guest post by Elegant Resorts

Banff, in the beautiful Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada is one of the worlds best places for luxury ski holidays. It has a long snow ski season and some of the world's coldest and driest snow. This makes Banff a reliable place for a ski holiday in a magical place that is one of the largest ski areas in Canada. There are glaciers, high mountain peaks, and valleys where you will spot a variety of wildlife.

When looking for luxury skiing in Banff the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel has such grandeur that it is known as "The Castle in the Rockies". The luxury and individualized service enhances its majestic beauty and comfort. Modeled after a Scottish Baronial castle, it has reigned supreme among hotels for over a century.

The fifth floor was renovated and turned into a Gold Floor with elegance, tasteful and comfortable furnishings, and gorgeous mountain views. The Presidential Suite is in the top tower and is reached by a private glass elevator. Unusual features include a baby grand piano, a spiral staircase, a crystal chandelier, wrap-around windows for a spectacular view and a canopy bed decorated with original European tapestries.

You can be pampered at the world-famous 36,000 square foot Willow Stream Spa where the mineral waters are regarded as sacred and therapeutic whilst the Alpine air is supposed to have healing powers. The three waterfall pools are also a sight to behold and there is also the luxury of whirlpools, saunas, private steam rooms, and excellent massages and facials.

Among the twelve restaurants are the five diamond Banffshire Club which offers a truly elegant dining experience with fresh innovative cuisine. Afternoon tea can be soothing as you sit and view the Bow Valley.

This is also a perfect location for a fairy tale romantic wedding. There are different sizes and styles of rooms to choose from including meeting rooms to ballrooms or even the use of the Bow Valley Terrace. The menu choices go from simple cocktails to an elaborate banquet so that you can plan your wedding according to your available budget.

There are three world-class ski areas (Lake Louise, Norquay, and Sunshine Village) covering 7,700 acres that can be easily reached by resort shuttles. There are runs from nursery slopes all the way to double-black diamond ones. At all times you can enjoy the magnificent mountain views and the feelings of a spiritual experience.

You can also go on sleigh rides, a gondola ride, go tobogganing, ice skating, dog sledding, snowboarding, golfing, or take a horse and carriage tour. There is great shopping in the area and within walking distance as well as over 100 restaurants with a selection of international cuisine including Mediterranean, Mexican with a Wild West theme, Italian, Korean, and even an Old Spaghetti Factory, ribs, burgers, and good steaks. There is an active night life with live music and dancing which includes an Irish pub with a variety of beers.

You can also enjoy the Banff Centre for Performing Arts, many offerings of Indian art and souvenirs, hot springs pools, museums, and galleries. Snowboard or ski lessons are offered, especially for beginners.

Photo Credits: Foyer, Meal

The tiny population (around 500) of the desolate township of Churchill share a love-hate relationship with polar bears. Accessible only via a three-hour air flight or overnight rail journey, this northerly outpost is enthused by the dollars associated with the wildlife-loving visitors (almost everyone who visits Churchill comes to see the polar bears) but not necessarily by the bears themselves. Signs near the edge of town with stylised pictures of polar bears warn visitors to not walk beyond the centre of town.



Churchill carefully police for rogue bears that wander into the township scouring streets and bins for a few morsels of food unwilling to wait the last few weeks for the freeze. These are darted and carted off to the “polar bear prison”, a large hangar-like corrugated iron compound. The bears are kept until the bay freezes when they are transferred via helicopter far out to the ice fields. Sadly, those impounded for the third time are euthanised in the interests of the population’s safety.

Churchill has all the feel of a remote town. The main street is wide and featureless with houses insulated against the savage winter cold and the summer mosquito plagues. The odd brave sole quickly bustles from the comfort of one building to another, snuggling their face into the cuddly warmth of their jacket. Though the thermometer shows -15°C, the biting wind chills it to -40°C. The best cold weather gear seems defenceless against such Arctic conditions.

Apart from the extraordinary polar bears, there is little else to encourage visiting this remote town. A small single room Eskimo museum contains some excellent historic handicrafts, a nearby property offers husky rides on wheeled sleds to keep their dogs physically fit and an old fort reminds of past times when the French and English scuffled for this historic fur trading area.

The short stumpy spruce trees are a sight, much shorter than normal from the harsh permafrost conditions and suffering from a strange condition called snow pruning, where the tree only grows branches on the side protected from the strong prevailing winds. Like a demented forestry experiment, it is somewhat disconcerting seeing clumps of trees bare on one side but with branches on the other.

Leaving the toasty warmth of the lounge’s roaring fire and braving the biting evening cold (not to mention the fear of bears wandering the dingy streets) may offer the lights of the aurora borealis. Around midnight one evening during my stay, wishing to find an area free from lights but not wanting to wander far from the safety of the central town, the clear night sky lit weakly to dancing green bands of light from this strange celestial phenomenon. Full on, the aurora must provide a stunning lightshow.

Churchill is a long pilgrimage to the northern wilds of Canada but well worthwhile to bear witness to one of nature’s great travel wonders as giant polar bears hover on the shores of Hudson Bay awaiting the onset of winter and a chance to hunt seals. It is a rewarding and uplifting experience to stand within a few feet of one of the planet’s great creatures, enjoying the antics of the cubs or staring into the eyes of a fully-grown adult, all from the safety of an oversized buggy.

Other Canada Posts
Polar Bear Splendour (Churchill)
The Twenty Dollar View (Lake Louise)
The Spiritual Medicine Lake
Johnston Canyon

Even in the relative safety of a large vehicle, a polar bear is a chilling, awe-inspiring animal. When only a pane of reinforced glass separates you from the world’s largest land-based carnivore, a strange mix of fear and excitement sets in.

Every year around mid-October, migrating polar bears congregate in their hundreds for a handful of weeks in the northerly Canadian town of Churchill, awaiting Hudson Bay to freeze over. Purpose built tundra buggies, a kind of bus perched on a high-clearance, all-terrain truck chassis, ferry snap-happy tourists out onto the shores of the bay to witness these endangered arctic giants.

Some bears sniff around the buggy hoping for a tasty treat while others content themselves sleeping lazily on the crusty snow-laden ground. The occasional athletic bear leaps onto its hind legs, lifting itself to window level, the scratching on the metallic sides echoing uneasily through the buggy.


Mothers shepherd their cubs cautiously while younger adults stage mock fights, these solitary animals bought so close together waiting for the biting northerly cold to freeze the bay. The young cubs are a scream, their boundless energy and uncertain footing on the icy ground creating plenty of entertainment to those on the buggy. Once the bay is frozen, the polar bears can leave the shores and hunt for their favoured ring seals, the rich fresh meat rebuilding their fat reserves lost over the summer months.

Shallow lakes have already frozen, a mothers showing her cubs technique for walking on thin ice, cautiously spreading her weight over a wide area by widely stretching her legs in an exaggerated sliding walk like an oversized spider climbing a window. The bumbling cubs eagerly stroll behind like cotton balls blowing in the wind seemingly oblivious to the threats of the barely formed ice layer and paying scant attention to their mother’s lessons.

There are good chances that you’ll spot other creatures that inhabit this desolate, chilly environment. With all dressed in a standard uniform of white to camouflage into the surroundings, arctic foxes compete with arctic owls and flocks of ptarmigan exploring the desert-like tundra for food.

Read more about Churchill and the polar bears.

Photo Source: Tundra Buggy

Each month a group of travel bloggers (including Lifecruiser and Travel Expert(a)) conduct a virtual cocktail party where writers highlight a notable drink from their travels or experiences. With a recent visit to scenic Lake Louise deep in the Rockies, this month's drinks takes us to chilly Canada.

The Bloody Caesar is a Canadian adaption to the internationally renown Bloody Mary. It is made by adding a measure of vodka to a salt-rimmed glass. Add a few drops of worcestershire sauce and tabasco, a little lime juice and a shake of pepper. Top with Clamato, a tinned mixture of tomato juice and clam broth that I have only seen for sale in North America.

Bloody Caesars are tasty, slightly spicy, refreshing drinks that I' ve only ever seen served in Canada. I've only tasted a few and they were a real favourite.

So a hearty cheers for this seafood flavoured cocktail at this month's party.

Other Drinks of the Month
Pisco Sour
Singapore Sling
Chimay Beer
Becherovka

With familiar glittering scenes that grace Canadian brochures, the travel wonder of Lake Louise is sublime beauty on a large scale. Though tremendously popular in the warmer months overwhelming the tiny village, the three main natural sights of Lake Louise should be on any Rockies agenda.

With the grandiose Lake Louise Château perches on its shoreline, the emerald Lake Louise offers perfect reflections of the giant amphitheatre of surrounding mountains and tumbling Victoria Glacier. With a path that circumnavigates the lake, this deep brooding lake rarely reaches more than a few degrees above freezing point.

Even more scenically stunning is nearby Moraine Lake (top photo). The rich turquoise blue of the shimmering waters, caused by rock particles ground into dust over the years by glaciers and washed into the lake, reflect a grand range of ten jagged snow-capped peaks (all over 3000 metres). Trails run around the edge of the lake and through forests of pine trees but the best view is just left of the car park. Some seek the solitude of colourful canoes to help soak the immense beauty of this wonderful landscape while others just sit on the shoreline in silent admiration. Arrays of wildflowers add colour to the lush grassy fields.

The outlook has been nicknamed The Twenty Dollar View in a claim that greatly undervalues its beauty. A green and white picture that does the scene little justice graced the back of the Canadian twenty dollar bill for many years.

To get some appreciation of the entire Rockies vista around Lake Louise, a chairlift climbs Mount Whitehorn to a height of around 2000 metres. Lake Louise and its oversized hotel hide in one corner of this superb panorama enjoyable from various vantage points including the sun-soaked deck of a small café and display area. Various paths and trails crisscross this winter ski area offering views across the conifer-covered valley and to the splendid mountains, including Mt Quadra whose four peaks have the rough appearance of teeth jutting from a jaw.

Occasional bears are reported around the Lake Louise area, as are chipmunks, squirrels and boisterous birds.

If you are flying to Canada and the spectacular Rockies, include Lake Louise on your itinerary. However you choose to explore the travel wonder of Lake Louise, it is a place to take time to soak and admire the stunning panoramic alpine views and the vivid blue glacial lakes, and to walk and commune with nature on a grand scale.