Banff

Banff

View across Bow River to Banff

Fairmont Hot Springs Resort

The Fairmont

View from Hotel Balcony

The town of Banff is very much a ski resort town that is also popular in the summer.  It has kind of a combination Swiss Chalet, Tudor  England feel to it.  It is set in the most spectacular valley surrounded by craggy mountains.  The Canadian Pacific Railroad made the town famous by building what is now the Banff Hot Springs Hotel.  There is a cave and mineral baths nearby.  The Banff Hot Springs resort dominates a certain part of the landscape, and also has one of the most famous golf courses in the world.
(By the way, they served the hot springs water in bottles.  It contained Lithium, which is an anti-depressant.  No wonder everybody came here!)

Flowers on Hotel Balcony over Golf Course

Golf Course

John on Golf Course

The town is on the Bow River and they have made the most of walking paths and trails along the river and Bow Falls, which is right below the hotel.

The town is renowned for its mountain artists who either visit or come to live.  Rudyard Kipling once visited, and here is his description of the Bow River: "The Bow does not slide or hustle like Prairie Rivers, but brawls across bars of blue pebbles and a greenish tinge in its waters hints of snows."

National Parks Administration Building

There is a large stone building at the end of the Bow Bridge which is the Administration Building of the National Parks.  It was built in 1936-38 and is meant to represent the massive mountains surrounding it.  Harold C. Beckett, who designed the building and the gardens, had a grandiose idea of a geologic garden representing the various geologic times of Banff National Park, and pools would be made of rocks from the different geologic eras.  When he was into it for $50,000, with no end in sight,  the government called a halt to the work.  It was after all, the beginning of a severe depression.  He had workers who served in part of a WPA program who toiled on his dream garden. The gardens, called Cascades of Time, turned into a rock garden, and a beautiful one at that, but nothing near what he had originally envisioned.

View across Bow River Bridge

There are lots of interesting characters who helped found the town, primarily from moneyed families Back East.  We visited the Whyte Museum and got a tour of a couple of the homes.  This was a really nice place to visit.