The Banff Springs Hotel was our ultimate destination of the day. The hotel was originally built in 1888 by the Canadian Pacific Railway. The idea for its creation is credited to William Cornelius Van Horne, who was the president of the CPR. He is said to have stated, “Since we can’t export the scenery, we will have to import the tourists.” The original Banff Springs Hotel was a wooden structure and was damaged by fire in 1926. The current building…
The next night we would stay at Banff Springs Hotel. Along the way, our first stop was to see Athabasca Falls which is within Jasper National Park. Athabasca Falls is in the upper part of the Athabasca River – we had gone rafting on the lower part of the river during our stay in Jasper. While the water doesn’t have the greatest drop, it is considered a powerful waterfall because of the amount of water funneled through relatively narrow openings…
We left Lake Louise and headed for the Jasper Park Lodge via the Icefields Parkway. The Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks are a UNESCO World Heritage Site both because of their beauty and fossils that can be found in the area. Our drive took us into Yoho National Park, Banff National Park and Jasper National Park. The drive was one of incredible scenery with snow-covered mountains, glaciers, beautiful blue lakes colored by glacier sediment, and waterfalls. The next pictures were taken…
My husband and I woke up early in Kananaskis and took a walk after breakfast. We were treated to beautiful views and saw a doe and her fawn on our walk. And then we were off to Lake Louise, but with some incredible stops along the way. One of those stops was Emerald Lake which is in Yoho National Park in British Columbia. The lake was named by Tom Wilson, a Canadian guide, who found it by accident in 1882….
We took our first Tauck tour, the Best of the Canadian Rockies, in 2009. We arrived early so we could explore Calgary and chose a tour date that would allow us to be in town for the Calgary Stampede. The Canadian Pacific Railway has its headquarters in Calgary. It is also known for the hotels it established to promote ridership on their passenger trains. We stayed at two of these, Chateau Lake Louise and Banff Springs Hotel, during this trip….