I’ve been researching and writing a book on the history of Lake Louise for the past couple of years. Much has been written about the beauty of Lake Louise, but no one has to this point published a book devoted to local history. Much has been written about the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, and I cover the development of that hotel, but I also spent endless hours at various archives, talking with long-time locals, and chasing leads that uncovered many interesting stories. Sometimes the story was right in front of me – our kids go to school here in Banff with the descendants of Tom Wilson, the first European to lay eyes on Lake Louise, so delving into that element was easy. But in many cases, research would send me off in a direction I never imagined. For example, the first settlement along the rail line through Lake Louise was named Holt City; through many hours of sleuthing I traced a descendant of the original Holt, who had a “shoebox” filled with photos from the era that we were kindly given permission to publish in this book.
Lake Louise Past to Present was released by Summerthought Publishing in June 2018.
