Jasper National Park has played host to its share of celebrities over the decades, from politicians to royalty (Hollywood and actual), but one of its most famous visitors was also one of its first, who enjoyed his time there so much he returned nine years later for another visit. In 1914 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — famous around the world as the creator of the great detective Sherlock Holmes — was invited by the Canadian government to tour Canada, with the trip culminating in a visit to what was then called Jasper Park. The park had been established by a federal order in council in 1907, under the name Jasper Forest Park, but "Forest" was dropped in 1911, when the park came under the administration of the newly-formed Dominion Parks Branch, part of the federal Department of the Interior.
The creation of the park had been spurred by news of the construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, which was to run from Fort William (now Thunder Bay), Ontario to Prince Rupert on the B.C. coast.
Its route would take it over the Yellowhead Pass, and construction began in 1905. By 1911 track was being laid through Jasper Park, and a town originally named Fitzhugh was laid out around the Grand Trunk's railway station. In 1913 the town name was changed to Jasper, in honour of Jasper Haws, a Maryland-born fur trader who worked for the North West Company.
In 1815 he had taken command of a North West Company trading post in the area, which came to be known as Jasper's House. It was in 1913.