Winter in Canada's Rockies

We were married on a cold Michigan night 25 years ago, trudging through snowdrifts and road salt to the rehearsal dinner, our wedding, and the reception. Back then, it seemed appropriate to head south for a honeymoon, and we woke after a few brief hours of sleep to board a freezing cold plane for a week in Cancun.

But for a silver anniversary celebration, we thought it would be fun to indulge our long-time delight in mountain landscapes and head west, fulfilling an idea that we’d first had while exploring the wonders of Yellowstone: spend a week in the mountains in wintertime.

We thought about returning to Yellowstone, and exploring that amazing but somewhat familiar landscape via skis and even snowmobile. That would have been a great trip, but we decided instead to head someplace (largely) new: the Canadian Rockies, and Banff and Jasper National Parks. I’d been to Banff as a kid, as part of one long, fantastic trip along the Rockies from Denver to Calgary, through the Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier and Banff. But my memories were mostly clustered on the American side of the border, with Banff having served as a brief, final way station before heading home.

To the surprise of most who heard our plans, we’re not skiers. My downhill experience started and ended on the slopes of Michigan, mostly at places like ‘Mount Brighton’, having ventured north to the state’s best slopes a single time, 30 years ago. And although I spent a lot more time on cross-country skies, those haven’t been out of the garage since we landed in Missouri nearly two decades ago.

So this vacation was built around a different set of activities. We’d sample all the other things winter has to offer: dogsledding, snowshoeing, ice canyons, and wildlife; good meals, warm fires, and cozy cabins; finishing with an nightly retreat to the fireside with a good book.

Highlights
The weather can range from hospitable to intolerable. We arrived the Sunday after Christmas, and the first words from nearly everyone we met were "Oh, I’m glad you weren’t here last week." Then, temperatures had hit 40 below, the magic point that reads the same on both the Celcius and Fahrenheit scales. The weather had warmed considerably since then, hitting highs of -10 to -5 during our stay (or 14 to 23 F; we liked using the minus signs in telling family back home just how cold it was).

That was more than warm enough to get outside, provided you were dressed right. And we were: thanks to Igo polar expert MilwVon, we headed north with good boots (bravo Sorels!) and multiple layers. My running silks worked just fine, but a big key is Merino wool socks. Don’t skimp on Merino content, or on good gloves: I ended up paying twice, buying real ones to replace the $8.97 pair that seemed ‘good enough’ on a cold Missouri day.

Properly equipped, we had a blast outside. We hiked Marble Canyon in Koontenay National Park, and immediately followed it up on the catwalks of Johnston Canyon back in Alberta and Banff NP. Winter hiking was terrific: the scenery was fantastic, and we had Marble Canyon completely to ourselves (and Johnston nearly so).

On our first full day, we headed into the Spray Lakes region south of Canmore for a dogsled ride with Snowy Owl Tours. What a great experience! We seriously debated whether to come back and do it again. The combination of the animals, the landscape, and the quiet was amazing.

The Town of Banff is an odd combination of mountain outpost, tony resort, and jumping off point. We had some great meals here and in Canmore (chronicled in other journals), and explored the origins of Canada’s National Park system at the Cave and Basin, and the Banff Park Museum. Both are worth a visit if you’re looking for in-town things to do; if you’re out in the mountains already, stay there. Chances are you’ll get more out of a visit to the Whyte Museum of the Rockies, if for no other reason than to visit the excellent gift shop. Browse their photographic archives, or the excellent traveling exhibits: it’s definitely worth a stop.

We made two trips to Lake Louise, both on the grayest days of our visit. The world-famous view down the lake to the now rapidly retreating glacier didn’t look the same when you had to squint through the snow, but it was fun to walk out on the ice. The Chateau Lake Louise perched on its shore looked much different than my first view 37 years ago: the additions, renovation, and new beige skin made it seem out of place, in contrast with its sister property, the brick castle Banff Springs Hotel back in Banff. A downsizing may be in order. But a short hike along the lake’s edge was a good antidote to looking at the acres of plaster in the hotel’s façade.

Thanks to our hosts at Storm Mountain Lodge, we headed out on snowshoes late on New Year’s Eve. This classic mode of travel was easier than I’d thought, and doing it with an experienced guide by moonlight (and finishing with a midnight champagne toast ‘round the bonfire at midnight) gave us an unforgettable start to 2009.

Before planning this trip, I never thought I’d go dogsledding. Not that I’d considered it and said no: I’d never even thought about the possibility, since it seemed such a part of a separate, foreign existence. In our increasingly homogeneous world, mushing seemed one of the few things firmly bound to its own distant, somewhat forbidding place in the Arctic and near-Arctic.

But when we decided to head for a winter climate to celebrate our anniversary, I quickly learned that several firms were happy to provide that experience to complete novices. We both agreed that mushing was one of those things we just had to do: certainly, we wouldn’t get the chance to steer our own sled through the Ozarks, and we aimed to take part in as many uniquely northern experiences as we could.

Three companies lead dogsled tours In the Banff/Canmore/Lake Louise area. We decided to make this part of our first full day, after spending the night in Canmore where two of the firms were based. Options ranged from two-hour trips for ‘powderhorns’ to half- and full-day trips, and even one-week expeditions.

Two hours seemed long (and pricey) enough for a first outing. Snowy Owl has been leading trips for nearly a quarter of a century, and I made a reservation with them for 9:30 on Monday morning. I hadn’t confirmed it with a credit card, though, and called them the day before our flight to do so. Dogsledding is very popular: by then, only the last of that day's four trips had space left, so we were booked for 3 pm instead.

We met at the offices in Canmore, where we piled into vans for the trip up over a pass into Kananaskis Country and Spray Lakes Provincial Park. Several vans carried us mushers over the ridge on the southwest edge of Canmore, past the Olympic Park and up some winding mountain roads, and then down to the river and out to the southern end of reservoir where the dogs were waiting for us.

This was the fourth outing of the day, but the dogs were anxious to get started again. During the instructions—the 20 minutes that taught us everything we would need to know about handling dogs and a sled—some pups had more trouble than others biding their time. The necessities can be boiled down to a few things: ‘Hike!’ means go, ‘Whoa!’ means stop; get off and run up hills to help them out, and make sure to use the brake when the sled ahead of you is stopping or on a steep downhill. The dogs know they’re working for amateurs, and if they sense a chance that you won’t stop get the sled stopped in time, they jump off to the side to avoid getting pinned between your vehicle and the one ahead. Be sure to shout encouragement (good puppies!), but not too often; they know when you’re overpraising. A glance backwards usually means ‘What the heck are you doing?' And if you’re still uneasy, rest assured that the dogs know far more than you about this, and essentially drive themselves.

But that doesn’t diminish the sense that you’re actually driving, or the pleasure it brings. When the lecture ended, the dogs knew it was time to go—and now every one started barking and jumping several feet off the ground, calming down only when the guides came and prepared all the lines to get us ready to head out. The driver stands balanced on the back end of the twin runners, between which lies the simple hinged metal bar with hooks that you stomp down into the snow when braking is required. In front, my wife and the grandmother of the young mushers in the sled ahead of us were wrapped up in blankets, enjoying the ride.

There were 15 sleds in our caravan, every third one including a guide, with the others piloted without professional assistance. Each sled was pulled by six dogs, arrayed in a series of three pairs, with the lead dogs often somewhat smaller than the rest. Guinevere and a partner (not Arthur) led our sled, and we gave them plenty of compliments. More than we should have, probably, but it was hard to stop.

The contrast between the excited barking of the dogs before setting off and the quiet that enveloped us as soon as the sled started moving was amazing. We headed down the road on the west side of Spray Lake, the long, narrow reservoir formed by damming Goat Creek. We were close to the shore; just enough land lay between the road and the shore for an occasional campground, and through the trees we could see the mountains beyond the east bank of the lake.

It only took about 90 seconds to realize that this outing would probably be the highlight of our trip. And that was under cloudy skies, so we missed the sunset we thought that we’d lucked into due to our late reservations. Nonetheless, it was really neat to be out as the day ended and the skies dimmed. As we pulled back into the starting area, we saw a campfire burning, and all the newly christened veterans gathered round for ‘hot’ chocolate and mystery cookies. It’s hard to keep anything too hot at 5 below, but it still tasted good, and I think the only mystery about the cookies was how many each person could score before the large supply ran out. We enjoyed chatting with Geremy, who co-owns Snowy Owl with his sister Carlin (the instructor) and his Mom.

We piled into the vans for the trip back to Canmore, excitedly reviewing our experience with the couple next to us, who also happened to be vacationing from Missouri. We ran into them repeatedly through out the Rockies, catching up on each other’s trip and reminiscing about the sled ride.

Like any outdoor activity in the winter, you need to dress warmly, but the usual winter wear will suffice on a mild day. It was between -5 and -10 that day (a range we’d usually call 14 and 23), so our usual routine of thermal underwear, jeans, and snow pants was enough. Good gloves are must, and I was glad I’d purchased a better set in Canmore that afternoon. As was true throughout our week, the nylon balaclavas we purchased were also worth it.

On the morning of our anniversary, the grey skies were clearing, and Castle Mountain was easily visible as we left the drive from Storm Mountain Lodge. That boded well for the day, and 25 minutes later the skies were perfectly blue as we entered Banff. After a quick breakfast at Cake Company on Bear Street, we headed for the Banff Gondola, figuring we would take advantage of the nearly clear day and the relatively early hour.

Not many people are moving at 9 am on a winter’s day in Banff, even when the weather is gorgeous. We headed down Banff Avenue, crossed the Bow River, and headed left on Mountain Avenue up into the foothills of Sulphur Mountain.

The Upper Hot Springs is also at the end of Mountain Ave., but both parking lots were empty as we pulled in at quarter to ten. It was a perfect day to head up the mountain, but we had 15 minutes to wait before the gondola cars started running. Despite the weather, only a handful of other people arrived for the 10am opening. We chatted with a young family from Sydney, whose 10-day holiday in the Rockies had become five days in Seattle and five days in Banff due to the freakish snowstorms that had shut down the Pacific Northwest over Christmas. (We met others with similar stories throughout our trip; they all were in pretty good humor despite their ordeals).

We were the first ones in line, and right at ten our small gondola headed up the hill. The cars seat four people, but two fill them up just fine. It’s an eight-minute trip to the top of the mountain, and the view just got better the higher we climbed. Behind us was the Fairmont Banff Springs, and past that its golf course, whose fairways were easy to make out along the river’s edge. Beneath us was beautiful, snow-covered forest, and we could make out the trail to the summit criss-crossing underneath our straight-line path.

In those eight minutes, we covered a mile and ascended 2,200 feet. Like most cable-cars, you’re never too far off the ground, so that mild acrophobes like me can always get a quick hit of reassurance by looking down at the trees just under the car. Atop the mountain is a modern, 1980’s concrete-bunker of a facility, whose tiers hold the top of the cable, a pair of restaurants, an observation deck, and a trailhead across the ridge. It was too early for the restaurants, but the gift shop was ready and happy to take our money. We left that for later, and headed out on the observation deck.

It was pretty windy, and at least 10 degrees colder than down below. But the view in each direction was spectacular. Looking across to Mount Rundle, or down at its feet at the Springs Hotel, or 90 degrees east out the Bow Valley, it was hard to imagine a better winter day. Taking pictures minus one layer of gloves was a little chilly, but I’ll take the view that day, with the mountains partially covered in snow, over a greener and warmer view in midsummer.

We spent an hour or so at the top, buying and mailing postcards, and having my wife talk me out of the 1-km ridgeline boardwalk across to the weather station to which Norman Sansom, Banff’s depression era ranger, climbed over 1,000 times. I had a hard time passing, because it was also the site of a significant cosmic ray detector placed there during the International Geophysical Year of 1958, but the boardwalk wasn’t cleared, and the going was pretty snowy.

On the way down, we watched our gondola's shadow pass over the trees below, reveling in the perfect skies we’d enjoyed. It was a good start to a great day.

Details
The gondola is about 15 minutes from downtown Banff. Cross the Bow River and bear left (otherwise you end up on Cave Avenue, headed for the Cave & Basin), and then bear right on Mountain Avenue. Soon, you’ll begin climbing, and eventually you’ll see the Rimrock Hotel, indicating that you’re almost there.

Tickets are now $29 for adults (they went up after New Year’s), and I looked in vain for any discount coupons. You can purchase in advance through the Brewster website, but in winter time that’s not a necessity. In summer, I would probably head out on the ridgeline trail immediately after exiting the gondola: I’m sure that the observatory is crowded when the weather is warm.

It seemed so romantic: a private sleigh ride in the mountains at sunset, the two of us tucked under a warm blanket, sipping liqueurs, and gazing at the purple mountains and red skies. Both of us were attracted by that winter vision, imaging the stillness as horse and driver took us along the edges of rivers, lakes, woods and ridges, the quiet broken only by the jingling of bells and the shushing of runners on snow. That wasn’t quite the way it worked out.

I first read about sleigh rides at the website for the Chateau Lake Louise, where we initially booked a three-night stay but then canceled after fiscally-inspired second thoughts. Options there were to join one of the large 15-passenger sleds for an hour’s ride ($28/person), or take a private, two-seater cutter sleigh at (gulp) $375/hour (both operated by Brewster, the original tour company in the Rockies). As perfect as its seemed to circle Lake Louise in our own sleigh, neither of us could see parting with $400 for the privilege.

Then I found Warner’s Holiday on Horseback, whose stables are on the banks of the Bow River, across from the center of Banff. They offered the same options, but the private cutter ride was $175. We booked one for 4pm on the afternoon of our anniversary, hoping that the skies would give us a nice sunset on the mountains.

That morning was crystal clear, and the skies stayed blue for the whole day. We crossed the river from Banff and turned west towards the stables, which are on the same road as the Cave and Basin site. As we drove north towards the barns, we saw one of the larger sleighs returning, and our cutter tied up and waiting for us, attached to a big, brown horse.

We entered the ticket area to ask about our reservation, and the group of hands debated who should take us. The youngest one present volunteered for our ride and took us out to the sled, giving us a little gift pack of four Bernard Callebaut chocolates and two small liqueurs with plastic glasses. We snuggled in under the buffalo skin, our guide shook the rains, and we were off.

The Warner property sits along the south bank of the Bow River, but the trail we followed never got very close to the river’s edge. And the ride was a touch bumpy: as our friendly young guide explained, echoing what we heard from a lot of folks that week, Banff’s snowfall to date was way below average. It didn’t really look that way in most places, but we definitely felt the effects as we criss-crossed through the property.

It’s hard to have a bad experience amidst the mountains, and for the most part, the scenery was spectacular—as long as you kept your gaze up. For much of the ride, we were in the rather non-descript flatlands along the river, where the grass was still poking through the light winter snow, and the effects of having cut, farmed and grazed this area were still visible. Only part of the ride took us through any section of woods, and since I’d formed this picture of coming in and out of pine forest for long vistas along the river or the mountain ridges, it wasn’t what I was expecting.

Our driver, a pleasant young man in his early twenties, had grown up in the plains of southern Alberta. I’d expected a quiet, taciturn cowboy who would handle the horse and leave his passengers to enjoy some quiet moments together. But while in the office, the available staff basically cast lots to decide who would take us, and we ended up with this talkative and likable guide, who would have made a great leader for the backcountry pack trips he leads during the summers. We learned a lot about horses, about the business, and about his other customers, but again, it wasn’t what either us envisioned for our romantic anniversary trip.

After 45 minutes, our loop returned us back to the Warner Stables. We thanked him, patted our horse, and headed back into town. It wasn’t an unpleasant experience, but I think both of us would have been happier piling into the larger sleigh with a dozen strangers, forgoing the liqueurs, and saving $125.

When we settled on spending three nights at Storm Mountain Lodge, switching our reservation from the stratospherically priced Chateau Lake Louise, we thought we’d have an equally special stay and save nearly $900 in the bargain. Nonetheless, given the $270 CDN nightly price tag, I thought I’d ask if they had any packages. Not over the holidays, they said, but we do take our guests snowshoeing every New Year’s Eve. At no charge, I asked? That’s right, she replied.

That sounded fantastic. Even though it wasn’t perfectly free (the $8 rental per shoe set was added to our tab), heading out under the stars with someone who knew what they were doing seemed like a great way to experience another quintessential northern activity. We pulled in from Lake Louise about 6pm, lit a fire in our cabin, and broke out the cheese and crackers and light dinner we’d picked up at the small grocery before heading back down Canada 1. Just before 10pm, we walked up to the lodge, enjoying the perfect winter scene of fir trees weighed down by snow. In back of the lodge, about 20 guests were gathering, measuring their feet against the snowshoes and getting their new gear strapped on.

These weren’t the large, classic wooden snowshoes with leather straps: these had largely rectangular frames of aluminum tubing, with nylon fabric stretched partially across the opening, a web for holding the front half of your boot, and a nylon strap that tightened around the back of your ordinary footwear.

Steve, our host, had already broken this trail that headed north from the lodge in the direction of Boom Lake. That was about 8 km, but we were only going out for 2-3 km, and then looping back to a bonfire. The night was calm and cool, but between our clothing and our exertions, we stayed perfectly warm (love those Sorel boots!).

Snowshoeing proved easier than we expected; you just needed to compensate a little for your newly expanded foot size. But although some of the romance may be gone from the aluminum shoes, they must be a whole lot easier to maneuver, since their footprint is significantly smaller. Every now and then someone would step on their own shoes and go down, or get to close to the person in front of them and take them down, too. But that was rare, and by the time our 90-minute trek was over, we all had the hang of it.

Our group included a group of five friends from London who’d come for a two-week holiday, a friendly family from Calgary, and a retired couple from elsewhere in Alberta who’d RVed all over North America and loved retreating to their own Albertan mountains. Steve pointed out tracks in the snow, described the animals who’d left them (including deer, moose, pine martens, and others), and generally showed that he’d spent a lot of time in the woods and wilderness.

After correcting a wrong turn (Steve let someone else lead for a bit), we came out upon a clearing and a roaring bonfire. The staff of Storm Mountain Lodge and nearby Castle Mountain Lodge joined our New Year’s celebration, and we mingled while waiting for the midnight hour. A few folks towed the toboggan up the small hill behind the fire, some rowdy but friendly Scots from Castle Mountain offered everyone the use of their hip flask, and just before midnight Steve broke out champagne from some coolers that had been hauled up earlier. With fire roaring and the stars overhead, it was a beautiful way to welcome 2009.

Snowshoes for you, too?
A number of tour companies will take you snowshoeing for $60. You get transportation, a guide/instructor, and usually hot chocolate at the end. If you’d like to give it a try, get a recommendation for a good trail and just rent a pair from a local outfitter. There’s really nothing to learn, and in no time you’ll be off in the woods. And you can buy your own hot chocolate.

Marble Canyon lies over the Vermilion Pass, just four miles inside Kootenay NP and British Columbia on the north side of Highway 93. It’s a much different experience than Banff's highly popular Johnston Canyon, but even better in some ways. We drove up from Storm Mountain Lodge right after breakfast, arriving about 9:30 (not long after sunrise!). The parking lot held over a dozen cars, but evidently those folks were all off skiing or snowshoeing on other trails, as was true of the only other people we saw here.

Kootenay is a long, lightning-bolt shaped park that's bisected by Highway 93. If you drive far enough, you arrive at Radium Hot Springs at the southern end, after about 100 km. There aren't a lot of trails in this park, although the winter scenery was wonderful, so it was nice that Marble Canyon was relatively close to our lodging at Storm Mountain.

It was neat (but a little unsettling) to see all of the usual trailhead structures snowed in or closed: restrooms, boards for posting notices, a small ranger hut. The trail left from the northeast end of the parking area, cut west towards Tokumm Creek, and then started to climb gently. The beginning of this short hike had been leveled off with a snowblower, but was nothing like the wide, easy trail at Johnston Canyon we hiked later in the day. It was easy enough with good boots, but only about 18 inches wide.

A few minutes after leaving the parking lot, the creek falls away from the surface to the bottom of the narrow limestone canyon. The trail runs through a rather thin stand of trees, occasionally breaking out into the open. This area was badly burned by lightning-strike fires in 2003: five fires were touched off on a single day that July, and consumed nearly an eighth of Kootenay before they were done. Trails, facilities and displays had to be rebuilt, and the area only reopened late in the summer of 2007. The long delay was largely to protect visitors from the danger of falling trees, a danger even before the large scale fires.

The slight ascent continued the whole way, with only one steep passage of about 50 yards. I made it up, my wife passed and waited for me. As you climb back into the canyon, the trail criss-crosses the canyon seven times on wooden bridges, each of which was saved from the fires by loading them with sprinklers. The canyon was created by high-volume, high velocity glacial runoff, and a series of panels along the trail describe that process and the evidence it leaves behind. The bridges are terrific, letting you walk out on top of the canyon, looking down into the 40-meter deep crevasse. It’s a different perspective than at Johnston, where you actually reach the canyon floor; Marble Canyon is too narrow and rock-filled for any path to run alongside the Creek.

The trail ends at a waterfall, but I was hesitant to head all the way down the path and leave my wife waiting. I scrambled up a little higher, so that I could see out over the roadway and to the mountains to the south. The skies were clearing just a touch, and even if it wasn’t blue, it was getting a lot brighter.

Not far to the west are the Paint Pots, used by native peoples as a source for deep red and yellow colors taken from the clay surrounding these springs. Back towards Albert is the 6-mile trail to Stanley Glacier, and then large display at Vermillion Pass, marking the Banff-Kootenay Park Boundary, the Alberta-BC provincial boundary, and the Continental Divide. We pulled off here for a few minutes, dusted off some signs, inspected the century-old limestone marker placed as part of an early survey, and watched a party of three (plus dog) disappear into the woods on skis. We piled back into our van, and headed back into Banff National Park for another hike at Johnston Canyon.

Directions
Take Canada 1 (Or 1A, the Bow Valley Parkway) to the Castle Junction exit, halfway between Banff and Lake Louise. Head west on Highway 93, past the ominous gates and warning signs. It’s about 6 miles to the Alberta-BC border, and another six to the parking area on the north side.

This is the most popular outdoor experience in Banff National Park: a million people will visit each year. Although most will obviously come in the summer months, you quite likely won’t be completely alone here during a winter visit, unless you arrive early. Frozen canyons like this are a popular cold weather outing up and down the Rockies, but even so, chances are that you’ll have this pretty place to yourself for healthy stretches of time.

The canyon runs nearly straight north, and the trail heads up the far side after a short jaunt west from the parking lot. Johnston Canyon Resort lies right on this edge, and we passed their souvenir store and shuttered ice cream stand, both of which must do land rush business in the summer time. There are actually seven sets of waterfalls here, but most visitors will see only two. It’s an easy hike (1.1 km) to the lower falls, with a very modest elevation gain of 30 m. Here and throughout the canyon the trail is often on catwalks anchored to the side of the canyon. It’s a really nice walk through the trees, sometimes on the canyon’s edge, sometimes hanging out over the canyon’s walls. Given the number of people that make this hike each year, the trail is safe and wide at all places.

It was a mild, calm winter day when we set out. The skies were grey but not dark, and the canyon was well lit under the even light. Smaller streams spilled in intermittently along the walls, one frozen in a beautiful angel-shaped pile of blue ice. The river still ran beneath the spectacular ice formations, occasionally visible through open sections in the layers of ice, which had a beautiful layer-cake structure on the edges.

Pretty soon, the canyon reaches a depth of few dozen meters, and varies from 10 to 30 meters across. We reached the lower falls in 30 minutes or so, taking our time as we headed up the broad trail. Here, the canyon narrows, and the trail stops on the western edge with a nice view across the pool, the falls, and the enclosing rock faces. A short spur crosses the river and through a small, short tunnel that emerges on a small platform facing the falls from just a short distance away. From here, you could easily see the water running underneath the intricate frozen surface and emerging into the uncovered pool. In summertime, this location would have covered us would spray, but staying dry was fine with us.

Back across the river, the trail climbed steeply back to the top of the canyon via a series of switchbacks. Another 90 meters of elevation takes place between the lower and upper falls, and sizeable piece of that happens right here. We decided to forego that climb and the mile-long hike, and enjoy the trail back to the parking area before heading to Lake Louise.

Several firms lead tours to Johnston Canyon, charging $50-$60 per person. For that fee you get transportation, a guide, and strap-on cleats (and perhaps a hiking pole) to help with covering the ice at the upper falls. I wouldn’t think of paying for a tour unless I needed transportation, even if heading onto the Upper Falls. Some friends we made during the dogsled ride made the hike to the upper canyon on their own and got along fine without the cleats. If you want to hike on the ice, you could purchase a fair for under $20.

I wouldn’t think of paying $50 (or more) for a guided tour: Johnston Canyon is easy to reach from Banff, and the strap-on cleats and poles that some tours provide aren’t needed. Some friends we made while dogsledding took our advice (even before we’d visited); when we met them two days later at the Chateau Lake Louise, they concurred.

Directions
Entrance to the canyon is on the east side of the Bow Valley Parkway, just south of Castle Junction. You could take the more scenic ride out the Parkway from Banff, or get off Canada 1 at Castle Junction and then head south for a few kilometers. Either way, be careful on the Parkway: it’s reasonably cared for in the wintertime, but the snow hides a very narrow shoulder. A second of inattention near the road’s edge led me to drift too far right, and my tire fell off the road surface. I couldn’t get it back, and seconds later we were stuck. Thanks to the kindness of a number of people, a jeep extracted us from the snow long before CAA was able to reach us with a tow truck.

It’s hard to imagine now, but this small, attractive wooden building was both on the cutting edge of park museums, and nearly all alone here in the mountains. It now sits surrounded by parking lot, but pictures available at the nearly Museum of the Rockies show it nearly neighborless, with only the mountains for a backdrop. Today, it feels like a sideshow on the edge of ‘downtown’ Banff, well removed from the central hotels and commercial activity, a drive-by destination as people head across the river to the Banff Springs or the Gondola.

It reminded me of The Little House, Virginia Lee Burton’s 1943 Caldecott Medal winning book for children: that pink house began life on an apple-tree covered hill, and watched as the city engulfed it. Inside this house, however, is a look back into what park museums and education used to be. In the words of the ranger on duty, it’s ‘a museum of a museum’, a preservation of what naturalists of a previous era thought was important to communicate to the public.

And what they thought mattered were creatures: hundreds of them, a veritable encyclopedia of the park’s critters, all stuffed, restored, and showcased in a two-story tribute to the taxidermist’s art. It’s an impressive collection, as notable for what it doesn’t contain as for what it does. There’s nothing about geology, about the formation of the Rockies, or even about the habitats and niches formerly occupied by the Museum’s silent residents. I found it hard to pay too much attention after several cases of birds, preferring the large mammals that were clearly the centerpieces of this large collection: bears, mountain goats, bison, elk and others. Several of these species have heads mounted high in the cupola that provided natural light to the collection; that visual cliche only heightened the sense of datedness.

It takes a little bit of effort to appreciate this space for what it is: a cutting edge natural history exhibit from 1910. What’s easier to enjoy are the traces left (or restored from) the building’s occupants: Norman Sanson, who worked here for nearly four decades, and fit in thousands of ascents of nearby Sulphur Mountain to gather meteorological data. His office, and the workroom around the corner, looked as if the occupant’s just stepped out for coffee, and it made me wonder just how their days were filled: hunting down a missing species? Celebrating a full trap? Proudly adding a new denizen to one of the cases below?

The building itself must look nearly as it did at the grand opening in 1903. The most recent restoration was completed five years ago, following the failure of one of the original trusses. That work left the interior in beautiful shape, and evidently left it closer to the original appearance. It’s built of Douglas Fir in an attractive cross-log construction, and the high ceiling allows plenty of windows that keep it naturally well lit (an important consideration given its frontier location). The Reading Room on the building’s north side is lovely, and holds a small library of materials on natural history, magazines on geology, wildlife and other relevant subjects, and maps and materials on the history of Banff, Alberta, and the Canadian northwest. This part alone is worth the modest admission price.

Visiting here won’t take a lot of time, but between the impressive collection and the beautiful architecture, it’s probably worth 30-45 minutes of your time in Banff. I’d be surprised if you don’t agree that, like Virginia Burton’s Little House, this small museum would be happier if someone picked it up and moved it deeper in the mountains, as well as back in time.

Admission
Admission for adults is $3.90; seniors $3.40 and youth $1.90. The Museum is also part of the Banff Heritage Pass, which includes the nearby Whyte Museum of the Rockies, and the Cave and Basin Historic Site across and down the Bow River. If you visit all three, the $10.50 Heritage Pass will save an adult about $4 and a senior about $3. It can be purchased at any of the sites, and includes a discounted admission to the Buffalo Nations Museum.

Canada is obligated to preserve the Cave and Basin, given its significance to the nation's impressive park system. Without that distinction, it might well have closed some years ago, when the interest in bathing dwindled and it fell into disrepair. Nonetheless, it's worth a short stop during your stay in Banff.

Well removed from the current center of attention in Banff, this small site is where both ‘Banff’ and Canada’s National Park system began. Disputes over control of the hot springs in this area eventually led the national government to deny all competing claims, and set aside a small rectangle centered on the Cave as Canada’s first national park. (Curiously enough, the entire national park movement begins with warm waters, from the early 19th century ‘reservation’ of Arkansas’ Hot Springs by the U.S. government, to the thermal wonderland of Yellowstone, and the Canadian version here in the northern Rockies.)

Although other visitors had noted the presence of thermal waters here among the mountains, three railway workers stumbled upon the cave and its water-filled basin in the 1880’s. They tried to develop it into a spa and resort, and it was this effort that eventually attracted the attention of more powerful interests, and finally the Canadian government. Later, the Upper Hot Springs were developed on the side of Sulphur Mountain, and water from the Springs was diverted to the Banff Springs Hotel to save guests a trip, but the Cave and Basin was the original source.

Newspaper stories from 2002 indicated that this site and many others in Canada’s park system were targeted as ‘crumbling’ by the nation’s auditor. If so, there’s no sign of that now. We visited twice, once on our Friday morning Banff tour by Discover Banff Tours, and again the next day, hoping to take the 11 am ranger walk. We arrived to find the ranger complaining about the temperature, eventually making good on his desire to cancel the tour and stay indoors.

Left to ourselves to explore the site, we headed upstairs to a good exhibit of the area’s history, the Canadian park system, and the impact of the growing population and growing numbers of visitors on parks and their ecosystems. The Cave is reached through a short tunnel into the rock, and holds a small pool about 10 yards in diameter, about the same distance below the stone surface overhead. A manhole-sized opening lets in sunlight, and additional lighting is controlled by a timer. Bathers once swam here, but the water is now considered unsafe for bathing, due to metals and other contaminants that have crept in.

Back up and at the west end of the building is the Basin. This rough, natural pool is perhaps the last habitat for the Banff Springs Snail, a small apple-seed sized critter whose range of habitats has been successively eliminated by human use of the springs. Behind the Basin is a small theater showing a 30-minute film on the discovery and subsequent history of the Hot Springs and Banff, made for the 100th anniversary of the springs’ discovery. Our tour bus stop was just long enough to find the snails in the Basin and watch the movie, which was as notable for the 1980’s footage of Banff and its tourists as for the re-enacted story of the three railway workers and their struggle to make something from the hot, sulfurous waters they found. The nearly forty-year-old scenes instantly transported me back to my own visits here and at other parks as a kid, particularly as tourists purchased the same dreck for which I emptied my pockets and pleaded with my parents to do the same. (I have no idea where those ‘birchbark canoes’ are now.)

Just east of the theatre is a now-closed pool, once full of bathers. I remember swimming here as an 11-year old, nearly our final act of vacation before boarding a train in Calgary for our trip home. The snow-filled pool was a lot larger in my memory than the 20-yard-long one in front of me. As interest in the hot springs dwindled, this site was eventually closed for bathing, and the diversion of waters to the Banff Springs Hotel ceased. Now only the Upper Hot Springs remain open.

A short boardwalk trail runs north through the swampy lands that border the Bow River. It was already a cold but clear day, but we’d read in the in-flight magazine that this trail held green, growing things even in mid-winter. It did, and also provided some lovely views across the river to the mountains beyond. But all that moisture made the cold much more fearsome, and even I hurried over the last 100 yards to get back to the drier and warmer climes near the building. To the right of the trail, the trees that arched above these swampy areas were lined with ice, as the warm water condensed on the branches after evaporating. It was beautiful, but also another cold spot. I cleaned the collected steam off my glasses, and we headed for the Upper Hot Springs.

Admission
The Upper Hot Springs are a livelier site (after all, people still bathe there), but they share a museum-like quality with the Cave and Basin. Mineral waters no longer hold the same attraction that they did a half-century ago. If you’d wish to see where it all began, admission is another modest $3.90 ($3.40 for seniors and $1.90 for youth $1.90) The $10.50 Banff Heritage Pass includes the downtown Whyte Museum of the Rockies, and the Banff Park Museum on the shores of the Bow River. If you visit all three, the Heritage Pass will save an adult about $4 and a senior about $3. It can be purchased at any of the sites, and includes a discounted admission to the Buffalo Nations Museum.

Peter and Catharine Whyte fell in love during Art School. They came from very different worlds to meet at Boston Museum School of Fine Art: Peter from Canada’s remote, barely settled Bow Valley; Catherine from one of Boston’s leading families. In 1930, the newlyweds left the east coast for Peter’s home in the mountains, where they settled for the remainder of their lives. Over the next forty years, they hiked, painted, and promoted the arts, while celebrating the mountains that they loved and called home.

Peter died in 1966, but even then they had already made plans for a museum that would bear their names. They established a foundation to support such an institute in 1958 and 10 years later the ‘Archives of the Canadian Rockies’ opened on Bear Street. The original 1968 building and a significant 1993 addition now house a permanent collection of paintings, sculpture, and documentation of the history of the Canadian Rockies.

The permanent collection is small, and last on my list of reasons to visit. Two larger galleries provide space for rotating exhibitions that focus on wilderness, outdoor, and historical themes. When we visited, the upstairs gallery held "Out There! Adventure Photography", a large, mixed collection of photography of hiking, climbing, kayaking, gliding and other activities in the Rockies. Some photos were spectacular, some were ho-hum, but I was intrigued enough to look at each one in the exhibit. This collection from 50 local photographers runs through March 2009; prints are for sale as a fundraiser for the Whyte Museum.

A 30-minute video was running on a monitor in the corner, and after about 90 seconds I realized it was a history of skiing in Western Canada. It was far more interesting than I might have guessed, as skiing was tied together with the development of the region, the perception of the west by the rest of Canada, and was a small version of Alberta’s struggle for respect among the more established eastern members of the Confederation.

Across the hall in the Heritage Gallery as an extensive exhibit on local promoter Norman Luxton and his family. Luxton came to Banff in the early 20th century and became the area’s foremost promoter, publisher, and entrepreneur. In between, he managed to canoe halfway around the world, founded Banff Indian Days to both promote tourism and highlight native American culture, and make a good living while doing it. His Buxton Indian Museum lives on, across the Bow River on the way to the Cave and Basin. This exhibit, "The Stuff of Legend: The Luxton Family in Banff and the Bow Valley" runs through October.

I’m particularly interested in how areas like Banff were explored, settled, and developed. I love looking at old photos of homesteads, highways, cabins, and landscapes, and seeing how such areas escaped (or failed to escape) economic pressures to mine their resources, or clutter the area with overdevelopment. The Whyte Museum is among the best and most open archives I’ve encountered. Over the years, they’ve acquired the catalogs of local photographers, the archives of the Canadian Alpine Club, and a host of other resources. Most are open to even casual visitors like me, and copies of photos can easily be ordered. I spent a half-hour examining the massive collection of one photographer, which ran from 1925 to 1955, tracing the history of Storm Mountain Lodge, the Kootenay Highway, and other places we were visiting. On a longer stay, I’d come back for a half day here.

The Museum has a terrific gift shop, with numerous publications, handicrafts, art work and crafts, all related to Banff and the Rockies. I worked hard not to blow our budget for the trip by purchasing hundreds of dollars worth of books (money we’d already spent on meals, frankly). The Whyte Museum is included (along with the National Park’s Cave and Basin and the Banff Park Museum on the $10.50 Banff Heritage Pass; a separate admission is $6.

The U.S. invented the national park in 1873 to protect Yellowstone’s fairyland of thermal features, although you might say that ‘reserving’ the Hot Springs of Arkansas in 1820 was the precursor to this landmark decision. Either way, Canada followed in those steamy footsteps by establishing Banff National Park in 1883. The three rail workers who’d discovered the hot springs had visions of a fortune built around the warm, sulfurous waters, but in the end the national government denied their petition to withdraw the area from the public domain and instead set aside a modest amount of land as Rocky Mountains Park.

Today, an impressive amount of spectacular landscape forms one of the world’s premier park systems, protecting a wide expanse of land and wilderness along the crest of the Rockies. Much of it was designated fairly quickly after creating the seed from which Banff NP eventually grew, surviving cattle ranching, strip mining of coal, and farming (all within park boundaries!) before these activities were finally shut down in the early 1930’s.

This string of jewels begins with Waterton Lakes on the US-Canada border, featuring the oft-photographed Prince of Wales Hotel atop its promontory on the shore of one the region’s countless turquoise lakes. From there, it’s a few hours drive northwest along the spine of the Rockies to the four-park cluster that begins with Banff, and includes Jasper NP to the north and Kootenay and Yoho parks to the west, across the Continental Divide and the Alberta-British Columbia border. Further west in British Columbia are Glacier and then Mount Revelstoke National Parks, both along Canada 1. Together, these parks contain over 8,500 sq mi of protected mountain ecosystem, much of it inaccessible by road. When you add in the significant Provincial Park and reserve system, particularly in Alberta, there’s a 300-mile stretch of the Rockies and surrounding area in public hands.

After a few days, I noticed some real differences between the US and Canadian park systems. For starters, there were the entry fees: in the last few decades, US parks have received permission from the Park Service to raise their fees, and keep the additional monies in the park for special projects. Even so, the $20 pass for Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, or Yosemite gives you and everyone in your vehicle entry for a week. With the recent changes to public lands admission, $80 will buy you an American the Beautiful pass, giving you and your vehicle’s passengers admission to every national park, monument, forest or other federally administered site for a year.

In Canada, daily park entrance fees are charged for each person. At nearly $10 a pop, five days of entry for the two of us totaled nearly $100. This covered admission to Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay, and came within $40 of a yearly pass but still seemed steep. Park entry fees are required for any entry from the southern edge of Banff (transiting the other way—east from Yoho or Kootenay to Calgary—is free as long as you don’t stop).

The other differences became clear as we talked with Peter, our host in Canmore. He was convinced that Parks Canada wants to simply move people through the parks, and discourages visitors from stopping to hike, paddle or enjoy the wilderness in other ways. His comments suddenly brought a lot of things into focus. We drove Canada 1 from Calgary to Lake Louise; whether inside the parks or not, this backbone transportation artery doesn’t have a single scenic turnoff. I can’t imagine an American park having its roads structured in a similar way. And that’s unlikely to change, as the government works to complete the ‘twinning’ of the highway, completing its transition to limited access, divided highway.

There’s also a noticeable difference in the amount and character of literature. Parks Canada publishes a single 16-page color newsprint folder describing all seven Rockies parks, devoting a two-page spread to each. Each highlights about 10 features of the parks, but that’s nearly it for published information describing the attractions of each park. In the visitor centers, the rangers were helpful, and (at Lake Louise) pulled out another simple line drawing of the area with trails on it. But there were no easily available lists of hiking opportunities and other options, as you find at each NPS facility.

My best guess is that Canada has already made the transition from considering the parks primarily as recreational facilities, and instead sees them as ecosystems to be preserved. Banff remains wildly popular, hosting over 4 million visitors a year, comparable to Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon. Everything we saw was consistent with conceding the well-known sites to visitors, and then working to minimize human interaction with the remaining landscape. That explains why over 2 million people will hike some part of Johnston Canyon this year: what other options do they have?

This also fits with the extensive (and expensive) commitment to reducing human-wildlife interactions (and especially human vehicle/wildlife interactions). Once, Banff was famous for having elk on Banff Avenue; clearly, they would like those days to end (although we did see three deer in the schoolyard, and another on the lawn of a condo not far from the main exit). Long-term studies of wildlife movement led to a comprehensive series of barriers, bridges, and tunnels along Canada 1 and the other roads, preventing animals from reaching the roadway’s surface but providing them with multiple routes to cross under or over the highway, and directing them in new routes away from the towns and roads. It’s an admirable goal, and an amazing effort, and the few quick slides we saw seemed to indicate that it’s succeeding. But the long stretches of fence along the highway gave me the feeling of being in the mirror image of a zoo.

In the end, although I was sympathetic, I found it hard to completely share Peter’s frustration. Intentional or not, Parks Canada’s usage policy may be just what’s needed to keep such beautiful and highly popular places intact. As any park ranger or guidebook will tell you, 90% of visitors never leave the paved areas. When visitor totals run into the millions, would we really want to push that percentage any higher? Perhaps the best solution is for those seeking more direct experience with wilderness to have their numbers and impact diluted among the wide range of other parks and forests. That group is highly likely to find such opportunities easily, without running the risk sending a few hundred thousand people down a new road or trail in Banff.

Canada’s Rockies are more accessible in winter (or other seasons) than you might initially suspect. It’s quickest to approach from Alberta, although it’s a longer but beautiful approach from Vancouver and the west. Calgary and Edmonton share the same longitude, four hours apart and directly east, respectively, of the towns of Banff and Jasper. The northwest slant of the Rockies means that while Calgary is slightly more than an hour from Banff, the drive from Edmonton to Jasper is closer to three. This makes a large loop possible, but there’s little between Alberta’s two largest cities to justify the trip along Canada 2. If weather permits, why not backtrack through the fabulous mountains?

But in winter, that might be easier said than done. Through Hotwire, we rented a compact car for a modest $20/day, but received a minivan instead. It was nice to have the extra size and mass, but an even better bet in the snow is anything with all-season radials or snow tires. Every road heading out of the Bow Valley—Highway 93 west over the Divide to Windermere, the Icefields Parkway northwest to Jasper, or Highway 1 west over the Rockies to Field and Golden—warns you to have good tires or even chains. And there’s something both cool and intimidating about the large barriers behind those signs, ready to be lowered and close the road at a moment’s notice. As we approached from Calgary, my wife noted that our guidebooks recommended four-wheel drive, which we were pretty sure our Chevy Uplander didn’t have.

Roads can be in great shape, or completely impassable, so make sure you check. My pleasure at being among people who know that winter is a fact of life and prepare to enjoy it extended to their care for the roads, but it does take time to clear out after a storm. Even the flat pathways from Calgary to the foothills can be challenging (think the blowing snows of Iowa, Nebraska, or the Dakotas). Outside of Canada 1, the strategy is to leave the snow on the road and maintain it with plowing and gravel, which produces a pretty decent surface. This was the character of the Bow Valley Parkway, the old route from Banff to Lake Louise, a very nice two-lane road through the forest. Unfortunately, it has narrow shoulders, which I discovered by slipping my front tire over the edge when my concentration wandered for a second. Thanks to the kindness of strangers, we only lost an hour to that snowbank: a kind woman from Edmonton headed to Castle Junction and reported that we were stuck, then dropped her passengers and came back to retrieve us, and another woman who overheard our phone call to CAA got her husband to borrow a tow rope and extract us with his jeep.

We planned to drive the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise to Jasper, a 150-mile trip rated by some as the world’s most scenic highway. Sorry, we can’t offer our own opinion. It’s maintained in the winter—a Cold War era agreement requires that it be kept open, as part of the only overland route to Alaska—but the plowing hierarchy places it after Canada 1 and ahead of the Bow Valley Parkway. Think twice before setting out: we got a wide range of opinions from local residents about the road, and after finding the driving conditions rated ‘poor’, adjusted our plans and cancelled. That felt right after our Bow Valley incident, the fatal accident we encountered on Canada 1 as we set out for Lake Louise. Had any of those been a little different, we probably would have taken a shot at it. It’s said to be wide and fairly straight, but subject to ice and slippery conditions. And in winter, there are no services, and no towns or stops along the way. Thankfully, both our hotel and our two pre-paid tours accepted our cancellations without penalty.

As a substitute for Jasper, we drove south from Canmore into Kananaskis Country, which proved a worthy substitute. The weather was perfect, with cloudless blue skies and moderate temperatures, and the snowpack road was eminently drivable. Remote but not abandoned, it weaves between peaks and along the long lake formed by a small dam. We drove, stopped for pictures, drove, stopped some more, and continued that pattern for about 50 km until hitting the sharp boundary between our clear skies and a heavy snowstorm. We abandoned our plan for a circle drive, and enjoyed revisiting our scenery on the way back.

In short, the roads where we wanted to go were largely open, and ready for travel. And if not, you're probably staying somewhere comfortable: what's wrong with staying put for a bit?