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Things To Do in Banff

Choosing the best things to do in Banff, Alberta Canada is no easy task because this amazing region of North American wilderness is a 4-season recreation wonderland. Banff offers historic European-style mountain chateaus, hot springs spas, incredible sight seeing and wildlife viewing, wilderness trekking, mountain climbing, world-class skiing and much more. From extreme snowboarding on towering peaks accessed only by helicopter to elegant dining with majestic mountain views, Banff has it all.

The town of Banff is situated 128km west of Calgary Alberta where the Trans-Canada Highway climbs 1,383 meters as it crosses the Alberta Rockies. This tiny 3.93-square-km village is the highest altitude municipality in Canada. A center of Native American culture for millennia, the area that became Banff was first settled by Europeans in the early 1880s. At that time, the Canadian Pacific transcontinental railway route was being built along the Bow River valley, a natural passageway west through the rugged mountain ranges to British Columbia and the port of Vancouver.

Banff started out as railroad work camp named Siding 29 and set on a siding built near a proposed tunnel site in the area where the Bow River turns west to enter the steep mountain valleys. On November 25 1883, Scottish-born Canadian businessman Donald Smith, who along with his cousin George Stephens was a cofounding financier of the Canadian transcontinental railway project, renamed the site Banff to commemorate his birth place in Scotland. The tiny railway-stop town grew to 300 residents in its first year.

Early expeditions to the region had encountered natural hot springs on the slope of Sulphur Mountain overlooking the south bank of the Bow River. The springs were likely used by Native Americans for thousands of years, but gained national attention in 1883 when three Canadian Pacific Railway workers stumbled on the lowest of the springs, the Cave and Basin spring. They built a small cabin and hoped to commercialize the spring, but arguments over rights of first discovery led to a Canadian government order that created the Banff Hot Springs Reserve around the site in 1885. In 1887, Banff Hot Springs Reserve was expanded to 673 square km to become Rocky Mountain Park, Canada’s first National Park.

George Stephens became the first president of the Canadian Pacific Railway and held that position until 1888 when he appointed railway general manager and vice president William Cornelius Van Horne to the presidency. Van Horne envisioned a string of grand British-style rail stop hotels across Canada, beginning with the Windsor Hotel in Montreal and ending with the Hotel Vancouver on the western edge of the continent. The hotels were to be landmark buildings intended to draw visitors from abroad to travel Canada via the railway.

The Banff Springs Hotel, originally a wooden structure completed in 1888 and at first open in summer only, gave visitors a European-style hot springs spa experience. Tourists soon flocked to Banff to enjoy the healing waters and the beauty of the natural surroundings, and a much larger chateau-style hotel was constructed in stages between 1911 and 1928. The hotel became one of the highlights of the rich cultural and natural history that earned Banff its 1984 designation as a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site.

Today, Banff is a bustling village filled with chateau-style lodgings and many places to eat, drink, and shop along with the headquarters of dozens of Banff tour and activity providers. The focus is on enjoying the natural beauty of the surroundings along with outdoor and mountain sports in the incredibly scenic settings of Banff National Park. Across all seasons of the year, lovers of the outdoors, fans of classic mountain chateau lodgings, and extreme adrenaline thrill seekers alike can find a host of great things to do in Banff. Cool Banff is the ultimate Banff guide and one-stop booking shop for the best things to do in Banff.

Banff Attractions

The awe-inspiring mountain setting is the most obvious of Banff attractions. Steep mountain cliff faces and the peaks of Mt. Rundle, Mt. Norquay, and Cascade Mountain directly overshadow the town, and the massive snow-capped Canadian Rockies loom in the background. Banff visitors are sure to be awestruck by the grandeur and sheer power of nature. And of course, opportunities to enjoy a multitude of outdoor activities including mountain and forest hiking, fishing, river running, skiing, climbing, mountain biking, golf and more are immediately at hand right in town or minutes away at most.

Banff village is a small, quaint, and friendly town with everything an easy walk or short bus ride away. The main thoroughfare, Banff Avenue, is lined with a mix of restaurants and nightspots, boutiques, stores, souvenir shops, museums, galleries, and château-style hotels. Outdoor gear buffs will love Banff—equipment and apparel of every type are available here and shopping is a simple matter of taking a pleasant stroll through the downtown streets, making Banff walking tours a lot of fun.

The Hudson’s Bay Department store is a Canadian classic, and the SkiBig3 Adventure Hub across the street is the place to find the resort passes and gear rentals needed to enjoy one of Banff’s top attractions: over 8,000 acres of skiable terrain at the Banff Sunshine, Lake Louise, and Mt. Norquay ski resorts. Also look for the free shuttle from downtown Banff to the Banff Gondola terminal, where thrills await as the gondola climbs to 2,281 metres on Sanson’s Peak of Sulphur Mountain to deliver sweeping views of six mountain ranges and the Bow Valley.

Designated as a municipality in 1990, Banff was the first of only two Canadian municipalities to be incorporated inside a national park (The Municipality of Jasper, in Jasper National Park, was incorporated in 2001.). This unique location in the heart of Banff National Park means the town is surrounded by 1,641,027 acres of wilderness that comprise Banff National Park and draw around 4 million visitors to the area every year.

Over 1,600 km of wilderness hiking trails traverse the park; many, like the 26.7km Banff Legacy Trail running along the north bank of the Bow River between Canmore town and Banff village, are also scenic cycling and mountain biking routes. Wildlife viewing is excellent, with elk, mule deer, and white-tail deer particularly plentiful and often seen in the valley meadows near town. Spectacular species including cougar, lynx, grizzly and black bear, moose, and wolverine can be spotted in the backcountry.

Lake Minnewanka, 20 minutes from town, is a long, beautiful fjord-like body of water popular for swimming, kayaking, fishing, motor boating, scuba diving, and boat tours up the lake to Devil’s Gap. An hour further up the Bow River along the Trans-Canada Highway, Lake Louise is renowned for its breath-taking alpine beauty. Cold and clear, it is perfect for canoeing serene waters that reflect snow-capped mountains with mirror-like perfection. The Plain of the Six Glaciers Trail takes hikers on a loop around Lake Louise and up a glacial valley where a rest stop can be made at the Lake Agnes Teahouse, a rustic log cabin set on the mountainside.

Recommendations: The Best Things to Do in Banff

A stay in a classic mountain resort lodge, updated to the highest standards of modern luxury, is definitely high on the list of best things to do in Banff. The original Banff Springs grand railway hotel was destroyed by fire in 1926 and has been replaced and renovated several times since. The hotel was designated as a National Historic Site of Canada in 1988, and now, as the 745-room Fairmont Banff Springs, continues to draw an international clientele. The Fairmont Banff Springs is set at an altitude of 1,414 metres (4,639 ft) and presents guests with unparalleled mountain vistas along with an exceptionally luxurious one-of-a-kind mountain chateau experience. The Banff Springs is the perfect base for explorations of the town nestled along the river below, or trips further into the park to such scenic wonders as Moraine Lake, Bow Falls, or the Crowfoot Glacier. Then, after a day outdoors, 12 world-class restaurants provide choices for every taste, while the historic Rundle Bar is the perfect place to toast the day while listening to some live music.

Skiing has long been a top draw at Banff, and the Banff Sunshine, Lake Louise, and Mt. Norquay resorts deliver a winter average of 30 feet of some of North America’s driest, lightest snow. The resorts are spread over 8,000 acres of terrain, with 2 gondolas and 26 chairlifts providing access to runs ranging from children’s play slopes to sheer, cliff-banded vertical drops like the Delirium Dive freeride zone at Sunshine Village that are available only to properly prepared and equipped extreme riders. Mount Norquay towers directly above Banff village, and along with skiing, snowboarding, and tubing in winter, offers summer fun with chairlift sightseeing rides, hiking and mountain biking trails, and an exciting via ferrata rock climbing route. The slopes of Banff Sunshine and Lake Louise are easily reached from Banff aboard free shuttle busses, placing the combined Banff SkiBig3 resort complex just behind British Columbia’s Whistler-Blackcomb as the second largest ski area in North America. A Banff ski trip makes any serious skier’s bucket list, and skiing along with other winter sports like cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, ice-climbing, and dog sledding is absolutely one of the best things to do in Banff.

A soak (or two) in the hot springs that first attracted human visitors to the Banff area thousands of years ago is of course a required feature of any Banff visit. Sulphur Mountain that overlooks Banff from the southwest got its name when three of the workers who were pushing the Canadian Pacific rail line through the mountains followed a steam plume to discover hot water flowing from a cave on the lower flank of the mountain. Those original springs, named the Cave and Basin Hot Springs, are now a national historic site and closed to bathers, but visitors can enjoy tours, living history activities, and a high-definition movie covering the history of the springs. For a soothing soak after a day of mountain sports, the Banff Upper Hot Springs are just 10 minutes away up the slopes of Sulphur Mountain on Mountain Avenue. Water temperature depends on the season: winter flow can be as hot as 47°C (116°F), while in the spring, melting snow increases the flow and cools the water to around 27°C (81°F). The outdoor pools at the Upper Hot Springs retain their historic flavor and inspiring mountain views in a modern spa setting complete with changing rooms, a café, and a nearby resort hotel.

In the end, the best thing to do in Banff is simply to go there. The town is one-of-a-kind because it is very unusual to find world-class skiing and so many other resort activities and amenities available in the true wilderness setting offered by a protected national park. You will never see and do everything that Banff has to offer, but Cool Banff is here to help you design an ideal visit that packs as much as possible into a visit customized to cover your favorite Banff tours and activities. Our online concierge service makes itinerary planning a fun part of your vacation, and booking takes just seconds with our Cool Banff secure online reservation technology. Your vouchers, tour details, and all other important information are delivered instantly to any tablet or smart phone, and to help with any questions, expert customer service team members are standing by just a phone call, email, text, or chat away. Welcome to Cool Banff!