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Photo preview of Air Highways BC Scene and
Alberta Scenic Tours
Banff
Park's Castles and Caves
by Jerry W.
Bird
 Banff
Mountain Festivals
offer an exciting series of tour possibilities in
one of the world's most inspiring and breathtaking
settings. It's been my favorite weekend or vacation
retreat for decades, along with Lake
Louise, a few
miles north.
Imagine spending the twelve festive days of
Christmas and a New Year's gala with family and
friends in an Alpine Fairyland Castle. As an
encore, we enjoyed a similar experience during the
Easter holidays. Truly unforgettable, when it
happened to be the Banff Springs Hotel, where the
staff went out of their way to entertain us with
everything from costumes, carol singing, candle
light events and theme dinners, to a hotel-wide
easter egg hunt in which everyone from infants to
grandparents participated. The famous Banff Springs
golf course, with its tee off over the Bow River
and many other tricky hazards, held me in captivity
for many years.
One of Canada's many European style palaces
built by the railroad barons of an earlier era, the
Banff Springs stands proud and majestic, framed by
a panorama of snow-capped Rocky Mountains. During
many memorable stays during my carer in Alberta, l
learned much about the hotel's hey day in late
night conversations with popular band leader
Louis Trono, who was on a first name basis
with many of the Hollywood greats who came there in
the and 40s. As a return to elegance, the hotel
offers a new $12 million health spa, with cascading
waterfalls, mineral whirlpools and Turkish baths.
The Banff Springs is an epicurean's delight and a
golfer's challenge. The first tee-off, from high
above the Bow River to its far shore, still gives
me goose pimples. I lay awake much of the night
before, playing it over and over in my head.
 Upper
Hot
Springs.
For one who learned to ski on Banff 's
Mount Norquay using rope tows, I soon graduated to
places like Sunshine and Lake Louise. After skiing
downhill or cross country, hiking Sundance Canyon,
or fishing Lake Minnewanka, Sulphur Mountain's
Upper Hot Springs is a Banff ritual -- hot plunge,
icy shower, steam bath, blanket-wrap and massage.
Loose as a noodle and ready to devour an ox -- is
how one usually feels after that routine.
 A
gondola nearby will whisk you to the summit for a
sweeping view of the valley. Sundance Canyon Trail
leads to The Cave and Basin National Historic Site,
where like honeymooners for generations past, we
gazed through a telescope at surrounding peaks.
Clad in Rundle-stone, like most Banff buildings,
this site contains displays, a theater, and tours
into the misty grotto, with its emerald pools, and
warm sulfur water dripping down the cavern walls.
The priceless native tribal relics at nearby Luxton
Museum are well worth seeing.
A Short Drive from Banff:
Kootemik-Radium Hot
Springs
Imagine if you can -- two million litres
of hot, mineral-rich water gushing from the ground
each day. That's a lot of Perrier! With healing
powers reputed to relieve arthritis and a list of
ailments as long as one's arm, a wily Medicine Man
could have made a fortune selling it by the bottle.
Known as Kootemik to local Indians, whose legend of
Nipika traces their origin, the springs were
popularized in the 1890s. At Radium's Aquacourt,
you can soak year-round in the steamy, odorless
mineral water, or swim in two outdoor pools. The
Lodge has an 18-hole golf course, campgrounds and
shuttle-bus.
Of Marble and Paint
Pots
According to experts, Kootenay National
Park is an ancient ocean floor. Over 70 million
years ago, so they say, it was compressed, folded
like a gigantic pretzel, and sculpted into what we
call the Rocky Mountains. In 1920, Ottawa bigwigs
dedicated the park in a move to preserve the
canyon's mineral springs, and protect waterfalls
along the highway. Landmarks on the
Banff-Windermere Parkway include Sinclair and
Marble Canyons, Vermilion Pass and the Fireweed
Trail. Heard about The Paint Pots? Would you
believe they're ponds of red, yellow and orange,
just like a kiddies' coloring set? The pots are fed
by oxide-bearing streams, and there's an endless
supply. For ages untold, Indians mixed ochre from
this site with fish oil or animal fat to decorate
rocks, teepees -- and each other. Near Vermilion
Pass, the Alberta- BC. boundary marks the summit of
the Continental Divide; rivers east of here drain
to the Arctic Ocean or to far off Hudson's Bay;
waters to the west flow to the Pacific.
We then follow the Icefields Parkway to
Jasper National Park and
on the way, we stop to enjoy the grandeur
of Lake Louise.
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