Mountain Park

At the Cadomin Swings, a private moment is shared between a father and daughter during a trip from Mountain Park in 1939. Provincial Archives of Alberta.

Mountain Park was one of many isolated villages along the Canadian National Railway's coal branch line, just east of Jasper National Park, which thrived in the first half of the 20th century. Mountain Park had as many as 2,000 residents during its peak, but when natural gas and diesel started to replace coal-fired power, the mines closed and the towns were abandoned.

In 1997, former residents and their families came back to Mountain Park determined to protect the memory of the area. The group lovingly restored the only part of the town still in existence, the cemetery. Today, the cemetery exists as a connection back to a time when people called this remote location home.

One of the cemetery's trustees is Mary Salzsauler, the little girl on the swing. Her father, Charles Lee, is buried at the Mountain Park cemetery.