The Canadian Rockies are filled with stories of adventure and adrenaline, hope and heartache, and of course- love. And while each tale from the trail holds a special place in our hearts, this Valentine’s Day we want to highlight one of the most cherished and classic love stories out of Banff National Park.

From its first introduction to the Banff area by Scandinavian Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) workers and Swiss mountaineering guides, skiing has grown to be the very heartbeat and pulse of Canadian Rockies culture. Skiers may have traded in their pea coats and wooden skis for Gore Tex shells and the perfect camber, but the spirit of the sport remains in Canada’s first national park.

Once bustling centres of industry, these townsites were filled with dreamers and doers, plans and prospects. Today, very little remains of them all.

Many ski towns once started with an entirely different industry in mind: mining. Abby Cooper clips in to explore the relics of the mines in Fernie and Kimberley, B.C., linking turns as much as linking together the stories of a bygone era.

High up on the flanks of Fossil Ridge in Yoho National Park lies the Burgess Shale Formation, a bed of rock so significant it has been catapulted to international acclaim. Why? Perfectly preserved amidst those layers of black shale are rare and ancient specimens that give us clues about the history of life – and help us make sense of life as we know it today.

“We don’t always think of our own local history as necessarily being of any greater importance than just to whoever is living here at the time.” Colleen Skidmore, curator of This Wild Spirit at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, gives us insights into the legacy of the women who were pioneering explorers in the Rockies and why their trials and triumphs still resonate with us today.

Have you ever wondered what it was like to walk the streets of Banff Avenue with the original establishments and shops? Or how modern ski events compare to those from fifty years ago? This winter we teamed up with the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies to discover just that in our #RockiesThrowback series: the settings, people, and events that made up Canadian Rockies mountain culture of long-gone eras and shaped our culture into what it is today.

The Banff National Park East Gate holds a special significance for many people who come through it. And thanks to Annie Staple, there is an importance not only to the protected lands that lay beyond, but also to the history of the gates and the timber archway that once indicated the park’s eastern boundary. Here is the remarkable story of the park’s first gatekeeper, and why you should take a moment to think of Annie the next time you pass through.