We spent three nights in Banff and had a lot of memorable experiences. We spent three nights in the High Country Inn in a room with a balcony and a great view.
There was a problem, though – at least one family with rooms across the hall from each other with people talking loudly between the rooms. On our first night we were surrounded by such rooms. The second night, there was just one pair and the third night, none at all. Of course, these were Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. On Saturday night, it appeared that every room in the town was taken. On Sunday night, every place we saw had a Vacancy sign at about 9PM. Banff is about 2 hours from Calgary, so it is an easy place to go for a weekend.
As we saw in Vancouver and Victoria, Canadians are very big on gardens. The public space in Banff is called Canada Gardens and has many lovely structures and flowers.
The log bridge depicted below was crafted by a volunteer about 20 years ago and was recently refinished.
The garden overlooks the main street of Banff and has a wonderful mountain view.
Saturday was Parks Day across Canada, marking the 100th anniversary of Canada’s national parks. Admission was free that day and they had several events on the grounds of Banff Park Museum (see below). There were crafts for kids, quizzes with giveaways (Jim won a soft hockey puck and Ardith won a key chain with a Parks’ anniversary fob), and performances. We listened to a good singing duo and watched two of the rangers (not their title) do a hilarious song and costume routine that lasted about 45 minutes. We loved it even if we didn’t get some of the Canada-oriented jokes.
At one point they brought a 13 year old boy out of the audience and had him put on a fire suit, explaining the construction and purpose of the various pieces.
They then brought out two cake pans filled with marshmallow creme with over a hundred wooden matches tip up.
One was very densely packed like trees in an unmanaged forest and another had spacing representing good forestry practice.
The boy lit one match in each and we watched how the flames spread.
The one with the good practices went up much more slowly, possibly allowing time for firefighters to contain the blaze.
Kids totally enjoyed Parks folks dressed as a variety of animals.
They also had native dancers and drummers performing a variety of dances, each explained.
Since it was a big birthday celebration, they had a big, very yummy cake. Ardith was good and didn’t go for one. Jim was bad and had them scrape extra icing from the box to supplement his.
Traffic in Banff was heavy both for vehicles and pedestrians. It was hard to walk against the flow on Saturday. Sunday was better, but still tight.
There were trails on both sides of the Bow River that separates the two parts of town. We did a lot of walking on both of them. There were pretty views of the river.
People had created a few oddities with some trees along the trails.
Just above the trails along one stretch were probably the fanciest houses in town.
We walked back on the street side of the houses and noticed that several of them have bison-themed decorations, even though Banff haven’t had any bison in 150 years, other than in a now-defunct zoo.
Jim walked father along one of the trails than did Ardith. He observed signs that said to him “be careful if you do this” but which Ardith would have take to mean “stay away”. He wasn’t the only one taking the steep trails up and down the side of the cliffs.
He really enjoyed seeing the river change from a gentle flow to rapids in an up-close manner.
There is a strategic viewpoint along the trail. Jim watched 3 tour buses pull up to it and disgorge their cargo. The people were given 10 minutes to climb up the stairs to a tower, look at the magnificent of Canadian Pacific-built hotel across the way and catch a vague glimpse of cliffs and river.
If they had been allowed / told to go a hundred yards/meters down the easy trail, they would have had a much more interesting view.
Once Jim walked about a hundred yards past the viewpoint, he was totally alone in the woods for the next 50 or 60 minutes, despite the huge crowd downtown.
We visited two museums in town. The first was the Banff Park Museum. This museum was built in 1903 and in its early days was the most popular in any Canadian park. A few years ago, the building was restored to its 1903 state and most of the exhibits from that time were either found or recreated (mostly the former).
This gives a great opportunity to step back in time and see firsthand how museums of a century ago functioned. The Smithsonian Natural History Museum, where Jim volunteers, celebrated the 100th anniversary of its building last year and they had extensive photographs of old displays as modern displays. The collections here in Banff were very reminiscent of the Smithsonian’s.
There were a lot of high-quality stuffed mammals and birds, a small collection of minerals, a collection of tree samples and a few native artifacts.
One interesting fact we learned was that wild bird egg collecting was very much in vogue then, something done by both men and boys. They had a few collections on display.
The second museum was the Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum. This was run by the Buffalo Nations, a native Canadian group and depicted many aspects of their traditional culture. They had several dioramas (Jim really enjoys these). One depicts dog sleds.
Another describes the process of preserving meats. One of these involved making something called Pemmican. They sliced fresh meat thin and sun dried it, then pounded it into fine shreds and added berries and hot fat. It was stored in rawhide containers and would last several months. The other method was to air dry it and make sure it didn’t get wet. This would last indefinitely.
Another showed how mothers packed moss around their babies when they put them in carriers. The moss absorbed baby by-products.
Still another showed how the “mounties” helped bring peace to the region. They chased out a lot of the whiskey traders and helped negotiate problems among different groups.
Much of the beadwork on display was amazing.
They also showed ceremonial pipes and had a few types of tobacco on display. Jim asked one of the staff about smoking before contact with Europeans (who brought tobacco). She said that the practice went back several centuries, but they used various combinations of barks and leaves. Smoking was a way of cementing relationships.
There was an exhibit of photos of a former chief who went on a journey to visit indigenous people in New Zealand, Australia and Africa.
When we were just across the street from our lodgings, we saw a large crowd of people gathered. They were watching a white tailed deer who was just wandering through town, mostly oblivious to the fact that lots of people were around. People were careful not to annoy the animal.
We got out relatively early one morning and went to Johnson Lake for a hike. We walked all the way around the fairly large lake, enjoying the amazing views of the lake.
There was a log floating in the water that reminded Ardith of whales we had seen.
We saw a tree stump that and animal had used as a snack bar.
Another dead tree had a hidey-hole for snacks.
We saw some white stuff blowing around and thought there were cottonwood trees nearby, but found they came from a ground based flower.
A pretty flower was by a stream that fed the lake.
A great thing was that the parks folks recognized that areas need to be set aside for animals and plants.
When we first arrived, there were only 2 other cars in the parking lot, one of which came at the same time as us. When we got 3/4ths of the way around, we saw people setting up picnics.
When we got back to the parking lot, it was nearly full
That evening, Jim decided that he wanted to take another hike. He wanted to do the first part of the Stewart Canyon trail. The parks folks require parties of 4 carrying bear spray for the later part of the trail. While he was driving, he failed to understand that the trailhead for Stewart Canyon was off the picnic area for Lake Minnewanka and just drove past. There was good news from that. First the view across Lake Minnewanka was another breathtaking site.
Next, he saw a group of mountain goats along the road and watched them for several minutes.
He next passed the smaller but no less beautiful Two Jack Lake.
He realized that he had made a mistake when he got to the turnoff for Johnson Lake, coming from the opposite way that he had come in the morning. He consulted his map, turned around and returned to the Lake Minnewanka picnic area. The day was winding down and the only people left at this popular place were what appeared to be a Moslem family packing up their picnic and a guy pulling his boat out of the water. Jim went about a quarter mile along the trail, but it was getting too dark in the woods, so he retreated.
Not to be deterred, he stopped by a trail that went through an old coal mining and processing area. The sign on the trail said it should take 50 minutes. Jim hustled, but still pausing for pictures and reading signs and got through it in 18 minutes while there were still bits of light in the sky.
There were several slag heaps on the property. These are piles of rock-coal mixture that were not economical to futher extract coal. Jim was amazed that several of them were vegetated and that at least one animal mad a home in one.
It still wasn’t too late for him to stop to get a picture of a roadside covered with white flowers with a mountain in the background glowing with the suns last rays.
We also found a lot of food to enjoy. Adjoining the High Country Inn where we stayed was Ticino’s Swiss-Italian Restaurant. The decor was very Alpine. The food was very good. Jim enjoyed the Special Appetizer of the Day – spinach with cantaloupe, figs and air-dried beef - a unique, delicious combination.
He followed that with an appetizer size fondue. That alone would have been more than enough. Ardith had schnitzel with potatoes and veggies. She was quite pleased. She still has some room for dessert – a unique Black Forest cake that was lighter than most. Jim enjoyed a small taste, even though most Black Forest cakes are too chocolaty for him.
Our other big meal in Banff was at Balkan the Greek Restaurant. They brought out some great breads and a mixture of oil and vinegar that looked as though Ardith’s peach drink and Jim’s Diet Pepsi were swirled together.
Jim again decided to have 2 appetizers. The first was a flaming dish called saganaki. It featured a Greek cheese sautéed and flambéed with brandy.
He also had Keftedes – garlic and mint meatballs with tzatziki sauce. Ardith had Arni Kleftiko, which translates to Stolen Lamb. (Jim snitched a few pieces). It had been roasted for over 12 hours and had a nice topping of feta cheese. She said it may have been her favorite lamb dish ever.
Dessert was today’s special called galactobouriko – a Greek custard pie topped with a honey and cinnamon syrup. It was so good we almost squabbled over the last mouthful, something that almost never happens.
Almost every restaurant we visited in Canada and most shops used credit card machines that require customer interaction. The servers bring one to your table and key in the amount of the bill. The customer then OKs the amount and is given the option of adding a tip by either amount or percentage. It you have a Canadian or European credit card with an embedded chip, you would also be asked to key in your PIN – another place the US is lagging in technology.
We got into Calgary, Alberta the day after what is probably the world’s biggest and best know rodeo and much more, the Calgary Stampede, closed its 10-day run. Jim had looked this up during our early trip-planning stages, but we were initially going to use a different route. Ardith wasn’t disappointed that we missed it, but Jim had a bit of a twinge of not being able to see a tiny bit of it. We drove by the grounds, but barely found a place that was photo-worthy.
