THREE HISTORIC HOTELS

As I travelled from Banff Springs to Lake Louise and finally Jasper, I made a pilgrimage of some sorts to each place's historic hotel. These hotels were built to encourage rail travel in the late 19th century. The Canadian Pacific Railways (CPR) wanted to recoup its investment in its newly built railroad crossing the Canadian Rockies and what better way to attract passengers and freight? Tourism. But it was the wealthy clientele who can afford a month’s stay or more that came. I wanted to capture, albeit a modern-day account, of what tourists experienced in the late 1800s in these three historic hotels.



Driving from Calgary it took me less than two hours to reach the town of Banff Springs chosen as a resort site by CPR because of its hot springs. I did take a dip in the hot springs but that is in another story. The iconic Banff Springs Hotel overlooks the Bow River. Just like the two other hotels I will later visit, Banff Springs Hotel is now a Fairmount Hotel chain property. Although most of the facade remains what it was since 1888 - with extensions - renovations were inevitable, and at the mezzanine there is a room dedicated as a museum to the hotel’s past. Banff Springs is the kind of hotel you would expect Greta Garbo or Sydney Poitier to check in. The lobby is not as grandiose as one would expect, more like a notch up airport check-in terminal. Nonetheless remnants of the grandeur still linger especially in the banquet rooms such as the Alhambra.

I decided to have a lunch buffet at the hotel’s Bow Valley Grill which at $27.00 was not surprising for the reputation of the hotel. My server was Penelope a French-Canadian from Quebec who told me she has been in the hotel for a decade and she remembers serving a rather shy Robin Williams. There was the usual steak, roast chicken, and salad creations. But the surprise was a chicken Galantina – a Filipino dish one never sees outside Filipino homes. And for the coup d’grace the desserts looked fabulously incredible. Alas, the flourless cake was definitely a day or more old – dry and gritty. The custard flan sparkling in golden caramelized sugar tasted like cough syrup.



After the filling meal, I did take a gander at the balcony overlooking the canyon and the river. Later, I went on the other side of the Bow River to shoot postcard angles of the hotel.

Next day, I drove up to Lake Louise and as body fuel for a day's hike, I had breakfast buffet at the Fairmount Chateau Lake Louise. Not as vintage looking as its counterpart in Banff Springs because it has a concrete hull, the lobby of Lake Louise is what you would expect of a grand hotel: gigantic chandeliers, car-size murals, two-story paintings, and forever lobby ceilings with plush William Morris style carpets. The chateau is where you would expect to bump into Kim Kardasian or Justin Bieber. A contrived air of celebrity with a fleeting sense of fame. The breakfast buffet, $23, was at the Poppy Brasserie at the hotel’s basement. Now the word basement sounds terrible but this one has huge window views right in front of the painting-like Lake Louise. The coconut muesli was good, the eggs benedicts have been standing too long under the warming light, and the sausages, bacon were typical wholesale supplier variety. Fresh grapefruit juice was a delight. My servers were: Maria who wanted to move to Vancouver to escape the minus 40 chill of the Rockies, and Ken who used to work in a cruise ship but discovered the money was not good and at Lake Louise he was doing better. I gave him $4.00 tip which did not elicit a gratuitous smile. I guess small change comparatively.

A day later I was off to Jasper. Unlike Banff Springs and Lake Louise, Fairmount Jasper Park Lodge is not a gigantic towering edifice but a two-story lodge with satellite cabins spread all over the grounds. You have to walk outdoors from the lodge lobby to get into your cabin, with some house-like in proportion. The Jasper Park Lodge has a western cowboy decor. John Wayne or Lady Antebellum will feel right at home here. For a breakfast buffet, I dined at Cavell’s Restaurant, again at the basement level but this one had good views of Mount Edith Cavell which I had visited the day before. My servers were: Peter, a short stocky guy who had a fixed granite face, and April said she was bored with the smallness of Jasper. Now this breakfast buffet offered some unusual fare: poached eggs, an apple cinnamon bacon mousse and clotted cream.



Now I can say I have “tasted” the lifestyle of the rich at the turn of the 20th century. It was fun!