Banff’s legacy

Located within Banff National Park, which is on the present-day territories of Treaties 6, 7 and 8, as well as the Métis Homeland, this is a special place with important and longstanding cultural significance to many Indigenous peoples. Many Indigenous nations value the Cave and Basin as a sacred and spiritual place where people have gathered for generations and cultural ceremonies are still practiced today. 

In 1883, brothers William and Tom McCardell and fellow Canadian Pacific Railway worker Frank McCabe wrote to the Canadian government laying claim to the hot springs at the Cave and Basin. The government, needing to generate revenue to finance the completion of the railroad west, also saw the potential these medicinal waters had for attracting tourists and denied McCardell and McCabe’s claim.

Arguments over the ownership of the springs escalated into a legal battle and the government solved the dispute by creating a 26 km2 Hot Springs Reserve around the Cave and Basin in 1885. The area was legally protected by the Crown via an Order in Council dictating that the springs were “reserved from sale or settlement or squatting….”

On June 23, 1887, the Hot Springs Reserve was expanded to encompass 665 km2 under the Rocky Mountains Park Act and officially became Rocky Mountains National Park – the first national park in Canada. This Act acknowledged that natural areas should be included among the country’s sources of wealth and that the parks should belong to the people of Canada.

This first national park eventually became Banff National Park through the National Parks Act of 1930. In addition to this flagship park, Canada now has 48 national parks, 171 national historic sites  administered by Parks Canada, 5 national marine conservation areas, and 1 national urban park in Canada which constitutes the largest system of protected places in the world. 

Indigenous Peoples play an essential role in protecting and conserving the lands, waters, and ice in the region now known as Canada, which has been their home for thousands of years. However, in many places, Parks Canada’s actions have cut or severely altered Indigenous Peoples’ long-standing relationships and sacred responsibilities for the lands, waters, and ice that have determined their identities and influenced their cultures and languages. Parks Canada is committed to a system of national heritage places that recognizes and honours the historical and contemporary contributions of Indigenous peoples, their histories and cultures, as well as the special relationships Indigenous peoples have with ancestral lands, waters and ice.