Canmore

The Stoney Nakoda and other Treaty 7 nations hunted and travelled through the Bow Valley for thousands of years before the Canadian Pacific Railway laid its line through it in 1883. The place was officially named the following year by the railway director Donald A. Smith, after Malcolm III of Scotland, known as Canmore. Coal was found in the mountainsides, and from 1887 the mines became the reason for the town, after a coal-mining charter was granted in 1886 and the No. 1 mine opened, worked by miners who came from Europe and beyond.

Mining shaped the town for almost a century. The North-West Mounted Police had a barracks on Main Street by the 1890s, a Chinese cook named Ha Ling climbed the peak that now bears his name in 1896, and the Italian miner Lawrence Grassi built the trails to the lakes above the town that are also named after him. When Banff National Park's boundaries were fixed in 1930, Canmore lay just outside them, and its mines carried on while Banff lived from tourism. The last mine closed in 1979, and the town faced a bleak future.

The 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics saved it. The cross-country skiing and biathlon events were held at a new Nordic Centre just west of the town, and tourism grew until Canmore became a recreational destination and a commuter and second-home town. The population had reached almost 16,000 by 2021, new resort developments have spread under the Three Sisters, and the arguments over how much more the valley can take define its politics today.

Canmore is a mountain-sports town first. The Nordic Centre keeps it at the centre of Canadian cross-country skiing and biathlon, and Olympic athletes train on the same trails as local schoolchildren. Climbers come for the limestone of the Bow Valley and for the ice routes that form in winter in the surrounding valleys; mountain bikers and trail runners use the extensive trail systems around the town; and the valley has a long tradition of mountaineering and guiding that runs back to the railway era.

The arts have followed the people. The folk festival held in Centennial Park over the August long weekend since the late 1970s is Alberta's longest-running music festival, the town has galleries and a public art programme, and a mountain film and book festival is held in Banff each autumn. The Highland Games in September recall the town's Scottish name, and the mining years are remembered at the museum and in the Miners' Day Reunion each July.

The town's character comes from the tension between its two populations: the long-established families, many descended from miners, and the newer arrivals — Calgarians with weekend homes, retirees, remote workers and the young seasonal staff who run the restaurants. Everyone shares the valley with elk, deer, bears and cougars, and the etiquette of living beside wildlife — clean yards, leashed dogs, respect for closures — is a serious matter.

About 16,000 people live in Canmore permanently, and the town counts thousands more part-time residents who own second homes, and affordable housing is very hard to find. The economy runs on tourism and hospitality, construction, the Nordic Centre and sports organisations, small professional businesses and a sizeable number of people who commute to Calgary or work from home. Many service workers live in staff housing or share flats, and the town has built subsidised housing to keep them in the valley.

Residents live in the old grid near the river, in the subdivisions of Cougar Creek and the Benchlands north of the highway, and in the newer developments spreading east under the Three Sisters. Growth is the permanent argument: how many more homes the valley can hold, how to keep wildlife corridors open between the mountains and the river, and how to keep housing within reach of those who work in the town.

The day starts early and outdoors. Trails and the Nordic Centre fill before work, the river paths are the evening walk, and weekends bring the Calgary traffic along the highway. In winter the town is quieter and colder, with the Christmas weeks the exception. Wildfire smoke in late summer, the memory of the 2013 flood, when Cougar Creek swept away several homes, are the shared worries, alongside the cost of a house.

There is no dish of Canmore's own, but the town has built a reputation for eating better than its size suggests, helped by the Banff visitor trade and Calgary's weekend crowd. Main Street holds the concentration: bakeries and coffee shops that open early for the trail crowd, pubs serving burgers and poutine, Asian kitchens, and restaurants that lean on Alberta beef, bison, elk and other game, with trout and lamb alongside.

Alberta beef is the regional staple, and steak and burgers appear on most menus. Game meats — bison, elk and venison — are the dishes visitors look for, often served as burgers, stews or tenderloin. Bannock, the fried or baked bread adopted by Indigenous peoples across Canada, turns up on some menus, and Saskatoon berries, a prairie fruit, go into pies and preserves. Poutine, butter tarts and the Nanaimo bar are everywhere, as across the country.

The Grizzly Paw brewpub on Main Street serves its own beers, and the Canmore Uncorked food festival fills the restaurants with set-price menus, cooking classes and a long-table dinner each April. The coffee culture is strong — roasters and cafés serve the many people who work from the town or head out on the trails early, before the heat and the afternoon storms.