Good morning, everyone.

Well, another high school graduation season has come and gone. Students have completed their courses, written their exams, walked across the stage and received their diplomas.

Smiling parents have taken their photos and shed a few tears as they proudly watched the kid whose hand they nervously held on their first day of school finish the years-long journey toward adulthood.

It’s a yearly rite of passage played out in communities across Alberta and the country.

But graduation at Jasper Junior/Senior High School this June had a little extra meaning.

“What makes a moment like this so unique and important is not simply the occasion, but who we managed to spend it with,” said Oliver Noble, this year’s grad president, in his speech at the graduation ceremony. “The fact that all of us as a class still ended up here after having to reconcile with the idea that we might not be able to do so, with this group of people in this place, should put into perspective what it means to be celebrating in the way that we are today.”

Jasper of course is about a year removed from a massive wildfire that rolled through Jasper National Park and into town, threatening to torch every home and business in the tightknit community of around 5,000.

The wildfire destroyed 358 of the town’s 1,113 structures, most of them homes. But the school, and other critical infrastructure, such as the hospital and waste water treatment plant, were saved.

And as students scattered during the evacuation, among the many fears weighing on the graduating seniors was that they would not be able to spend their last year of high school together.

“That was pretty sad, thinking I won’t be able to graduate with my best friend,” Emmett Lent said, reffering to Oliver Noble.

Of the 184 students at Jasper Junior/Senior High School, 47 of them lost their homes. That included five of the graduating seniors.

But when the evacuation order was lifted last August, parents, teachers, coaches and school administrators set out to make the last year of school for these students as normal as possible.

“The fear of losing the memory markers in the year, those foundational moments – that’s what the kids were afraid of,” Leslie Currie, assistant principal at Jasper Junior/Senior High School told The Globe’s Dave McGinn, who travelled to Jasper last month to meet with members of this year’s graduating class.

The school division was also keenly aware of the trauma that can come from an event as devastating as a wildfire, organizing information sessions and seminars for parents and students.

“Their whole teenage years have been racked with worry. You’re concerned of the unknown. You go through a pandemic to wildfire to your house burning down,” said Shelly Irwin.

As Dave reported, for Irwin’s son, there is who he was before the fire and who he is after.

“My house burned down. It’s kind of like all my childhood was there, so I guess you could say that my childhood kind of comes to an end like that,” Jackson said.

The hope, of course, is that the struggles of the last year will have made students even more resilient and given them some useful skills that will serve them well as they go off into the world.

“We learned to really cherish what we have and not take anything for granted,” said Daisy McLeod. “It definitely taught us to appreciate each other and what we have more.”

This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.