Lake Louise to Banff

Lake Louise to Banff
Today was a leisurely drive of only about 45 miles from Lake Louise to Bamff. Both towns were railway towns developed for tourism, but more of that later. We detoured onto the Bow Valley scenic rout and passed a lot of bicycles on the way. This seems to be a cyclists heaven. No wildlife was spotted today although we are told that bears and mountain lions and moose inhabit the area.
Banff is a real tourist’s town with all of the shops and other things needed to run a huge tourist industry. It is also the place where you will hear more foreign languages than anywhere else. German, French, Dutch, seem to predominate but India, the far east and Italian could also be heard.
When the trans Canadian railway was completed in 1885, Bamff was known as Siding 29. Because some railway workers discovered a hot springs nearby and the railway was looking to increase its revenue to pay off the costs of building the railway the president of the railroad at the time decided to build large European style hotels and attract tourists to buy tickets and come and see the Rocky Mnts. Bamff was the first of these railway hotels.
Later the Canadian government was convinced on about 1888 to set aside the Banff area as a preserve and the Canadian National Parks System was born from that. The original parks office still sits in Banff, and we walked the grounds of it and the wonderful gardens. Several weddings were taking place there at the time.
I don’t know if it is because it is a holiday weekend here or if the traffic is always this congested but you can hardly move an automobile in the downtown area and tourist busses are everywhere. Forget taking the RV and we got one of the last 6 spaces in the RV park which is huge.
We toured the tourist center, the Banff area museum, the Canada Parks building and several art galleries. I learned about David Thompson (?). One of the earliest explorers, fur traders and trappers of the west he logged over 55,000 miles mapping the northwest including discovering the headwaters of the Mississippi River, charting all of the Columbia River and later trails for the fur trade threw the Rocky Mnts. So now you know that interesting bit of history to.
Bev got to buy a candied apple downtown and a chocolate turtle so she is now having a chocolate binge. My but she does love her chocolate. We may watch a video tonight because we have electrical hookups. Sorry but the blog will probably not get out until Tuesday when we reach Calgary. There is internet here but like everything else expensive. Even the library charges for it.
Lorne
Bow Falls
RCMP
RCMP statue