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For me, the experience of being out in the wilderness is a wonderful way of suspending time, with no routines, expectations, obligations, emails, phone calls, or other interruptions. My last couple of days experiencing the incredible beauty of the Canadian Rockies were filled with contrasting experiences which, with the benefit of hindsight, were helpful in re-acclimatising me to returning to everyday life revolving around home, work, family, and friends.
Wednesday started with low cloud and drizzle – not the most energising of weather – as we headed off to the Icelands Parkway, a road linking the town of Banff with the world-famous Lake Louise. Our first stop was to head for the source of the Bow River, the river which linked so many of the places I visited during my Canadian journey.
The Bow River begins high in the Rocky Mountains, then winds down through the Alberta foothills, and onto the prairies where it eventually ends at the confluence with the Oldman River. At this point the two rivers combine to create the South Saskatchewan River which ultimately flows into Hudson Bay in north-eastern Canada, west of Quebec. Historically, the Bow (which rhymes with ‘show’) River and its surroundings was vital to First Nations people, providing essential sustenance along a transportation corridor for seasonal movement and to strategically drive bison hunts. More recently, the river became a strategic transportation route for European settlers and their merchandise, but of course the settlers also brought diseases which decimated First Nations populations in the 18th and 19th centuries.[i]
We left the car in a small parking lot and set off along a trail around the lake towards the headwaters of the Bow River. Situated at 1,920 m (6,300 ft), Bow Lake is a hauntingly beautiful high-altitude lake surrounded by pine forests and majestic mountains topped with glaciers. Worryingly, these glaciers are getting smaller year-on-year because of global warming.
Our plan had been to hike up to the Bow Glacier, but sadly the weather suggested that the icy surface would probably be unsafe to explore on foot that day. Nevertheless, we headed off on a relatively easy trail around the sandy shoreline at the edge of a ridiculously turquoise coloured lake known as Bow Lake.
Once we reached the other end of Bow Lake, we carried on along a wide and stony creek bed with minimal elevation through which the crystal-clear Bow River gently flowed along and into the lake. Fortunately, the skies began to clear and we left the clouds behind as they were stuck on the other side of the mountain.
Before long the river became more turbulent and the environment more rugged as the trail began to slowly ascend towards the Bow Glacier, just visible in the centre background of the below photo.
The landscape was absolutely spectacular, and the terrain along the trail was so varied that it felt like crossing different worlds. However, it was becoming quite windy and the temperature had dropped considerably by the time we reached some man-made rustic steps leading up into a forest.
Halfway up the steps, we met the first people we had seen that morning and stopped to chat briefly. They had reached the Bow Glacier Falls earlier, but decided to turn back as the conditions were becoming hazardous.
Of course, the risks of slips, trips, and falls along these trails can lead to strains, sprains, and even broken bones – or very occasionally worse. Although there are well-trained search and rescue teams which can be dispatched in a true emergency, calling for help in a crisis is not always simple as there is no mobile phone signal, or very few other humans around to raise the alarm. The first few dozen steps were in good condition and well-spaced, but quickly became irregular and uneven, with no handrail for support, plus a terrifyingly sheer drop into a deep valley on one side. Mercifully, we decided to turn back before reaching the top.
Whilst we retraced the trail back to the car, I was almost sulking having realised that I had reached my physical limits in the great outdoors, but at least the route back down was no less impressive.
Once we reached the car, we headed back along the highway where there had been a light dusting of snow on some of the peaks, which served as a reminder of how quickly the weather can change in these mountains.
It was late afternoon when we stopped off at a small shopping complex near Lake Louise to grab a snack before heading for the lake itself. The car park was almost full and already I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of people around when we popped into a small bakery for a quick coffee and a cake. In Canada, like many other countries, tipping when receiving a service is widely expected and card terminals are pre-programmed with suggested rates of 15%, 20% and 25% which one selects when making payment. It did seem odd that a tip was expected for goods presented as take-aways in paper cups and bags, and I wondered why the store could not just charge a little more and pay their staff better. Nevertheless, the coffee was OK, but I can’t now remember the cake at all, so it was probably just about average.
Less than a week earlier, before I boarded my flight to Canada, I had been chatting with some of my fellow passengers, and one had commented that it was very difficult to get to Lake Louise because of its enormous popularity with tourists. He complained about the traffic and parking, which he believed had resulted from over-tourism generated by people sharing their photos on social media and inspiring others to follow in their footsteps.
Sadly, it seemed that he may be right. Lake Louise is a gorgeous alpine lake that has drawn sightseers to the Banff National Park for over a century, and today draws millions of visitors each year. The lake is situated at the end of a dead-end road, but there are several car parks nearby for coaches, camper vans (RVs) and caravans, and of course cars. We had no trouble parking as it was nearing the end of the day and people were leaving but at other times, if no spaces are available, local parking attendants turn vehicles away, causing even more congestion in the area. There are also many shuttle buses coming and going, transporting visitors from Park-and-Rides further afield.
The path from the car park to the lake was teeming with people and, as we reached the lake shore, I couldn’t help reflecting upon the juxtaposition of the tranquillity and isolation at Bow Lake earlier that morning. Yes, Lake Louise is absolutely gorgeous with magnificent mountains sweeping down to serene turquoise water. However, there is the iconic Fairmont Chateau, a massive luxury hotel complex dating from the end of the 19th century, currently undergoing expansion work with cranes delivering concrete via noisy pumps, and hundreds, if not thousands, of people pushing and shoving to try and take their perfect ‘selfie’ or posing for group photos. To me, that end of Lake Louise felt like a Canadian homage to a theme park, overrun with screaming kids running around crazily, and tourists who just seemed to be interested in taking photos for social media, making video-calls, playing loud music, dropping litter, and generally having no real interest in the natural world. There was no sense of serenity, just absolute chaos.
Fortunately, there was an accessible tarmacked path along the edge of the lake where a very few people had ventured to take a stroll, and it was quite pleasant to walk to the end of the lake and back. Overall, the experience of such a popular ‘bucket list’ destination was quite bewildering and disappointing.
I didn’t take many photos at Lake Louise that afternoon, but the few that I did seem to reflect a very different place to the one in my memory. Ironically, my unretouched images imply that Lake Louise is a beautifully calm picture-postcard place to visit, which just goes to show you shouldn’t believe everything you see on the internet…
(Click on an image below to view full size)
The following day would be my last full day in Canada, so it seemed a good idea to take some time to explore Canmore and Banff, both compact modern towns surrounded by wilderness.
Canmore sits in the narrow Bow Valley surrounded by towering mountains at the edge of Banff National Park. Despite the main Trans-Canada Highway running through the suburbs of Canmore, much of the area has been designated a wildlife corridor, so animals including elk, cougars, wolves, and bears, have been spotted in and around the town.
In June 2013, parts of southern and central Alberta were devastated after exceptionally heavy rainfall combined with melting snow to trigger unprecedented and catastrophic flooding. Due to an exceptional weather event, Canmore experienced nearly 250mm of rain in 36 hours, nearly half the usual annual rainfall. Subsequently, Banff and Canmore became completely cut off when flooding and mudslides forced the closure of the Trans-Canada Highway and Cougar Point in north-east Canmore suffered devastating damage when Cougar Creek, normally a mountain stream running down to the Bow River, burst its banks destroying several homes and causing millions of dollars of damage.
Ten years later, flood mitigation work in the area, including landscaping and reclamation, is still not complete, but the landscape around Cougar Creek has been dramatically altered to minimise the risk of destruction to the surrounding residential area in the future.
Canmore itself is a very pretty town, with mostly modern, low-rise residential and commercial buildings made from sustainable materials. There is an amazing community centre housing a library, art gallery, swimming pools, indoor climbing wall, and a fitness centre, with a bustling weekly market outside. The pedestrian-only main shopping street predominantly features small owner-run shops, restaurants, and galleries, with few chain-stores and chain-restaurants, making it feel like a one-of-a-kind place to visit. There didn’t seem to be many other obvious tourists about that morning, so Canmore had a very relaxed feel whilst being surrounded by some gorgeous views of mountains, including the Three Sisters trio of peaks which can be seen from just about anywhere in the neighbourhood.
After a quick tour around Canmore, we headed off by car to the summit of nearby Mount Norquay via a steep and narrow switchback road with tight hairpin bends, followed by an exhilarating ten-minute chairlift ride over alpine meadows to a height of 2,085m (nearly 7,000ft).
At the summit there’s a charming 1950s-style cafeteria with windows looking out over a spectacular panorama. There was hardly anyone around, so it was a real pleasure to just sit for a while with a coffee and a snack and enjoy the scenery over towards Banff and Mount Rundle (to the right in the photo below) which separates Banff from Canmore.
One of the attractions of Mount Norquay – for braver souls than me – is the Via Ferrata (Italian for Iron Road) where the intrepid have the chance to experience a mixture of rock climbing, suspension bridges, and the thrill of shimmying along a sheer rock face at altitude whilst wearing a harness securely attached a steel cable for safety. It is recommended that this experience is only for people who can climb a ladder or several flights of stairs at once but, although both are still well within my capabilities, I was quite relieved that this was not on the agenda that day.
Maybe if I had been able to spend more time in Canada, I might have begun to warm to the idea of trying the Via Ferrata, especially since within just a few days I had learnt to board and exit a chairlift with confidence, but my time was running out and there was still lots to see and do, so it was back down the chairlift and off to Banff itself.
The town of Banff is much more popular than Canmore with tourists, and there are plenty of hotels, restaurants, and bars. The downtown shopping area is much more commercialised and busy, with lots of familiar brands such as MacDonalds and Starbucks, as well as outlets specialising in outdoors and sports equipment, fashion, or tacky souvenirs for visitors. Several shops sell beers, wines, and spirits, whilst to my surprise, others offer over-the-counter cannabis as Canada is currently one of the only countries in the world that allows over 18s legal access to recreational marijuana. Apparently, Canada passed its Cannabis Act in 2018 in an effort to create a regulated market, thus keeping the drug away from children and limiting money flowing into the illegal marijuana trade, but this hasn’t necessarily been a great success as very few of these stores are now turning a profit because the market became saturated in a classic ‘boom and bust’ scenario.
The ever present Bow River flows through the town and, heading away from the Banff shopping area across the fittingly named Bow River Bridge, is a paved and accessible path through a forest featuring an remarkable Art in Nature exhibition.
The trail ends with some wooden stairs to a platform overlooking the Bow River Falls as featured in many Hollywood films of the 1950s depicting movie stars apparently being swept over them. Even though these rapids are considered to be very dangerous as there are many unseen jagged rocks beneath the water, it was a gentle and relaxing walk and, although there were other people around, it didn’t feel overcrowded and oppressive like Lake Louise the previous day.
No visit to Banff would be complete without a ride on the Banff Gondola which soars up over a dense evergreen forest to the shoulder of Sulphur Mountain overlooking the town. At the summit, the futuristic terminal features a visitors’ centre with viewing platforms, a couple of restaurants, and the ubiquitous gift shop.
Leading away from the terminal is a wooden boardwalk bridging the summit ridge up to the highest point of the mountain, known as Sanson’s Peak, the site of a historic Cosmic Ray research station built in the 1950s. Although the wooden building was dismantled in the 1980s, a disused brick meteorological observatory dating back to 1903 remains at the summit. The ingenuity of those who created these structures years before the arrival of cable cars is astonishing.
Back along the boardwalk, the views are absolutely breathtaking across six separate mountain ranges stretching off into the horizon in all directions.
After witnessing a spectacular sunset, we took the gondola back down and headed for the naturally heated geothermal hot springs that give Sulphur Mountain its name.
The Banff Upper Hot Springs are reminiscent of an outdoor ‘Lido’ swimming pool with attached 1930s-style brick and gable building housing changing rooms, café and of course a gift shop, situated three-quarters of the way up the side of a mountain. I’ve always been a little sceptical about the concept of ‘taking the waters’ and their reputed healing properties, but the mineral-infused water is beautifully warm at around 40C (104F), and this was a unique opportunity to slow down, relax, and recharge beneath the stars with a most amazing backdrop of mountains and valleys.
Reflecting upon the most incredible few days of my life, I cannot fully express how much I appreciated the chance to spend time outdoors exploring remote environmental settings within the wide open natural landscapes in and around the Canadian Rockies.
The sense of freedom I experienced, together with the feeling of being incredibly tiny and insignificant within the grandeur of nature, helped me to restore a sense of perspective within myself. Somehow, in just a few short days, I had been able to put the stresses of recent years to one side for a while and regain an inner sense of tranquillity, whilst also being able come to terms with my own grief at the deaths of so many people close to me seemingly before their time. Ironically, it was one of these unexpected deaths, that of my younger brother in 2021, that set of the extraordinary chain of unpredictable and unexpected events in my own life’s journey that took me to Canada, and a recognition of life’s inherent uncertainties and the diverse paths that can unfold.
If you’ve enjoyed reading about my adventures, and would like to get an idea of the 360 degree vista around Mt Sulphur in real time, you can click here to watch a live webcam feed from the top of the Banff Gondola. (link opens in new tab)
Funny where life takes you... 
