Banff

People have lived at the site of Banff for at least 10,000 years. An Interior Salishan settlement here served as both a wintering village and a trading post, and Nakoda and Blackfoot peoples have also lived at and near it; for the Nakoda the Bow Valley was an important seasonal hunting ground. The Canadian Pacific Railway reached the valley in 1883, and that year three of its workers came across hot springs on the side of Sulphur Mountain. In 1884 the railway's president, George Stephen, named the place after his birthplace near Banff in Scotland.

Rival claims to the springs led the government in 1885 to set aside a 26 square kilometre reserve around the Cave and Basin; in 1887 it was enlarged and named Rocky Mountain Park, the beginning of Canada's national park system. The railway promoted it as an international spa, opening a grand hotel in 1888, and the townsite grew up near the station as a service centre. From 1915 to 1917 an internment camp held mostly Ukrainian immigrants classed as enemy aliens, whose forced labour built roads and other park works. Coal was mined at nearby Bankhead from 1903 until 1922.

In 1984 Banff became part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site. The town was run by the federal parks service until 1990, when it became the only incorporated municipality inside a Canadian national park. It hosted the 1991 Winter Deaflympics, and during the COVID-19 pandemic part of the main street was closed to traffic to make a pedestrian zone.

For a town of its size Banff has an unusually strong arts life. The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, founded in 1933 as a drama school, runs programmes in the performing and fine arts and stages concerts, dance, opera and theatre on Tunnel Mountain. Its mountain film and book festival each autumn draws filmmakers, climbers and writers from around the world, and the Banff World Media Festival, founded in 1979, brings television producers and broadcasters every June.

Painters and photographers have long been drawn here. The Whyte Museum was the inspiration of the Banff artists Peter and Catharine Whyte, and the Banff Park Museum, with its glass cases of mounted animals, shows how the park was presented to visitors a century ago. The Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum presents the cultures of the Blackfoot, Nakoda and Tsuut'ina, and Tunnel Mountain, long called the Sleeping Buffalo by the Stoney Nakoda, has Siksiká and Nakoda names.

The town's identity is outdoors and seasonal: hiking, biking and scrambling in summer, skiing at three resorts in winter. Banff has hosted Team Canada hockey training camps, shares the 2014 Alberta Winter Games with Canmore, and is the starting point of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, which runs about 4,400 km to Antelope Wells, New Mexico.

The 2021 census counted about 8,300 people on just over four square kilometres, making Banff a dense little town. Living here is restricted: Parks Canada sets requirements that residents must meet, broadly tied to working in the community, to keep housing available for workers and families. Many of those who do live here are seasonal workers from across Canada and abroad, staffing the hotels, restaurants, shops and ski hills.

Tourism is almost the entire economy. The national park receives over three million visitors a year, and Banff is one of Canada's most popular destinations; summer afternoons and evenings on Banff Avenue are crowded, and the pressure of visitors on the park's ecosystem is a long-running concern. The town's Roam Transit buses, started in 2008, now link Banff with Canmore, Lake Louise and park sights.

Daily routines follow the seasons and the wildlife. Elk wander through town, and residents learn to give them a wide berth in calving season and the autumn rut. In winter life revolves around the ski hills and early dark; in summer, around trail reports, traffic and full hotels. Acute health care is provided at the Mineral Springs Hospital.

Banff eats the way Alberta does, with a mountain-resort twist. Alberta beef is the centre of many menus, in steak houses and on burgers, and bison and elk turn up in stews and pies in pubs and bars. Pizza, pasta and Greek kitchens line the main streets as well, and the town's chophouses put salmon, duck, bison and Alberta beef on the same menu.

Banff Avenue and Bear Street hold most of the restaurants, from casual pubs to fine dining, and patios open in summer. Après-ski is a ritual in winter, when bars fill with skiers coming off Norquay, Sunshine and Lake Louise. Alberta's legal drinking age is 18.

Self-catering is common among seasonal workers, campers and budget travellers, and the town has supermarkets as well as a bakery and cafés. Many visitors also eat in Canmore, a short drive down the valley, where prices are often lower. Banff has its own brewery and a distillery serving its own spirits.