Canmore and Banff (Alberta, Canada) 2026

The end of summer was marked by an adventure to Banff National Park and surrounding areas in Alberta, Canada with my family. It was an amazingly beautiful adventure filled with teasing autumn weather, stunning views and scenery, the smell of towering pines, and family memories to last a lifetime.

Nestled within the vast Canadian Rockies, Banff was formerly a railroad town, named in 1884 by the Canadian-Pacific railroad president George Stephen after his birthplace in Scotland (within the historic county of Bannfshire), although the first nations have been occupying the area for far longer. Banff National Park is Canada’s first and oldest National Park.

The landscape is known for the mountains, of course, but also alpine lakes that were an unreal turquoise color from the glaciers making their way through the region, hot springs that smell awful (sulfur), forests that bring about the best evergreen fragrance, winding rivers and creeks, crashing waterfalls, an ice field larger than Vancouver and Calgary, wildlife that may be best witnessed from a vehicle, and more indescribable magic by Mother Nature.

We did not see any grizzly bears, for better or for worse—but this is just a glimpse of what I saw and captured with my camera: