the Whistler’s Inn hotel, the popular dining spot not only offers a range of tasty pastas and mains, but also invites waiting diners to take a tour of an adjoining natural history museum, complete with taxidermy of 100 local animals against a range of dioramas.

Do your research:jasper.travel or jaspercanadianrockies.com

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