We don’t like super highways,
expressways, freeways, or whatever you want to call them unless a) we’re in a
hurry, or b) we’re using a freeway to reach a point that we’ve been to many
times before…and we already have visited attractions along the way. In this case, we opted not to take the
Trans-Canadian Highway, but instead to follow Highway 1A which is a 2-lane
highway once it clears the metropolitan area.
The drive was quite leisurely with minimal traffic and lots of
countryside to enjoy…
Along the way we came across this
historical church. The McDougall
Memorial United Church is located along Hwy 1A on the north bank of the Bow
River, near the town of Morley. The church was constructed in 1875 and it is
listed in Canada’s Register of Historic Places.
FYI…Morley is a ‘First Nations’ settlement within the Stoney Indian
reserve in southern Alberta.
The Morleyville Mission was established
in 1873 and it was relocated to its present site in 1875, when construction on
several mission buildings, including the McDougall Memorial United (formerly
Methodist) Church, began in earnest. The
mission was at the vanguard of Methodist evangelical efforts in southern
Alberta, representing the first permanent Protestant mission in the region and
serving the Native tribes in the area, particularly the Mountain Stoney peoples
living along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. It was also a pioneering
settlement, featuring southern Alberta's first permanent homestead, its first
herd of breeding cattle, and the first Protestant church…as well as one of the
province's first trained teachers - Andrew Sibbald. (This latter fact is
interesting to me as Sibbald was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name)
For more information regarding this
historic site and for a link to Canada’s Register of Historic Places, just go
to http://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=8788.
For this photo, all Laurie had to do was
turn to the right after shooting the picture of the church…and snap. Quite a vast and scenic vista with the
foothills and the peaks of the Canadian Rockies rising in the distance!
Laurie took this photo as we moved along lightly
traveled Hwy 1A toward the mountains.
Sometimes these windshield photos come out pretty well!
The Canadian Rockies have many high peaks
and ranges, such as Mount Robson at 12,972 feet and Mount Columbia at 12,293 ft.
The Canadian Rockies are composed of shale and limestone but they seem more ‘green’
than does much of the American Rockies. A great deal of the Canadian range is
protected by parks and a World Heritage Site.
As we approached the mountains, the forests
appeared along the highway.
The Canadian Rockies extend from the
south to the north for about 900 miles.
They are about 93 miles wide and they occupy approximately 69,000 square
miles…about the size of the entire state of Missouri.
We passed through a few smaller towns before
we had to get back onto the Trans Canadian Highway as we neared Banff. These towns included Kananaskis, Exshaw and
Dead Man’s Flats. We don’t recall which
of those towns provided the view of the Rockies shown above…
There are many theories that attempt to
explain the name for Dead Man Flats. One
story ties it to a murder that took place in 1904 at a nearby dairy farm. One brother was accused of killing another, whose
body had been dumped in the Bow River…but the jury acquitted him by reason of
insanity. I prefer the theory that states
that two or three First Nations (Canadian Indian) people who were illegally
trapping beaver noticed a warden approaching in the distance. Since they didn’t have time to flee without
being spotted, they smeared themselves with beaver blood and pretended to be
dead. The warden was fooled by their trick
and he ran for help. With the coast
clear, the trappers took their beaver pelts and escaped.
Whatever the real reason, the fact is
that the town was called ‘Pigeon Mountain Service Centre’ until 1985 when it
changed its name to Dead Man's Flats to encourage tourism.
The last town we passed through before we
reached Banff was Canmore.
The Canmore Hotel is the second oldest
continuously operated hotel in Alberta, and is one of the few landmarks
remaining from Canmore’s mining history. This was the choice meeting spot for railway
workers and miners — even after the mine closed — and became the center of
cultural and social gatherings in the town.
The hotel was built by a French Nobleman,
Count Eugene de Rambouville. For unknown reasons the Count had fallen into
disgrace with his family and fled France, making his way to Canmore. The Count lived in the town long enough to
build the hotel, completing its construction in 1890. It was one of four grand hotels in the area
and it’s the sole survivor. To learn
more about this historic hotel, or perhaps to invest in its preservation and future
operations, go to http://www.canmorehotel.com/index.html.
The town of Canmore was officially named
in 1884 by the Director of the Canadian Pacific Railway. He named it after Malcolm III, a former King
of Scotland…who was also named Canmore. In
its early days, Canmore was a coal mining town.
In 1886, Queen Victoria granted a coal mining charter to the town, and
the No. 1 mine was opened in 1887. The
coal mining industry in Canmore boomed well into the 20th century, but by the
1970s the market for coal had diminished, and in 1979 the mines closed.
For the curious who actually read all of
my text, I’d never heard of Malcolm III, so here’s a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_III_of_Scotland.
And we finally arrived in Banff! Little did we know that we’d arrived on a ‘holiday’
weekend. We learned that the first
Monday of August is a civic holiday in most Canadian provinces. It is commonly referred to as the August Long
Weekend… In Alberta it is officially called Heritage Day. Only Quebec, Newfoundland and Nunavut do not
celebrate this holiday. (For curious non-Canadians, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunavut to
learn about Nunavut).
In any case, although this photo really
doesn’t show it, traffic over the weekend was wall to wall! Apparently 'Calgarians' flocked to Banff to
share the area’s beauty with all of us tourists… Much more on Banff to follow!
Just click on any of the photos to
enlarge them…
Thanks for stopping by and checking out
my long winded blog for the day!
Take Care, Big Daddy Dave
