Probably the worst night’s stay of the entire trip in a very hot hotel room decorated in sad green and brown and with a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude of hotel staff which jarred with the friendly welcome of Canadians so far. Banff is set up for international tourism to the Banff National Park and for skiing. It was noisy, brash and had a downtown main street that lacked character and was just full of restaurants and shops you could find anywhere in the world. So not my favourite place and I was relieved only to be staying overnight.
Today was billed as a ‘Sightseeing Tour’ by bus to Calgary. Despite heavy rain the day was not without its merits.
Waving a not so fond farewell to the soulless hotel I boarded the bus to be greeted by David the driver and tour guide for the day – an ex Royal Canadian Mounty. The first part of the tour was to Banff!
The town grew up around the hot springs that were discovered in 1880s. The Canadian Pacific Railroad Manager – Cornelius Van Horne realised that the springs would attract visitors so he built the Grand Banff Springs Hotel – today the Fairmont Springs Hotel – styled after the baronial castles of Scotland. With over 700 rooms it certainly looked more inviting than my lodging for the last night but then it probably cost three times as much.
The next stop on the tour was a cable car ascent of the 7,484 feet above sea level Sulphur Mountain. Unfortunately the spectacular views from the summit were not to be had today – just rain!
The Bow River Falls (See Photo) below the Banff Springs Hotel were however spectacular. As with all the rivers I had seen over the last two days the Bow was in full flood requiring the rare use of flood barriers.
Next came lunch in Banff and I took Dave’s recommendation to try a Buffalo Burger in Wild Bill’s Restaurant. With more depth of taste the burger went down well and replete I climbed aboard the bus to continue our tour.
Since both the next two scenic stops were invisible in the rain Dave took us on a wildlife circuit and yes you guessed we spotted nothing.! It was also pretty obvious by now that the scheduled and much looked forward to helicopter trip into the Rockies was not going to happen. Instead Dave took as to Rafters Six Ranch.
The ranch is home to Stan Cowley and his family. Stan is a horse whisperer, breaking and training animals thought to be un-rideable and then riding them on long trails in Canada and the USA. I’m sure I have seen him on a TV programme but he and his family entertain us with coffee, lemon muffins and some trail songs before his younger daughter Daisy provides us with an entertaining – if rather cheesy joke ridden – tour of the carriage and First Nation Museum at the ranch. Daisy had such an engaging personality and was indeed an accomplished horse rider that everyone forgave her the cheesyjokes – but they were pretty awful! The tour ended with a chance to see a one in a million white buffalo – not an albino but genuine white.
The Rafters Six Ranch had been the site of an old British and French Trading Post. Stan’s Father had been the Mounty stationed here and achieved much respect by the local First Nation indigenous population. Today the ranch sits between a First Nation Reserve and he Banff National Park and the Cowley’s are proud of their connections with both communities.
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