The Athabasca Hotel (or the Athabee as the locals call it) is a favourite local watering hole. Been there a few times myself for just that reason - I used to work for Parks Canada. It can be noisy but the rooms are clean and economical.

A couple of other possibilities are:

- Hotel Sawridge in Jasper. (Gotta plug it because my daughter works there. :)) It's the second largest hotel in town (after the Jasper Park Lodge), not cheap but way less expensive than the JPL, and is very nice. It has all the usual amenities.

- A more economical alternative in Jasper is what is called Approved Accommodation. These are rooms in private homes that operate much like a B&B. They are way cheaper than the hotels and most offer some kind of breakfast. Most places only have a couple of rooms. It's an interesting concept that addresses two things: (1) it's very expensive to live in Jasper and this offers locals some way of offsetting that a bit, and (2) it lessens the pressure at least a bit for building more hotels. After all, Jasper is in Jasper National Park.

The local tourist folks can provide you with a list of Approved Accommodation.

Cheers!

Gerry Crouse Aylmer, Quebec