Golf Links At Banff Travel Brochure – 1900

A Canadian Pacific travel guide from 1900 touts the Golf Links at Banff.

Banff has enough mountains to depend on nothing else. But Banff doesn’t.  There’s the big blue swimming pool.  There’s the tally-ho and the automobile  and the mountain pony. There’s the motor launch and the fishing rod, and the zoo, and the Buffalo Park. There’s the smoothest floor in the world to dance on, and, down by the river, though up in the clouds, there’s the sportingest of  golf courses.

The guide apparently was produced by the Canadian Pacific Railway to entice tourists. In 1883, hot springs were discovered at the location by Canadian Pacific Railway workers on Sulfur Mountain. George Stephen, president of Canadian Pacific named the area Banff, after his birthplace in Banff, Scotland. To promote and support the railway, the Canadian Pacific built a series of resort hotels along the rail line, with Banff being touted as an international destination spa. In 1885 and 1887, land was set aside around the area to begin Canada’s National Park System.

Today, Banff remains one of Canada’s most popular destinations.

In addition to Banff, the brochure touts hotels, lodges, hiking, camping and activities along Lake Louise,  The Bow River, Mount Assiniboine, Paradise Valley, Emerald Lake and the Yoho, Lake O’Hara, Fraser Canyon, the Coquihalla Valley; the apparently fabulous Vancouver Hotel with its roof gardens and the Empress Hotel in Victoria.