REALITY OF THE
MOUNTAIN UTOPIA
Everything a tourist does while visiting Banff National Park has an impact, including souvenir purchasing on Banff’s main street
For Marini Pauw, owning a business in a tourist town has no downfalls. Between meeting new people from all over the world and getting the opportunity to express her passion for cooking and baking, Pauw said she has no regrets.
This April will mark the 18th year since Pauw and her husband bought Evelyn’s Coffee Bar. The couple immigrated to Canada from Holland 30 years ago.
“It took half a year for the immigration,” Pauw said. “It was easier [to immigrate] than it is now and straight to Banff. No regrets.”
The original owner and namesake opened the business in 1992 and operated it for ten years before selling it to the Pauws. Three different versions of Evelyn’s Coffee Bar have existed in the past, but now only one store resides in Sundance Mall along Banff Avenue. Beverages, food and souvenirs are all available for purchase.
Business at the coffee bar begins early with a baker coming in to bake fresh muffins and a cook coming in around 7 a.m. to begin making soups, wraps, paninis and many other deli-style foods.
With ten staff members, both full and part-time, Pauw has her hands full interviewing new employees due to the fast turn-around. Employees who aren’t local to Banff work at Evelyn’s for around six months.
“Right now, a couple girls who started working for me last year in May wanted to stay for the winter because it’s so beautiful here,” Pauw said.
Pictured here: Marini Pauw
The Price of Living in Banff
Housing in Banff is at an extreme premium. The town hasn’t been able to escape its zero per cent vacancy rate, so rent is pushing people to the point where sex is being optioned as a method of payment.
According to a Fall 2018 Bow Valley Labour Market Review by the Bow Valley Job Resource Centre, the average rent for a 1-bedroom in Banff is $1,447 a month, while a 2-bedroom is $2,117. For comparison, the average rent for a 1-bedroom in Calgary is $1,049, while a 2-bedroom is $1,262, according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp.
For serving staff from Calgary or Australia who want a taste of the mountain lifestyle and who average just below minimum wage, the steep rent looks a hefty task – one that results in high-turnover and a graveyard of uncollected letters at the post office.
Despite the shorter employment time, Pauw said having good staff has allowed her to make plans and travel.
“With good staff you have more freedom. I can go visit my family in Holland, so I go back a couple times a year.”
Working with employees from all over the world also allows for some wholesome moments when in a tourist town. Employees who struggle with English are pleasantly surprised by tourists from their own country.
“I have two girls from Germany working for me … they are so happy when people from their own country talk to them,” Pauw said.
Congestion Woes
The coffee shop sees a mix of regulars and tourists most of the year, but in the busier months, tourists take over.
“We have locals that come in every day, but then in the summer the locals go away because they don’t want to stay in line,” Pauw said.
Long lines that cause locals to avoid their favourite coffee shops aren’t the only thing they are critical about. Jason Darrah, the director of communications and marketing for the Town of Banff, said traffic congestion is something they’re working to improve.
“We often say we don’t have a visitor problem, we sometimes have a car problem — too many vehicles,” Darrah said.
Several municipalities, including Canmore, Cochrane, the Town of Banff, the City of Calgary and ID-9 (improvement district 9, which is Lake Louise), partnered to commission a mass feasibility study that looked at mass transit between Calgary and Banff.
“The idea is could we bring a new daily bus service or daily passenger rail service that would stop people from getting in their car,” Darrah said. “If 50 per cent of visitors to Banff are from Calgary in the summer, 50 per cent come by vehicle. If we could shift them to taking mass transit that would be great.”
Even with an updated transit service, there’s no guarantee tourists will leave their cars behind. Darrah said that people from around the world are really quick to take public transit, but Calgarians mostly stick to their vehicles.
“They maybe need a little bit of a nudge to either leave their car in Calgary, or when they come here to look at these other shuttles, free services and bicycle rentals just to change and enjoy the park a little bit more.”
According to the Town of Banff’s Summer 2018 Transportation Overview, most of Parks Canada’s initiatives last year were seasonal shuttles to popular spots, as well transit between Calgary, Canmore, Banff and Lake Louise.
Traffic and parking have been a primary concern for the Town of Banff for years, and they’ve continued to introduce new changes and tools yearly. But 56 days in July and August of 2018 exceeded their 24,000 vehicles per day threshold.
“A limited land base and Banff’s commitment to being an environmental role model means we cannot build our way out of traffic congestion and lack of parking,” the report states. “Our community must embrace more creative solutions to managing traffic volumes, particularly at peak travel times.”
Regardless, Banff is getting closer to building a 500-stall intercept parking lot on the west side of town that will provide shuttle services downtown. Liricon Capital owns the Banff Train Station and the 32 acres around it, of which owner, Jan Waterous said her and her husband want to make an eco-transit hub for the town.
“We're really excited because we think it's something that will not just benefit our community today, but for future generations because visitation is going up, parking and congestion is going up, and so the time to really start making changes and how people move around the park is today and that's why we got involved,” she said.
Liricon also intends to bring passenger rail back to Banff, and a recent study by municipalities in the Bow Valley said it’s feasible – as long as provincial and federal governments help out with funding. But Waterous believes the future of Banff is in the hands of the private sector that gets involved, not the government.
The Town of Banff also wants to build an intercept lot on the east side of town, but the “limited land base” is an obstacle. Their website said they’re in conversation with the federal government and Parks Canada to find the land.
The Dilemma
In a tourist town, less visitation that benefits the locals means less business. “In November it’s always really slow,” said Pauw. “It’s just the locals because the ski hills aren’t open.”
During December, the streets become busier with Christmas and the week of New Years, and Pauw added that February starts to get busier during the weekends because of the skiing. This year “it’s slow now because it’s just too cold,” she said.
Bella Burton moved to Banff in April from Ontario and works at Melissa’s Missteak. Burton said that to live in Banff you must embrace the tourists or you risk becoming bitter towards them.
“You’ve got to put yourself in the mindset that there’s tourists here and even though there’s a lot of them,” she said. “If they weren’t here, I wouldn’t have a job.”
