Bankhead2

Bankhead...2

Many people opted to move, including their homes to Banff, seven kilometres southwest. Many of the buildings were torn down until nothing was left except scores of foundations. However, in recent years, Parks Canada officials in the national park has developed a wide range of interpretive services at the site for ghost towners and tourists. Visitors can walk along well-groomed trails at both Upper Bankhead (residential area) and Lower Bankhead (mine site) and view the ruins and other scattered remains of the town.

Government officials have also built a fascinating educational and historical exhibit in the old transformer building, which includes the area’s geology, the mining operation, and community life.

A foundation has split open; inviting the park's vegetation to reclaim soil it first lost more than a century ago.

Above centre and right: The foundations from several of the old mine buildings can still be scene throughout the area of the town known as Lower Bankhead.
Upper Bankhead was the community's residential section.

After more than seven decades of being a playground to the mountain ghosts, much of Bankhead's ruins have given over to the park's lush vegetation.

Trees take firm root in a former coke oven.

There are about half a dozen or so former residents of Bankhead still alive in the Bow Valley, including in the world-famous resort town of Banff. Louis Trono, the town of Banff’s much-loved story teller and big band musician, is still writing a column for the local Banff newspaper at the age of 90. His tales of the pioneer life in Bankhead and the region remind folks of the town’s great influence to the future social development of the national park, and the Bow Valley’s once lucrative coal mining industry.

Today, the ruins of Bankhead are sculpted by the elements.

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