Wed Sept 18th - Banff

Wed Sept 18^th – Banff on a rainy day

Banff National Park Museum - Built 1903

Cave and Basin Sulphur Spring - outside pool

Inside the Cave

 

Banff Park Museum Built 1903

Last night it rained and today it continued. But undaunted we set out for Banff to explore indoor activities and went first to the Banff Springs Hotel and had a quick look around but opted to go to Timmy’s for coffee and D and L’s new favourite Canadian Maple donut. We followed this with a visit to the Banff Park Museum. This was a surprise and very interesting. It is about 110 years old and has preserved examples of the animals and plants to be found in the Banff park area dating back to 1860. There were also lots of stories about past explorers and Park Commissioners and several hundred really interesting photos from the past 100 years. Quite fascinating. The story of Banff is sad in some ways as humans came in and destroyed much of the natural resources of the area, but it is also gratifying to know that the ravages stopped when the park became park of the National Park system.  We then decided that, since we bought an annual group pass to National Parks and Historic sites, that we would go to the Cave and Basin historic site.. what a surprise that was. It was the site of the first finding (by Railway employees) of the Sulphur Hot Pprings. They tried to commercialize the springs, but after some measure of success it was taken over as part of Canada’s National parks and protected for future generations. The cave, containing the original hot springs pool, while reeking to high heaven is still fascinating and Parks Canada have created a great information centre with informative videos and photos about the area. We walked around outside before realizing that most of the day was gone and we headed back to camp feeling superbly knowledgeable and satisfied with a great day.

Elk at our campsite

Just picture perfect