Beautiful Banff

by Bob Sparrow

I’m writing this before we headed off on Saturday for a week in Banff, Alberta, Canada, so unless you read about a plane being high jacked or crashed in the Canadian Rockies, we’re there now and probably enjoying ourselves. The ‘we’ is again our traveling companions, Jack & JJ Budd and John & Judy VanBoxmeer. John is a Canadian by birth, but now a U.S. citizen; it’s always nice to have someone along who understands the language.  

This will be Linda’s and my third visit to this area, all prepared by a company called Golf Canada’s West. If you’ve ever been to the Banff area, you will understand what I am about to say: this it is possibly the most picturesque place to play golf in the world. The courses we will be playing are either in, or surrounded by, the Canadian Rockies and are nothing short of breathtaking.

Banff Springs Hotel

Banff itself is a cute little town located in Banff National Park along the Trans-Canadian Highway, surrounded by magnificent mountains, populated by elk and grizzly bear. It got its name in 1884 from George Stephen, president, at the time, of the Canadian Pacific Railway, whose birthplace was Banff, Scotland. Early on in our first visit to Banff in 2004, I stumbled across an Irish pub, as I am apt to do in every corner of the earth I travel, St. James Gate; we’ll probably pop in for a pint or two.

Just up the road from the town of Banff you’ll find the strikingly beautiful Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. It was built in 1888 as one of Canada’s grand railroad hotels and has since been updated from the original wooden structure to a magnificent building of cement and stone, standing tall in the surrounding forest. Adjacent to which is a beautiful golf course which we will have an opportunity to play during our visit.

Chateau Lake Louise

We will take a day off golf and visit the equally beautiful Fairmont Lake Louise Hotel, which is about a 40 minute drive northwest of Banff. Chateau Lake Louise, as it’s now called, was also built around the turn of the 20th century by the Canadian Pacific Railway and is also part of the Fairmont chain. It sits on one end of Lake Louise and at the other end is a massive glacier. Well it used to be massive.  On a quiet night, during our first trip here we stood by the lakeside next to the hotel and could hear the cracking of the ice in the glacier echo across the lake. Our subsequent trips have seen the glacier size decrease. We weren’t there in 1902, but take a look at the photos taken in that year compared to the photo taken in 2012. Sad to see.

       

Well, I’ve got to get packing, although that brings in a whole other set of obstacles. We’ve watched the weather there for the last two weeks and it’s gone from raining every day to sunny and highs in the 90s and lows in the 40s. It’s the mountains, so we can probably expect a little bit of everything. And if it’s too bad, we do have St. James Gate as a backup to any of our plans. Eh!