Joanne McQuarrie, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter | [email protected]
Living outside of Jasper when he was a youngster didn't stop Dennis Minkensky from getting to town to go to school.
He hopped on his bike where he and his family lived at Becker's Bungalows and peddled the six kilometres in.
That's just one example of Minkensky's do-it-yourself approach to life.
He was born in Calgary on November 13, 1952 to Kathleen and John Minkensky, but the family lived in Jasper. Sister Cindy Minkensky arrived six years later. The Minkenskys moved to Hinton for a short while before returning to Jasper, where they lived at Becker's Bungalows.
His mom was the head housekeeper there for 15 years while Minkensky's dad worked for Parks Canada in administration and operated Miette Hot Springs.
When Minkensky was five, Mr. Becker hired him to do odd jobs for $20 and $5 bonus each month. That included looking after a flowerbed and helping the maintenance man by carrying wood, going with him to the incinerator on Pyramid Lake Road.
Visitors didn't have to leave the comfort of their cabins to get firewood as an opening in the cabin wall connected to the wood box outside allowed them easy access.
But sometimes when folks left their cabin, the night latch would slip into a locked position. Each day when the cleaning staff made their rounds they had a couple of choices to make if that happened.
"Sometimes they'd wiggle through [the opening]," Minkensky said. But when he heard, 'Denniiiiiis!' he knew he was being summoned to "snake through the wood access into the cabins and open the door for the cleaners".
Minkensky wanted to be the first customer at the Bank of Nova Scotia when it opened, but his boss pipped him to the post.
"I got on my bike to go open an account," he said. "Mr. Becker watched me leave, then drove by me. When I got there he was signing papers. So I was the second customer."
At the age of nine or ten, Minkensky delivered Edmonton Journals around Jasper, cycling to town to pick up a load and selling them to campers at the Wapiti Campground at five or ten cents apiece.
On one of those days, he said, "Visitors stopped me by Alpine and asked me where the animals were kept. I had to bite my tongue, and I told them, 'They're out and about and you have to look for them.'"
Minkensky's dad was a Second World War veteran and with a loan from Veterans Affairs the family got a house built in town in 1962.
"I remember oversized floor and ceiling joists," Minkensky said. "There was a sunken living room and a big stone fireplace that Mr. John Forabosco built."
At school, Minkensky got distracted now and then.
鈥淒ennis is not concentrating,鈥� his parents heard when they met teachers for an interview.
"I did get caught a lot looking out the window watching the new school being built," he chuckled.
In 1965, a year after Marmot Basin Ski Resort opened, Minkensky, then 13, started working the T-bar and shovelling snow on the tracks on weekends. He got a ride in a company truck or rode in a bus up to the ski hill. He said it was a radio-controlled road - a gravel road.
Minkensky started a full time job at Marmot when he was 18 or 19 and worked there for about seven years. He moved to B.C. to work for a short while before returning to Jasper in 1982. Marmot called his name and he ran a snowcat for a couple of years. He worked at a hotel and did some contract work cutting trees in the summer.
Being on a Parks Canada fly-in crew was next for Minkensky.
In 1984 and 1985 he helped build corduroys in wet areas for hikers. Other tasks included ditching, getting firewood for campgrounds, building bridges, cutting brush and digging new holes for privies, he said.
An interview in 1986 with Parks Canada for a highways job turned into a 25-year career for Minkensky.
He retired in 2012 and returned to work full time at Marmot in the winter, gradually paring the shifts down to one or two a week. He plans on working there this year too.聽
Minkensky is also an avid photographer. He bought is first camera in 1969 - a Pentax - and his photos are "basically outdoors of anything, from water to the sun to whatever catches my eye".
A favourite is from 1978, a shot he took at Maligne Lake in front of the boathouse of a moose聽 coming out of the water with water dripping off its antlers on a bright August day.聽
Minkensky said in his childhood, "there was a freedom - if you behaved yourself鈥�.
鈥淭here were always eyes out there,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t wouldn't take long for one of your parents to know we were up to something."
Today, he said Jasper is a great place.
鈥淚t's still decent, quiet, there's lots to do,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 enjoy the surroundings."
Get to know some of Jasper鈥檚 beloved community members in our new feature, Jasper Treasures. Nominate a treasure for our next feature! Email [email protected].
