My father was born in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and my mother, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They met in Ottawa and were married in 1928. My brother was born in 1930 and I in 1933, and we moved to Three Rivers, Quebec, when I was two months old. When I was three, our family moved to Dalhousie, New Brunswick, until 1944 when we moved to Ottawa, where I remained most of my life, aside from spending four years in Kingston, Ontario.
My first contact with the west was in the summer of 1955 when I worked at Emerald Lake Chalet near Field, B.C. (the resort at that time consisted of cosy little cabins, and was known as “the rustic member of the C.P.R.”). It was a wonderful summer, and my greatest enjoyment was the introduction to horseback riding. The wrangler then was Johnny Boychuk. Before being allowed to ride these horses, we had to corral our horse of choice, saddle it properly (so the saddle didn’t end up under the horse’s belly!) and ride it appropriately. On returning to the corral, we would unsaddle the horse and rub it down. One certainly gained respect for these beautiful creatures by caring for them. We would usually ride around the lake but on one occasion, we rode the horses to town, tied them to the hitching post at our favourite watering hole, and went in for a beverage.
Ken and I were married in August of 1958, and raised three children in Ottawa. Over the years, Ken and our children had heard so much about my summer in the west in 1955, that in 1979, we took a camping trip from Jasper to Banff and our children loved every minute of the trip – so much so, that after graduation, all three migrated to the west – one son to Fort McMurray, our daughter and her husband to Calgary, and our other son, to Banff and Calgary.
From 1980 to 1994, we managed to spend a minimum of two weeks each year in the Banff area, downhill and cross-country skiing, and of course, visiting our children and two grandchildren. After retiring in 1993, we spent a winter in the Canmore-LakeLouise areas and decided it was time to move west, Ken for the skiing and me for the family! This we did in 1994, and we haven’t looked back.
I can no longer ski but there are many things to do in and around Canmore, so one is never bored. We still head east to our little cabin in Quebec (across the river from Ottawa) for the summer months, and our Alberta family always manage to spend a week or two with us there. Our grandchildren enjoy our little island, thus becoming the third generation to enjoy the outdoor life.
Canmore is our home now and I could not imagine living elsewhere. We have the best of all worlds, a friendly little town (not so little now), our western mountains and eastern lakes, and as active a lifestyle as we choose. Life is good.
Viv Le Mesurier
In Canmore Seniors at the Summit, ed. Canmore Seniors Association, 2000, p.161.
