Lake Louise Alberta - In the 1880s, Canadian Pacific Railway's general manager William Cornelius Van Horne said of Lake Louise:  "If we can't export the scenery, we'll import the tourists."
 
Before long, the railway line through the Canadian Rockies was complete and travellers began arriving by steam train.
 
Van Horne envisaged onsite accommodation as "a hotel for the outdoor adventurer and alpinist", which began as a two-bedroom log cabin built in 1890 on the glacial lake's northern shore.
 
Today it's the 554-room Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise.
 
In the early years the hotel burned down several times, but was rebuilt after each fire.
 
The chateau's walls display the hotel's ongoing connection with its pioneering history, through photographs of the various hotel buildings and portraits and biographies of alpinists, surveyors, engineers, and hotelliers.
 
The Swiss played a huge part in bringing mountaineering and skiing to this part of Canada and the hotel continues to pay homage.
 
Their traditional Swiss-style uniforms, for instance, the old wall-mounted elk, and the chandeliers representing the Swiss women who would hang out the windows of chateaus with lamps to guide travellers.
 
Extensions, refurbishments, and renovations have always been a way of life here and just recently the front lobby, about half the guest rooms and the Lakeview Lounge underwent further modernisation.
 
Staff welcome the new lobby carpet, artworks, furniture, and front desk freshen up of the place, but are happy that some things never change.
 
Although the lobby, Victoria Room, and Mt. Temple Ballroom are grand spaces, guests rooms are quaint rather than spacious.
 
Many have a view of either the lake or mountains, but their size seems to fit with the original purpose of the hotel:  to offer lodgings to people keen to explore Banff National Park, which is Canada's oldest national park and a UNESCO World Heritage site.
 
When Lake Louise freezes over there's an ice carving festival, pond hockey tournament, snowshoe races, and ice-skating right outside the hotel's back door.
 
The Mountain Heritage Program offers moonlit snow shoeing tours in the woods.
 
Elspeth Callender - A guest of The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise.