Great Lodges Of The Canadian Rockies

[Music] if you imagine living and working in a living museum that's what a sinner boy Lodge is all about plain of the six glaciers tea house is really a place of peace you can hear the stream you can hear the wind and the trees and at night you can hear your own heartbeat it's so far [Music] people enjoy coming up to Abbot Hut because it's such a spectacular location to have a very comfortable Hut it really allows people to enjoy their time here and savor the climbing experience if you're talking about two great launches of the Canadian Rockies BAM Springs is the original Rocky Mountain Resort it's the Grand only [Music] national funding for great lodges of the Canadian Rockies was made possible by Alberta Travel call us at one eight hundred and contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you thank you the Rocky Mountains for centuries a barrier to the unification of Canada until the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885 the slender ribbon of Steel which created a country where once there had been a wilderness [Music] to build the railway the Canadian government wooed a swaggering American engineer entrepreneur named Cornelius Van Horn he would thrive on the challenge that lay ahead that was the beginning they brought Van Horn up from the states to make sure the railway was put in place quickly he was a evidently huge man big belly big bones big voice and big appetites he said I eat all I can a green call I can I don't give a damn for anyone the problem was who would now ride the railway never to be outdone Van Horn announced he had invented the tourist when the railway was completed the first brochure that was published by the Canadian Pacific Railway announced the line as the new highway to the east and everyone thought of course that they were completely misguided did they not know that Montreal to Vancouver meant traveling west but they did realize is that that was the Northwest Passage by land and wealthy elegantly dressed passengers would take first-class trains across the country once they reached Vancouver board Empress liners bound for a dozen exotic ports in the Far East the thing that was absolutely amazing is that you had first-class train service onto unmapped terrain on the continent even eleven years after the completion of the Transcontinental railway the West had only been surveyed five miles on either side of the tracks so you could get on a train travel in absolute elegance to unknown unmapped completely magical places [Music] with the wealthiest people in the world now travelling across Canada on its rail line Canadian Pacific said about providing suitable accommodations for this elite clientele beside the railway line near a mineral springs where hot water bubbled from the ground Van Horne built a luxury hotel and spa he would call it the Banff Springs in 1888 just three years after the railway was completed the hotel opened here on the edge of a wilderness was elegance and luxury to match the courts of Europe if you're talking about the great lodges of the Canadian Rockies the Banff Springs Hotel is a spectacular building it's the first big mountain resort in in Canada Banff Springs probably the best example the shadows style in the in Iraqis were those soaring spires perfectly suited in some ways to the the craggy mount rundle and that kind of Graystone when Canadian Pacific decided to expand the Banff Springs in 1927 the resulting steel and concrete building would be one of the tallest in Western Canada rough hewn stone for the outer walls was quarried from nearby mount rundle maintaining the illusion of a castle in the 1990s when the hotel decided to expand once again Robert Leblond a Calgary architect was hired to integrate the old with the new the best Springs Hotel is the Scottish baronial caneva you can see all around it's a very very masculine building you got that strong arches and you got the strong pillars the way we saw that architectural a is like our rock that fell off the mountain and plunk them there amongst the trees that's why we did the rock lobby here the stone lobby well good afternoon welcome to the event Springs I want to have a WoW in there so it's people come in there this is this is my castle this is a castle castle in the mountainous have a great day people come to Banff and they say take me to the castle they don't have to even say take me to the bent Springs they say just take me to the castle and everybody knows what that means that Springs as an icon of Canada it relates to how the West was open tourism started in the West the image of the hotel is known all over the world it's a international symbol of Canada people feel they're part of something much bigger you're part of Canadian history walk through the halls it's documented as you go along it's a National Historic Site any Pacific Railway built in the middle of the Canadian wilderness the largest and most spectacular Hotel west of Toronto and was so completely out of place that Packers guides and surveyors would stumble out of the forest and think they were hallucinating it was like running into the Taj Mahal in the middle of the Rockies and the astounding thing is that it worked people traveled from Europe from the eastern United States and Canada and they all desire to stay in this spectacular luxury within an an amazing wilderness by the turn of the century the number of people traveling west grew tenfold the hotel had become the magnet Vanhorn dreamed it would be Canadian Pacific hired six full-time staff just to transfer the steamer trunks full of evening clothes from the station to the hotel the wealthy of course coming by train could bring an entire wardrobe for special events everyone dressed formally for dinner orchestras performed and it was a place to be seen and it was a place where you could enjoy your wealth and enjoy the company of others who had similar tastes and ambitions the hotel was considered to be one of the most cosmopolitan spots in the entire world this was the place to be and sooner or later everyone came through the hotel who said at the time that the the man would fish and play golf and the women would change their clothes one of the great attractions of the hotel has been this notion of luxury in the wilderness you know instead of roughing it you're out here smoothing it and you're able to go out by day and do these these heroic activities and then come back and have fine meals listen to find music and be really very very comfortable with the people that are appropriate to your social class by the 1920s the hotel could claim to provide every amenity from Dixieland jazz to goat's milk and goose pate like the shawls Alizee or Trafalgar Square at the swimming pool at the damp springs became a place to be seen among the international elite they actually had a society press agent at the hotel that would chronicle the comings and goings of the various personalities at the at the hotel and get the word out to the rest of North America as to what these people were doing and how they were spending their summer the 30s was sort of the heyday of the great old press publicity where you'd put somebody in a in a suit of armor and of course the obligatory two women in bathing suits who were working as caddies they would have live chamber music in the evening and then they'd have a big annual ball in which the citizens from the street below would get to come up and marvel at the hotel [Applause] these images from the Canadian Pacific archives proved a treasure trove for interior decorator Kerry Busby hired to return the hotel to its original splendor I collect you know documents I can find including old postcards and letters that people have written that have stayed at the hotel and on some of them they talk about the color the dining room was or their guests room and I do keep that in mind when we're restoring I did in the public areas [Music] [Applause] the ballroom was pretty much restored to the way architectural it was designed originally in the 20s it's a very much an evening room the ceilings really might be a bit garish during the day but it's designed for how it looks in the evening with the chandeliers on the hotel transformed life in bath local guide Jim Brewster surprised his wife by bringing the king and queen of England home to see the big game trophies on his wall royal D has been an integral part of the Banff Springs history right from the very beginning [Music] [Music] for royalty they would come and stay for some time which was with their with their entourage and and so a whole wing was needed to to accommodate them the vice-regal wing of the hotel was developed specifically for a visit by Edward the eighth the Prince of Wales in the 20s it has its own reception hall at one end which has very low coffered ceilings which when you walk through it the lighting is so dim and the coffered ceilings you lower your voice and sort of hushed tones because it has that kind of castle essence the rooms have been restored to the original design as much as possible and a lot of the antiques that were designed specifically for those they're different than any other part of the hotel have been put back in the rooms there's draped beds with crown turrets beautiful hand-carved headboards the duvets and bed linens are all imported from Italy and off-white the carpets are all acts minsters and anna regal ever designed custom-made for that wing of the hotel to be staying in a wing of a hotel that that is restored to in a similar manner to how it would have been when there was a royal visit is quite a special event lászló fun tech Kari Busby's predecessor as much a dramatist as a designer was hired to give the hotel a European feel you really feel like you going in those old castle you walking in the old history time center I get in the fairy tales or something his masterpiece was the alhambra dining room reminiscent of Moorish Spain he reminds the children stairs or something and imagining those old castles sort of mystic here and little spooky you know maybe that's why the people like to come here my favorite spot in the hotel is actually there's a little spiral staircase just outside the Alhambra dining room and it has an elegance that seems to bring together a lot of the best of the hotel it has beautiful plaster work on the ceiling which they used to call a mushroom style it's got irreplaceable Tiffany lamps [Music] there's just a wealth of antiques in this building it's almost like a museum there's so many pieces it's incredible how many beautiful pieces were meant were made originally what remains of a century of elegance can still be found in the Attic store rooms of the Banff Springs it's quite something that these these buildings have survived all the the changes in the economic times and upheaval that we've gone through [Music] while The Banff Springs embraced every fashion the century brought to its door outside a majestic wilderness provided the perfect frame for guests experience five minutes in any direction is the backcountry that's what people came looking for in 1888 when they first came to the bat Springs the wilderness is just outside of our door and all you have to do is go explore it the Rocky Mountains had captured the world's imagination now Canadian Pacific said about building a series of outlier lodges radiating from the Banff Springs like the spokes of a wheel the backcountry lodges were set up high so they were kind of think of them as as base camp so as if you're in the Himalayas or something from there you can either high Curt and take horse trips out and be looked after and then come back into your original destination spot which would be here that Springs hotel if you imagine being one of those tourists you would end up with that the báb Springs Hotel dance all night in the ballroom and then the next morning a wild looking Wrangler would pick you up and you bride off into the wilderness [Music] not everybody's way of traveling now but back then that was the only way to go the horse created most of the trails in the area and the trails were pretty rugged and weren't clear and the outfitters had to clear the trails and pack all the stuff and cook for him and it was virtually a whole new way of seeing backcountry [Music] at the point the horses could go no further the serious climbing began yet even in this lonely dangerous country for Canadian Pacific the comfort of the guest was paramount for many years the highest Lodge in Canada was Abbott Pass Hut [Music] perched precariously on the Continental Divide between mount victoria and mount Lefroy of the early climbing parties to visit the high country one of the most famous was the Appalachian Club and a young Boston climber Phillip Abbot they came to make the first ascent on Mount Lefroy then considered one of the most treacherous peaks in the Rockies late the afternoon they were only 300 feet from the summit but they were in trouble the days he did soften the snow rocks were falling like missiles from the summit and they were exhausted and then for some unknown and inexplicable reason one of the climbers unroped announced that he would lead the pitch and disappeared ahead and moments later his body hurtled past his astonished friends bound for the saddle a thousand feet below Philip Stanley Abbott was the first mountaineering fatality in Canada and what a stir it cost there was calls for the banning of mountaineering and that Canadian Pacific Railway was in a particularly dangerous and difficult spot because they didn't want their hotel guests dying and not paying their bills so the Canadian Pacific Railway hired Swiss guides for its resort properties at Rogers Pass Lake Louise and bounced a number of people from the Appalachian Club who climbed with Abbott had also climbed in the Alps and used professional mountain guides and realized that that was you know what they needed to do to make it safer so they brought the first mountain guide over from Switzerland to climb with them and successfully climb Mount with Lloyd [Music] that was what prompted the CPR to bring over professional mountain gods from Europe to climb with their guests in 1922 those same swiss guides were hired to build abbot hut at nine thousand five hundred ninety eight feet above sea level named to honor the dead climber habit pausing today remains a really remote place and a very tired place to get into why they wanted a shelter up there was because of the danger of camping because of the danger of the of the slides so they wanted something very robust in this case a stone building that would protect the people that were sleeping up there they quarried the limestone right on the spot here it's all this beautiful yellow and pink and blonde limestone the foundation and all the walls are built in the limestone and then the rest of the building is built out of wood that they carried out physically to reach the ridge the hut was to straddle they would have to traverse crevices on the treacherous ice field known as the death trap the death trap is really a canyon to glaciated canyon between mount Lefroy and not victoria probably 500 feet of ice underneath her feet and one side of the canyon has glacial ice hanging above it well they used horses right up on the glacier as long as they far as they could get and then they had a tramway type thing set up cool all the really heavy stuff ups and the rest of them the guides packed most of this stuff up there on their backs there's crevasses below that you need to negotiate find ways around and they can be pretty big sometimes in the summer and also there sir axe above on not victoria that can fall off both times the only time I've ever been to Abbott's pass was in the early 90s the guides were watching these three climbers come up two climbers that were experienced with one of their new girlfriend or newly married wife who had never been on a mountain in her life the guides knew how dangerous it was they finally pulled in about nine o'clock in the evening they made it they had hit that crevasse and they had had to go down into the crevasse right down to the bottom and up the other side because you couldn't go around it she said she didn't think she would lift the pass of the day she was just waiting to die abbott hut wasn't for everybody and if you did make it a swiss guide would be a constant companion I have a lot of appreciation for the Swiss guides who brought although heavy timbers and building materials because I know those are heavy items to be bringing up here to build this structure that we're in probably shouldn't admit this but the heaviest load I've carried up here is ninety pounds it was a big load but I imagined the old-timers were carrying probably significantly more as evident that there's a stove in here this stoves are a lot heavier than typically the food and ropes and climbing equipment that I'm carrying such a comfortable location in a spectacular location and the climbing is excellent some of the best in North America and to have a very comfortable hut at the past year it really allows people to enjoy their time here and savor the climbing experience means we don't have to get up at two o'clock in the morning and leave the lodge and walk through the dark we can come up here the night before and enjoy this place [Music] it's not just shelter it's a wonderful place to spend the night with all its history and the views and can have a nice dinner up here and meet with other people and it really adds to the experience it becomes much more than just climbing a mountain and it sleeps 24 people which is pretty tight when there's 24 people there but if they're not all snoring they can all sleep up there you don't have to bring your pots and your stove and dishes and all that so instead you'd get to bring really good food people bring wine and fondues and real dinners like you'd cook at home sometimes you're carrying heavy items such as frozen hams and such and pies that you don't want to get smashed and eggs that you don't want to break and so the challenge is not just getting it up here it's getting it up here in shape I think most of the people that come to the hut hike up here as a destination I've met lots of people up here who are just hiking and this is where they wanted to come and spend a night or two I think the youngest person to come up to this hut might be my son Jasper I brought him up here in July he's nine years old and it took some encouragement to get him up here but once he was here he just thought it was so cool we went outside and we were bum slidin big long bum slides down the lower slopes of Mount Lefroy [Music] I just found I came alive in the mountains and I loved it here and I still find I need to get outside in nature every day but when I get to come up to a hot like this I get to spend two days there's more in the mountains and feel the wind outside even when I'm in here and I really feel connected and I feel like I can luxuriating that the length of time I get to spend up here in nature well it's a beautiful place beautiful place sitting right out on the edge if nothing inside you could jump off and disappear [Music] between Abbott Pass and Lake Louise is plain of six glaciers teahouse built in the Swiss tradition of a halfway house for weary travelers a stopping place in the last Green Valley before the Continental Divide I've been here my entire life my first summer I was seven months old and I'm 39 so 39 long years Suzanne gillies Smith runs the lodge with her mother joy Kimball it was awesome it was just incredible there was my sister and myself no other kids because there wasn't any other kids in the area I had a pet Marmot for the first ten years of my life her name was Charlotte and that was their dog chaser and she wait he's chased her again it's just pretty amazing she had us up here with no phone cell phones didn't work back then we have no electricity we have no hot water there's nothing to distribute there's no outside influences so everything that you do you've created so that was a bit of a challenge because you had to look after babies and we had a lot of bears around them too she probably won't like me telling you this but she's 74 or she turned 74 this year and she has more energy than I do I mean she got up this morning to do the baking I didn't nice left hand you get out of your sleeping bag cleaned up go in make a pot of coffee for me and then start baking bread scones pies and then the tourists start coming we'd like it fresh every day so it'll all be gone they're hungry one to get here and they're busy time is between 12 and 5 that's when the bulk of people get here only 11 miles from the traffic of the trans-canada highway the tea house is a favorite destination for day hikers from Banff and Calgary people come up and they walk past the kitchen which is on the main floor they then go up the stairs go up and sit on the little little original 1920s tables the waitress goes inside puts the order on the dumbwaiter which is original sends that down to the people in the kitchen we make the food and we send it back up during the day it's incredibly busy so you just think about what you have to do and the customer has been wanting to please and have everybody have a good experience [Music] [Music] they call it the plain of the six glaciers because it's surrounded by six glaciers the first group is over here on Aberdeen second one is lower Lefroy and the valley upper low flow I have the top lower Victoria upper Victoria and Pope's so this is six snow is not uncommon in any month of the year at this altitude and over the millennia the snow cover has accumulated to form glaciers which move under their own weight down the rock canyons and valleys Bruce Bembridge takes groups on tours of the high alpine zone as you go higher you literally get a a wider view of things and and you begin to leave the the thick trees behind and come to an Vista that takes your breath away we're in a region and that literally takes us back 10,000 years when literally all of Canada was covered with the glacier and you can see that jagged cliff line of the very leading edge of the hanging glacier on Lefroy that thickness of ice averages between 300 and 500 feet thick you'd lose a house in that size of a we're gonna vas down there the dangers of the area were many extreme and unpredictable weather rock and ice falling from the cliffs above and avalanches that could sweep away a mountain lodge during the day you can hear them breaking off and most of the time you can see them cascading down at night when there's no one else here you can hear the avalanches sometimes you hear a huge avalanche at night and you think it's that bad one when the lodge was completed the first customers were well-heeled hikers brought to explore the high country by swiss guides dressed in the latest style of tweed suit it was originally built by two swiss guides the fort's brothers and they were commissioned through CP Rail I think the two Swiss men that chose this spot chose it very carefully about a mile and a half from Victoria so even though we look close we're still a mile and a half them where they have adventures are when I came in and 60 they were still guiding and one of them I believe was 79 they found an incredible location that's my home I can't think of anywhere else in the world that I would rather live this is really a place of peace you can hear the stream you can hear the wind in the trees and at night you can hear your own heartbeat it's so quiet if plane of six glaciers tea house was built to be within reach of civilization Mount Assiniboine Lodge was built to get away from it [Music] located in the shadow of one of the highest peaks in the Rockies today most guests arrived by helicopter this is a spirit place there is nothing which rivals this the landscape of this mountains here angry bodies available at the only time and here they are not available they finally found a place where they get away no email no cell phone in the mountains of the world you will never see something quite like it they seem to realize once they're out of the helicopter or once they're in here that they have to go out of their habits you know like you don't have to wake up that early or just just enjoy your your stay guests at Mount Assiniboine are greeted by owner Sepp Renner who doubles as a swiss guide and Canada's highest altitude bellman I just love it it's breathtaking good for the heart and good for the soul look at all these golfers head of making these no escape hole something about the air and the freshness and the clarity and the smells and grizzly bears and like that you know that's really cool in the tower with a cabin let's see at home for the next five days it helps you kind of get back to what's important in life you know it's a slower pace and the simpler things it's a good break it's amazing not only the beauty of it but to think about you know what it took to do this for nature to do this located on the west side of the Continental Divide in British Columbia now to Sinha Boyne is one of the most remote lodges in the Rockies at 7,000 feet each morning breaks clear and cold Sept all's the guests to the main lodge for an early start on the day's hikes a tradition of 75 years has the guests make their own lunches from fresh ingredients prepared on the site we trying to have the people adapt to what we have and not always we adapt to the people what they want otherwise we you know we would have 10 hot dogs and we had to expand and have generators here and should we still have outhouses so it's some people can't stand out house as well they have to go to the banff spring the lodge is actually a real classic Norwegian style architecture and of course Serling's picture is in the corner at the diner so he's always supervising erling was Earling strum a native of Lake Placid New York and Norway who dreamed a bringing skiing to the Canadian Rockies skiing was a relatively new sport that people really didn't know how to ski let him out he was a real adventurer he came here in 1927 with the Marquis de Albizzi this Italian Marquis and they had heard that there was this wonderful place here the local people felt that they were never gonna come back because they felt that the snow would just swallow them up but erling was Norwegian and he knew that like Norway the snow opens up the land and makes travel much easier early and all beats if not skiers into here for the next 10 years and above the door do you see that Norwegian dragon and then there are the people in grave - came those first 10 years I'm the eldest son of one of the founders of a city boy and lodge my father's name is inscribed over the over the front entrance there it is Russel Bennett that 1928 they built just the first Lodge where the kitchen and the dining room is at first and my grandfather said you know you'd have to be put to work either making dinner or cleaning it up and then as soon as dinner was done he said you sort of stack all the benches and tables up against the wall and everybody would roll out their bed roll and sleep on the floor [Music] so very often they learned how to ski on the way in after three days you may prevail an accomplished skiers many years later my father called SAP runner who's the manager here down to the ranch he said Sepp I have a present for you and he handed cept the skis and poles and he said these belong at a Cinnabon that's how they used to come in here and those keys were in a very first strip into here we feel like in some ways we're carrying on a tradition but in a in a different sense we have many guests who have brought generation after generation here and we have guests that come now who've been coming for 45 years coming back here is wonderful because the hiking and climbing is spectacular but the the feeling of sort of coming back to a place that had been part of my family for over 80 years is just spectacular their lunch is packed guests sign up for the various hikes SAP and Barb taken to the backcountry groups can be as large as 15 or as small as one young and old botanists and photographers alpinists and couch potatoes spend an afternoon on the top of the world [Music] Madison point is it's a very beautiful mountain the highest mountain in the southern Canadian Rockies it's almost 12,000 feet high and it has that classic Matterhorn shape which was of interest to early Mountaineers because they compared it with the Matterhorn in Switzerland it's a thousand eight hundred feet above any other peak so it sticks out and then it has lakes in all sides so it's just started with little tools our guests are very adventurous some of them have never hiked before many of hiked a lot so for some people it's a whole new experience and because we have guided trips one of the most exciting things we do is showing someone new how wonderful it is to be in the mountains and down the drainage is the Mitchell drainage there's no road nothing it's all Wow as mild as it can be we usually do a picture each traverse we go to underpass then we do the whole skyline to a Cinnabon pass that trip is about 3,000 vertical feet to climb it's equivalent of 300 stories in a house so then it's a oh my god it's one of the most beautiful hikes I've ever been on and then on the way back down take a detour over to Elizabeth Lake and go for a chilly swim but quite refreshing and then a walk through the woods and wander your way back it's a was a wonderful way to spend a day the whisky jacks are an interesting bird because we have a very cold climate here and the whisky jacks are one bird that don't migrate this game year-round they're continually looking for food seeds and little roots and bugs and whatever and they stick all of that food under the bark of trees and they have hundreds of little hiding places [Music] we like them to do a full day of good exercise the so I feel tired at night and have a good sleep [Music] very early in the morning Oh bring some hot waters with the cabins which is a nice little routine to do wake people up knock on the door good morning hot water that's a good start to the day then we have a big pratfall breakfast breakfast is important if anybody is alert some food something you cannot eat you have to talk to me but if you don't like porridge in the morning think that's still just too bad at the beginning of every summer at Mount Assiniboine a helicopter ferries in a very important part of the lodges history 94 year old Ken Jones first walked into this country in the great depression he was old ever since I've known him and that's been a little over 30 years he was up with crampons and ice axe up in the roof knock and ice off you know and this wasn't that long look at that crazy old bugger he's up there beating holes in my roof ken was the first ranger here in 1965 and then we asked him to come back in 1984 to work for us guiding he came in and helped building those places he knew all the people who were very involved or started pioneers so he can talk about the old pioneers [Music] he is a walking lesson [Music] the all these trees were smaller these trees mostly grown up since I first saw that there are little things all these logs are fire kills moment on the cinder moines pass that got fire was involved but the old timers told me was somewhere around here 19 or 20 ken met erling Strom that first summer Strom was starting construction on a cabin on the site illegally park officials had turned down his application giving him only a permit to cut trees for firewood parks director came up here says I thought we gave you a permit for firewood I said yes that's not fire joe says well no not exactly does it matter how I stacked my firewood you go off the trail and you walk knee-deep in flowers we've got small alpine flowers they grow very close to the ground and they're very Hardy and tough they go through endless snows and frost during the summer and they're absolutely spectacular if you happen to come from Hong Kong I mean the Banff spring is a huge wilderness experience to us it isn't but for them you know there's something for everybody and here we just offer a different experience the slant of the floors it's almost like a ship but it's it has character and I think that's what we're looking for now [Music] like all the backcountry lodges a cinebulle was crafted by hand by men like Ken Jones on the ax and saw that's not the first log should be 18 inches above the ground before they start laying the logs this is Norwegian pattern it hangs over made the bigger room for the bedrooms but they had to insulate it underneath and lumber up stops the poles from going up before I get too cold and the rooms were too cold as my grandfather said you were a guest with a small G which meant that as soon as you arrived the other put you to work skinning log poles or setting foundations or cooking up dinner or fishing or hunting for dinner it's what I call rustic elegant being here for 20 years we get so intimate with the landscape I can tell them look it down there is a behind those trees are elk or there's a grizzly bear digging I've caused our most prayed animal is a grizzly bear and we have quite a few of them here when they are busy in the fall and a little bit unpredictable we try to hike in groups so we let them know that we are approaching they don't see very well and if you have enough distance between the bear and yourself you can turn back or change directions it's all about to let them know where we are and if every surprise and well he gets a little upset but if he knows we're coming he walks away so in 20 years we have never had an incident I actually seen a wolf last year which was quite rare I wasn't sure if it was a wolf first but I've seen wolf before is though it it had to be one just a lonely one and as soon as he spotted me he took off [Music] to make up for a guest's hard day of hiking scrambling and climbing barb prepares a supper fit for kings in the same kitchen where Ken Jones once discovered a bear with a syrup tan over its head [Music] [Applause] [Laughter] after supper when the guests have retired for the night Ken convenes a meeting of the guides of all the traditions at Mount Assiniboine none is more enduring than the Cougar milk he prepares for the occasion and use too much less a pinch of nutmeg evaporated milk cinnamon a cup of boiling water and some of the strongest rum you can find Kim tells the stories that take us back to the 1920s or the 1930s when he first came here and many of the murky bellush and it just makes them better and better oh my god here were also Stefan Pogue from breaking trail coming up here we were glad to stop earnings come give me my what like a car Cougar milk before that it was known as moose milk he said I'll give you an appetizer while the cook is warming the soup up so he made the good stiff drink Forks we were feeling real fine by the time the suit come next morning we got up none of us fit to go down and Brian Creek no ask the people what they felt like it said thank you you better count I'll not stand here here for days can can you spare the time I said any time I can spare you he belongs to the place and once he's gone no from that generation there is nobody left so he's won pretty much one of the last ones save for the odd hiking trail the backcountry has changed little since Ken Jones first rode into a Cinnabon in the early 30s [Music] the lodges of the Canadian Rockies remain outposts in a vast northern landscape for Cornelius Van Horn these mountains once inspired a castle in the wilderness The Banff Springs as much a dream as a hotel to be conjured up by visitors like Bart Robinson if you walk into the hotel and you're in another place and another time that era from 28 to about 38 was absolutely magical and I doubt we'll ever be repeated I find myself just desperately wanting to come back and just hang out for for a few days [Music] for Suzanne gillies Smith it's returning through the snow to her home on the plain of six glaciers to mark the coming of spring [Music] last year when I came in which was June 5th I was breaking through to my waist and that was that stayed for probably a month so when the staff come in I tell them to bring some summer wear but mainly winter wear for the entire summer but this is really a place of peace I am really busy running the tea house but what I'm up here it's the easiest it's like the telephones telephone doesn't ring we have no electricity we have no hot water there's nothing to distribute there's no outside influences so everything that you do and you've created [Music] experience over time gives one in this landscape a grace that is highly admirable the higher you go up the closer you come to what the original experience of these mountain landscapes was and what made this aesthetic so powerful in bringing people back again and again to experience it and for sid fights it's a night high on a continental divide safe within the walls of Avadhut built by his ancestors the swiss guides the hothead got in pretty bad shape actually you know over the years three four years ago they finished redoing the whole place it's better than it wasn't when they built it really hello it's a beautiful place a beautiful place it's sitting right out on the edge of nothing well inside you could jump off and disappear [Music] Lake Louise is probably the best known of the Grand Train hotels that were connected with putting the real way across Canada this seems to be the one that people know the best the Prince of Wales hotel is odd in the sense that it was built by an American Railway nowhere near an American railway it was built in a Canadian National Park by Canadians but commissioned and designed by Americans [Music] Twin Falls is the smallest of the of the backcountry chalets still considered to be quite a backcountry place you can't drive to it obviously the hike it takes up their commitment and terms of physical stamina being able to pack in there Jasper Park Lodge it's different than any other property you don't step out of your doorway into a hallway you step out and you have instantly this breathtaking view of a mountain or an elk is right there and it's just literally a step and a breath right outside your door [Music] [Applause] the journey to the Prince of Wales hotel is one few guests ever forget [Music] the long and winding road through the country of the Blackfoot Indians that dead ends at the wall of the Rocky Mountains takes them back to another time when rum-running and prohibition made this border country anything but the International Peace Park it is today you always hear that this is where the mountains meet the sky without the interruption of intervening foothills and that's that's largely true [Music] you have Prairie species and mountain species mixing right on this borderline without too much intervention and of course scenically it's absolutely spectacular we've come down the highway from Pinscher Creek oh come up from the US to have this amazing array of mountains culminating in this terrific jewel coming back to the Prince of Wales for me is always emotional I already know that gap in the mountains that I'm looking for and as I get closer and drive up the gap gets larger the mountains become more recognizable when you drive up in that parking lot you're looking up at it it's incredibly dramatic then if you've got clouds going by just adds an air of drama I think it's one of the most beautiful sights of it building probably anywhere on earth it's a wood structure those things as you know a tendency to burn up but this one has lasted all of these years who is a beautiful old building this hotel is sited on the hill to take advantage of the view down the lake first thing a tourist see is walking in is immediately the bright white light in front of you you stop and say wow they put three huge windows at the end of the lobby to take in that view and focus on the lake the small community of Waterton seemed like an improbable choice to locate a luxury hotel bordering Montana in the extreme southwest corner of the province of Alberta access to this isolated region was difficult it wasn't until the 1950s that there was a paved road to water it wasn't until the late 40s that there was electricity in Waterton Prince of Wales Hotel provided summer electricity to the town site for many years it isn't a banff it's a very small seasonal town that people enjoy coming to in 1913 Waterton was nothing more than a small fishing and hiking camp when an extraordinary American Lewis Hill arrived the President of the Great Northern Railway Hill was building a series of lodges just over the border in Glacier Park he first saw Waterton the day after celebrating his 75th birthday circumstances were against opening a hotel immediately or even building hotel immediately within a year of 1913 of course we had the First World War that shut things down so well the Americans weren't involved until 1917 Canada of course was locked up in the war effort right in the beginning the idea of having manpower deployed to build a tourist hotel was unthinkable and didn't happen it wasn't until 1923 when Alberto voted to end prohibition that interest was rekindled the u.s. looked like it was in for prohibition for a while you had room renders going across the border from Canada into the US it was big business and Louie Hill figured hey if you can't get the booze to Americans bring the Americans to the booze the railway never ever talked about prohibition openly never advertised prohibition but knew very well that people would know immediately that cheese this will tell some Canada ding-ding let's go off we can get beer the present-day site overlooking the lake was chosen and construction began in 1926 in the rush to get the hotel completed one important detail was overlooked with nearly disastrous consequences but the fluid is terrible we have a little Montana Zephyr blowing right now here it comes gonna pull my hat off we get more chinook winds in this part of Alberta of course that they do anywhere else in the province it's like a gigantic waterfall above the Rocky Mountains if you can picture that descending in this immense wave I have measured winds at my home which is due north of here at 247 km/h this is a very exposed sign it's 150 feet above the lake it's a seven mile long lake and the wind gets funneled down the lake straight at the hotel the wind the night of December 10th 11th 1926 was incredibly strong we know it was above 90 miles an hour how much above we don't know because when they came up the next morning and check the anemometer the thing was twisted and stuck in its maximum position which was over 90 the wind was so strong it blew the upper portions of the hotel about five inches out of plumb and they actually had to use winches that they set in the ground in front of the hotel tied a bunch of cables to it and winch the hotel back into some sort of reckoning with all the horse-drawn winches and equipment they had that never really got it back into plumb so the whole building is a little bit off [Music] despite all the setbacks the Prince of Wales hotel opened in 1927 the hotel is named after the Prince of Wales who at that time was Edward later became Edward the ADEs and then the Duke of Windsor the irony is that there has never been a Prince of Wales who has visited this hotel the name the Prince of Wales gave it a a bit of dignity when the hotel was built it was a first-class hotel it made this town you did not come in here with old farm clothes on you you redressed the hotel opened with a nurse doctor on call a barber shop a shoeshine boy everything that you wanted was at hand thank you when they built these old hotels they kind of put the rooms wherever they would fit so most of the rooms are different sizes and beds had to be put under eaves and and around corners from each other and that sort of stuff to fit so it has its own charm that's for sure but the chandelier was a replacement for some lanterns that have been in the hotel earlier looks beautiful but a nuisance to clean when I was here there was no way to lower the chandelier readily so what we did is we had some poor guy usually one of the smallest who has suspended on a chair from a rope from the ceiling a number of us would pull him up and then we have to hold him there well he cleaned and dusted the chandelier this was usually a once a year project in the spring it was precarious to say the least it's a wonder someone never fell Louis hills vision was to bring his guests north across the border in luxury cars called jammers one could travel to the Prince of Wales in style [Music] and I work in Glacier Park 53 years ago as a dishwasher and the gear jammers had the best job so 53 years later I find I get to be a gear jammer and it's every bit as good as I thought it would be to ride in a historic vehicle like this is just quite a great opportunity it's a thrill I think it gives people a chance to go back and experience a little bit of history a little bit what it was like for people in the 20s when they vacationed it's a step back in time and we just we love it these beautiful the hotel is very much a living building in a curious sort of way and that it flexes with the wind this shaking is really unnerving to visitors it will create a whistle in the hotel as it goes around those windows and doors not the best thing to help a tourist or a visitor sleep through the night so often when I was here they would come down at night into the lobby and you'd offered them a cup of coffee a cup of tea some hot milk anything just to kind of calm them soothe them that would usually work until the moment they heard a creak and what they would hear is the chandelier moving they would look up to the creek and they'd see that chandelier just jiggling a little bit at a time back and forth guests have every right to be worried the engineering required to withstand the wind is considerable huge beams and metal plates hold the chandelier and the roof in place what people did was they came down to the lobbies and they came down to the common rooms and that's really where the enjoyment was meeting other people in common rooms and sitting around and tea and and that's really what you get here I think Lewis Hill when he built these hotels way back that when realized that the entertainment is in the lobby the entertainment is part partly just being in the hotel that was something the traveling public liked because all the hotels he built are built that way they all have a beautiful big Lobby common area kind of place places for people to gather we could certainly put a TV in every room but that's something that we won't do as long as as we're around I've never seen scenery more beautiful than this anywhere in the world and we've been pleased to travel quite a bit and but it's just a unique setting it's beautiful I don't know of a finer place in the world the Prince of Wales hotel is the beginning of what locals call the trail of the Great Bear a system of roads that lead north to Banff in Jasper national parks in the history of the great lodges these roads represented a new freedom travelers could now explore the mountains at their own pace [Music] but like the railway before them the new highways followed trails travelled by the native peoples who had first explored what they called the shining mountains the backbone of the world those mountains had proved a nightmare for the builders of the Canadian Pacific Railway by the 1880s they were seeking a way through the mountains to the Pacific but looming ahead was the Continental Divide the railway came through a very difficult area and a very but from a scenic point of view a very spectacular area they hired local Outfitters to find a way through the mountains the outfitters intern hired Indian guides I think it's really important to recognize the extent of native knowledge that was shared with early surveyors guides and later with trail men and backcountry horse guides on a summer's day in 1882 one of those Outfitters Tom Wilson was taken by Edwin hunter a Stoney guide to the shores of what his people called the lake of little fishes the surface of the lake was still as a mirror forest that had never known the axe came down to the shores the background was divided into three tones white opal and brown where the glacier ceased and merged with the shining water [Music] it was near this lake of little fishes now Lake Louise that Canadian Pacific was to find a route through the Rockies via the treacherous Kicking Horse Pass in 1890 the railway built its first small Chalet travelers could overnight on the shores of the jewel-like lake the modest log building was destined to one day become one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world Chateau Lake Louise to give you an idea of how the numbers worked our first summer we had 50 guests who stayed here in Lake Louise and by 1912 fifty thousand guests today on a typical summer day 20,000 people will come to Upper Lake Louise Lake Louise is probably the best known of the Grand Train hotels that were connected with putting the railway across Canada this seems to be the one that people know the best this is seems to be the one that people I don't know whether it's been photographed more it's because of the lake connected and the glacier connected with it but it seems that way I would bet it is right up there with some of the you know the seven wonders of the world as being one of the most photographed places it's such a perfect backdrop it's like nature took everything it had to offer and plunked it all down in one little spot you don't have to go very far you've seen it all initially Lake Louise was thought to be but a side trip for the wealthy clientele that came to stay at the Banff Springs Hotel but as word of Lake Louise spread the chalet expanded to meet the increasing demands the Chateau Lake Louise started as a small log cabin on the shore of one of the world's most famous beauty spots and sort of grew from that seed the Chateau started small and grew big as tourism expanded as transportation and access expanded and as the the people the numbers of people and the types of people coming there expanded the average stay was about three weeks it's now less than three days but then people traveled with steamer trunks elegant clothes everything they needed for a long trip and of course they tended to explore the areas in which they were visiting and because of the nature of the hotels which offered every amenity it was possible to have extraordinary exploration and excitement during the day and come back and live very elegantly at night [Music] arriving at Chateau Lake Louise has always been special an oasis in the wilderness the hotel was designed to stand apart [Music] in 1912 the painter wing was built a fashionable neo Italian design it was a radical departure from the traditional style of the Chateau but the unlikely couple was not to last in 1924 the original wood structure was destroyed by fire Canadian Pacific immediately began reconstruction extending the painter wing once completed the new Chateau Lake Louise would be the jewel in the crown of Canadian Pacific hotels [Music] the interior of the hotel would have a European feel [Music] the decor emphasizing a Swiss Alpine motif people that choose to stay here stay here because of the history of the place so because of that I think people expect to be taken back into another era I wanted to capture that that Grande era of travel of the twenties Kerry Busby an interior designer with a love of that era was hired by Canadian Pacific 15 years ago to return the company's Mountain hotels to their original splendor [Music] I really try to play up on that in my choices of furniture styles as well as textiles and art and and to give a real sense of grandeur the lake is often frozen to the middle of June and so the light is very white and pristine here and to create warmth we chose to use a very warm palette but all the colors I take from what you might see if you're trekking around the lake or in the summer or hiking or whatever the colors are russets and sandstone colors that you see in the rock face the reds are colors that you see in the berries in the fall [Music] the Chateau wasn't open winters until quite recently my husband is a wonderful story actually of watching a late freeze over he was sitting there and there was all this steam rising off the lake and then it just stopped and it just instantaneously froze but it was just one of those one of those moments [Music] speeding up here is fabulous I've been out here for 45 minutes by myself and I think it's the only place I could come skating by myself the air is so fresh and the mountains are so beautiful the kids out here are all so happy [Music] and it will be like a like a little jewel in the middle of the hokies we assemble like Legos and for the enjoyment of our customers you can build castles every winter head chef Dominick Goya shapes 30 tons of ice blocks into his own fantasy chateau it's um it's completely different in Southern California we're probably still wearing shorts back there right now we come with a bunch of different families all with the same age children and they love to come out here and play hockey and ice skate even though we don't ice skate a lot in Southern California we ask them if they'd rather have Christmas at home or would they rather go to Canada go skiing and they always choose skiing so we come [Music] it hasn't changed much at all except for the highway I mean as soon as you get off the highway it just like it was people today are still awestruck by the the same view it's nothing's really changed it's just as beautiful as it has always been [Music] further north where rivers run to the Arctic Ocean is Jasper Park Lodge built by Canada's second transcontinental railway Canadian national and its president Sir Henry Thornton when Thornton saw the broad valley of the Athabasca River he was inspired by a British landscape architect Thomas Adams to create a revolutionary new resort concept based on the idea of a medieval English village Thomas Adams is one of the the originators of the whole town planning idea and developed this idea of a Garden City he wanted to maximize the natural features by getting away from this grid layout and and having winding streets and and and using the contours of the land instead of bulldoze everything flat lay down a grid and put some buildings along the way and you can see it very strongly here at the Jasper Park Lodge Thornton's gamble was to locate a lodge so far north of the American border would a southern clientele patronize a remote Jasper Park Lodge he wanted to be distinct from the big Chateau style hotel that had been developed by the CPR the rival the idea of having a luxury kind of bungalow camp or cottage colony has its origins in the Adirondacks in the eastern United States wealthy industrialists would build these private camps with kind of clusters of cottages around the main lodge and ran them along the lines of country clubs with this kind of luxury service what sets Jasper Park Lodge apart from any other the bungalow camps in the in the Rockies one is the the sheer scale of it it's huge right from the beginning it was a set up as a luxury resort with swimming pools tennis courts golf courses gourmet dining the whole thing it's different than any other property because of the layout and how spread out we are anywhere you go there's you know something to do and it's just literally a step and a breath right outside your door [Music] you don't step out of your doorway into a hallway I mean you step out and you have instantly there's a breathtaking view of a mountain or you know shimmering lockable there no matter how busy the lodges you're still only 10 or 12 meters away from the park and you can see wolves and you can see elk and deer from your cabin it doesn't feel crowded you are amidst the park but in an almost idyllic sense of what nature should have been like in the British sense of paradise where you have this luxury and wildlife all around you and you're living in the midst of Eden before Canadian National Railway built the lodge along the shores of the greenest lake in the Rockies Lac above air a small tent city was established on a site chosen by Jasper cowboys Fred and Jack Brewster tent city was a home for men working on the railway and local tourists he was an early gaiden outfitter and he felt that this had great potential to house his guests so he created a kind of a tent city here with the railways arrival they made a deal with Fred that they would purchase it and make it a hotel for their guests that were arriving by train construction of the octagonal main lodge was completed in 1923 the building was to be the largest single story log structure in the world that first year over 15,000 guests paid from seven to $40 to stay every night an orchestra played in a ballroom lit by Old English wrought iron lanterns soon to become the official symbol of the lodge the original launch started out as a big rotunda because it is octagonal it could use the logs out to make a bigger space and then have wings running from that the other thing is is that provided for a less formal more rustic natural setting but one horrible night in 1952 the main lodge burnt to the ground [Music] when they presented with an opportunity to rebuild the lodge they translated it into modern idiom the use of natural materials such as stone and timber by using the post and beam and that and the cut stone and the concrete throughout the lodge a traditional native design was maintained they sort of took the flavor of the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright and and subsequently you know created and built this beautiful building that lays very low within the landscape and blends in with the surrounding environment [Music] after Sir Henry Thornton completed the original Lodge in 1923 he turned his attention to the construction of a golf course like no other in the world at that time he approached architect Stanley Thompson to create what he called a heroic design since compared to Augusta National and Pebble Beach the holes feel like they just always been here working as a caddie in Jasper you were playing the most beautiful golf course in the world we'd work all day and then these horrible rainstorms would come in and we play 36 holes of golf in the rain just to play the golf course I mean being a caddy that's there anytime you can play summer went by you never knew what day of the week it was you just sort of lived on this golf course Thompson walked the rugged terrain behind the lodge one by one he found the holes each totally natural in its feel that would shape the ultimate mountain golf course I think he knew he had a special piece of property and he took advantage of it without without question he used the attitude of he wanted when you stood on a tee box to be able to see the golf hole and then in the distance be able to see a mountain peak that would square up right in the center of a fairway behind a green site and he wanted that to be the focal point each autumn ended with the totem-pole tournament which attracted golfers from across the continent including Bing Crosby who won in 1947 while filming in Jasper [Music] Crosby was not alone Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum shooting River of No Return booked the lodges most opulent cabin for cast parties oh the cabin was was originally built in 1932 and when it was done it was done as a luxurious cabin with five guest rooms and maid's quarters and was done for guests would come and stay for a season the cabin burnt to the ground in November 2000 and the decision was made to do a reconstruction of it because there were so many guests that's returned every year and had so many memories of the place we studied the early photographs and records we had of what was in the cabin and went from there [Music] so many guests that have come back haven't have noted that that you don't even feel like the cabin has been changed or burnt down or restored because it's so exact to the original architecture I try to use furniture and materials that were in the original cabin this is precisely how it looked before with the batten cedar ceilings and the grand log at beams and trusses the two sided fireplace on the mantel of the fireplace is a photograph of George the sixth and Queen Elizabeth that was taken when they were guests here on their tour across Canada in 1939 [Music] you can sit out here in your your luxury accommodation and see the deer or the out which is something you don't get if you're sitting in the vamp spring so hotel where you're surrounded by the trappings of a of a great big kind of urban type structure [Music] the real attraction was not the monument that they were going to build here but was the surrounding mountains then the vegetation the trees and the animals we have so many guests who comment they actually think that the elk are you know tame that you know we provide them you know they actually go into a barn at night I think the people in the animals they get along pretty well yeah there's times when we'd have to reroute and you know it's a calf just got born on the 15th grand that's what people love that's why they're here I think that's what gives us place even more character it's all part of what makes the Jasper Park Lodge so memorable in people's mind the idea of living close to nature is not a new one the great lodges of the Canadian Rockies carry traditions forward that began with the first Native people to scale the Continental Divide one of the most remote regions they explored was the Yoho Valley in the Cree Indian dialect a Yoho is wonder the Yoho valiant was one of those sort of mysterious valleys or you know where reports of the great waterfalls and the Yoho is on the west side of the divide heavier precipitation dealt the heavy snow pack area you have a feeling of being in the Cathedral type fir trees and old-growth forests and very rugged country higher Peaks the natural barrier of the divide and the deep snows of the Canadian winter blocked the way of explorers fur traders and railway builders alike Canadian Pacific building the railway which was to connect Canada from sea to sea met its greatest obstacle here at Yoho how to climb the precipitous grades of Kicking Horse Pass the solution was an intricate system of spiral tunnels one of the engineering wonders of the world at the foot of the tunnels is filled British Columbia a sleepy mountain hamlet from which the exploration of the backcountry would begin the CPR established its tourism business early on there was Mount Stephen House infield it was sort of a bouncing off place - for for mountaineering and hiking now more but people going to the Ojo blasier and of course all the waterfalls up there is quite beautiful many climbers hikers would go up into the upper yo hole to taka ko-- falls and then head up further into the hanging valleys and it was a challenge to get up there it was quite a tight canyon to crawl through the bush and follow a trail by horseback in those days would it be quite an adventure and of course you're surrounded by great peaks and many of those peaks were climbed in the early 1900's by the first guides and and tourists CPR tourists in the area at the head of the trail lie the 260 foot high Twin Falls [Music] [Applause] and at their base a fairytale chalet deep in the forest run by 42 year veteran of the high country Fran Drummond Twin Falls is the smallest of the of the backcountry chalets it's still considered to be quite a backcountry place you can't drive to it obviously hike it takes a fair commitment and in terms of physical stamina and being able to pack in there and then it's so it's used as a as a base for further backcountry adventures and hikes you can take a day hike from there and come back and have a a wonderful meal cook my friend Drummond you won't find wood stoves like this in all the lodges I think I'm about this the only one that use or something now it's slow but the flavors the flavors all come together slowly yeah the backcountry appealed to me and this valley was rather special the mountains have a special quality wherever they are it takes a sixth sense to be a mountain person and that you you have to be a real person to be in the mountains you have to be a sophisticated person to be in the mountains you have to be a creative person to be in the mountains part of the attraction this backcountry legend who can still at her age pack this her own stuff in and and hike that trail down that Valley she'd have me packing stuff in her horse and I helped her on with her backpack and I could hardly lift it you know I'm sure it must have weighed 70 pounds which is not a very big lady as you know she's tough as nails there's no two ways about that I like to think her is the queen of the queen of the valley there I think [Music] she's a character she's one of a kind the end of a breed I think of people that have really gone back through a lot of changes in the Rockies and she harkens back to another era when things were a lot different it's nice to see someone maintaining that tradition she was the chief cook and bottle washer unless she can get you to bottle watch the people who have worked here grow up and bring their families they want to show their kids where they've worked in fact they try and sign them on time you hear you take them for the summer started here we walk down into the kitchen and you spend a lot of time in the kitchen when you're here with friend cause she likes her guests to come in and talk to her you walk down those stairs that are just worn slippery from people walking on the rooms are not soundproof to talk so if you're sleeping in one of those rooms you can hear the person in the next room rule and so there is the the honeymoon couple who really had a great time and that that but when they finished there was applause through the whole building [Music] those buildings haven't really changed there's the where and the footprints of everybody who has ever stayed there since the beginning you feel bad as soon as you come into a place like this and the smell of wood smoke creates the atmosphere too it all began with a tent camp built by the first surveyors to reach the Falls in 1908 and bring their teepees and put them around the one building and I'm sure that building just house flour sugar milk of some kind and they brought the rest with them on horseback by the time John Murray Gibbon the marketing director of the CPR came to inspect the new lodge he found a backcountry shangri-la combining travel in the wild with comfort and elegance this part was built that part was there and this interconnection was done at a later date the design that the CPR was coming up with was more of a Swiss Chalet style of design they didn't want the small little matchstick Rocky Mountain log cabin and so the CPR resigned these cabins made out of pretty monstrous logs for the size of the building these are spruce and right from the area they skid the men Oh with horses and then they made these cuts cuts here so that they would fit together and then they they lifted them into place with with block-and-tackle and it took three years I don't think the building is going to fall down tomorrow this is the most important building on the farm we used to have a porcupine nut would sit down the hole of the outhouse and we would warn all people please but before you sit down lest you have a shock [Music] like many backcountry lodges the history of Twin Falls is closely tied to the Swiss guides Canadian Pacific hired to ensure the safety of guests right after they built in Falls one of the channels got blocked above the Falls the CPR sent the Swiss guides up above the Falls with dynamite and blew that channel out again so the Twin Falls would be recreated when anybody wanted to go climbing or wanted to know how to climb you always sought out the Swiss guides they guided but they did the surveys of all the trails [Music] the skyline trail-- that skirts the very edge of the precipice the most extreme challenge you have to be careful it can be very dangerous you don't do anything too fast you don't do anything when you're too tired because that's that's when you're likely to have that that accident that could be fatal things are much the same here as they would have been 80 or 90 years ago no electricity no running water it gives you a taste of times gone by when hiking and camping we're a little different than they are now and it's nice not to be a have a clock telling you what time you have to be somewhere just wing it and do whatever you feel like and feels pretty good so they've been a couple of days so it seems like a lot longer than that there's very few places like this left in the Rockies and it's a privilege to be able to stay a place like this I find it almost a mystical spiritual experience stepping outside your normal busy lifestyle to come and sit and contemplate some of these wonders it's it's very sobering it's very sustaining I find this is authentic as authentic as you're going to find of how your grandmother lived through Peas and that has to be preserved I would hope that it would be maintained I'm going beyond me I mean I'm gonna be here till I'm a hundred but you know you know after that who knows I'd love to give heritage cooking lessons here on a wood stove thank you Lord for this beautiful place there's still people around that say oh I was brought up on a farm with an outhouse or my or my mother cooked on a on a wood stove and it's going to become a lost art and unless we preserve that [Music] along the continental divide lie the immense columbia icefields the remains of the mile thick layer of ice that once covered the greater part of North America [Music] native people believed spirits lived here at the top of the world [Music] in the late 1800s there was a number of members of the Appalachian Mountain Club that would come out from the eastern United States and one of these people was Samuel Allen who who was a keen climber and he used a native guide by the name of Yul carrier through Yul and their knowledge of stony Indian dialect they came up with names that they thought were appropriate for a lot of the key lakes or or Peaks and so some of those here at lake o'hara lake Oh ISA which is native name for ice-covered we waxy Peaks which are just up here to our right is a place of wind or a windy place and probably one of the most significant in names was hung Gaby hung Gaby stood for the savage chieftain it indeed looks like a savage chief in 1887 surveyors for the Canadian Pacific Railway we're the first Europeans to discover lake o'hara early hikers and campers coming into the area were captivated by the scenery they set up rest camps along the lakes Shore [Music] Lake O'Hara lodge was built near the rail line on the British Columbia side of the Great Divide thank lake o'hara is nature's consummate design project everything is here you've got glaciers you've got perfect lakes in every hue of green and blue you've got pine forest you've got waterfalls and gorges and steep rock faces and flat open meadows you have everything and you have it in close proximity to a well-appointed lodge the first time I came up here it was a beautiful as we call them O'Hare and a blue sky lots of snow and the peaks and I was just blown away I mean I still AM the lodge was built in 1926 by the CPR what's really neat is we have some generations of families who can remember those times of coming up by horseback we're on the fifth generation of some families coming back and and it's one of those places that I think you get bitten by O'Hara and you just can't not come back [Music] the hiking is still very key you know today with the snow falling the guests are still all out hiking you know it's not like they're all gonna hang around cuz it's snowy you're still out there doing it it's definitely a winter wonderland today for the middle of September at times we even get a snowfall like this in August that really shocks the summer crowd the delight is now you get to come back somebody else is cooking for you food is is really important it's even more important on the rainy days lots of hot soups and it's also a time in the day when people share their date people sit together you're gonna meet people that you've never met before you'll see with them share a good meal and meet some new friends it's just a really neat atmosphere that happens around dinner time here [Music] the fireplace gives people a feeling of warmth and it really it becomes a focal point it's the focal point for the lodge we've got it full of full-size logs at one time that would have been the heat source for the place and in the winter it does provide a source of heat there's a lot of huddling around that fireplace in the wintertime everyone you look out all this beautiful you have a nice cup of tea I think the people who run the establishment who are wonderful people and then the people who come in here to stay here also you know very friendly and very social at day's end the cabins extend a simple welcome little in their interiors has changed since the 1920s when artists like jeh MacDonald began to discover O'Hara MacDonald stayed here in cabin number two seventy-nine years ago and he gives you all those wonderful rustic hints he gave to the Hudson's Bay Company blankets on the bed little glass jars filled with flowers that have been gathered in the meadow affecting one of his scenes there's actually one of his paintings on the wall in the painting which i think is quite quite wonderful so he set up there he's the paintings drawing and there I think they were sort of memories that he created so he could take a little bit of liquor herre the ambiance of this great great place when he went home [Music] in the valley below lake o'hara christmas comes to chateau lake louise another season in the great lodges of the Canadian Rockies draws to an end the snows have come to the backcountry and the most remote lodges have shut for the winter most of these historic lodges have been here some of them before it was they were parks and have kept their part of landscape now they're important part of the history of the park and the linkage I think between the natural environment and people staying are really strong [Music] families gather at Lake Louise to celebrate the traditions of mountain Christmases past any country should try and preserve not everything but a certain element so that the younger generation will appreciate where their forefathers came from Canada is so young and sometimes so naive and their history is going to go right down the drain if they don't start preserving it in the Valle circe to Broome at the Chateau the men and women who share the history of the lodges have an old-fashioned Swiss fondue [Music] there are secret places actually they're probably placed this year that not two people a year go - maybe nobody the great lodges of the Canadian Rockies never cease to cast their spell park grabs you and holds you and never lets you go you always keep coming back for me it's been a year after year 30 years and I'm still coming back [Music] national funding for great lodges of the Canadian Rockies was made possible by Alberta Travel call us at one eight hundred and contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you thank you

Channel: Erik Rupard

Views: 282,644

Keywords: great.lodges, PBS, rocky.mountains

Id: 99hk9G0e9Hw

Length: 111min 5sec (6665 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 09 2017