Born in Calgary in 1926, my earliest memories of the Bow Valley date to the late 1930’s when, with my parents, we would make the long motor trek to Banff to visit with an old friend of the family, artist Nick de Grandmaison. One memory that remains etched in my brain is of staying overnight at Nick’s house up on the Cave and Basin Road. Nick painted portraits of local North American Indians that were so life-like they almost seemed to speak. I slept on the sofa in the living room. Standing around the walls were many paintings in various stages of completion. I awoke in the middle of the night with the light from a full moon flooding the room and illuminating the paintings which made me feel that I was encircled by a band of Indians. I think this experience awakened in me an appreciation of what a powerful impact visual art can have on one.
Our trips to Banff often took the form of a photographic expedition if the weather and the light was right. My dad, who was a professional photographer, loved to photograph the beautiful Bow Valley. I am fortunate to have some of his photographs of the Banff and Canmore areas in our home today. As an early teenager, I remember working with my dad – photographing the area and being fascinated by the grandeur of the mountains. Sometimes we would break the long journey from Calgary by taking a bathroom break and getting a milkshake in Canmore. At that time, I remember Canmore as a rather drab mining town – a good place for a brief stop but I wouldn’t want to live there.
After finishing school in Calgary, I studied medicine at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, following which I took post-graduate training in psychiatry at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. I returned to Calgary in 1962 to practise child psychiatry.
Many years later, I re-met my present wife, Maureen, at a high school reunion in Calgary. We had gone together in high school – she has a photograph of the group at her sixteenth birthday party which includes me. After we met again, it wasn’t long before we decided that a life together was meant to be.
Maureen was born in Banff and part of our getting together again included many trips to the Bow Valley. In 1987, just prior to the Olympics, we investigated buying property in Canmore because we both loved the Bow Valley. Over the next few years as I approached retirement from medical practice, the idea of moving to Canmore continued to intrigue us. After some investigation, we almost immediately fell in love with a lot which we purchased in 1995 and on which we planned to build our dream home. This became a reality in 1997 when we moved here at Christmas time. This has been one of the best decisions we have ever made.
My early childhood memory of Canmore being an okay place to stop on the way to Banff, but I wouldn’t want to live there, could not have been more wrong. We have made many friends through our membership at the Legion, the Canmore Golf Club, the Seniors Association and the Canmore Arts Guild. In addition, we are blessed with terrific neighbours and have found the business people in town to be a pleasure to deal with. We take an active part in many activities in Canmore, as well as events at the Banff Centre and the Whyte Museum in Banff. After having lived here only three years, we already feel like one of the “valley people”.
The peace and tranquility, the pure air, the general lifestyle available surrounded by the grandeur of the mountains all add up to this being the place where I want to be.
Maureen and Jack Fair
In Canmore Seniors at the Summit, ed. Canmore Seniors Association, 2000, p. 71-72
