Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise

Lake Louise is a mile and a half long, milky turquoise from glacial silt, and closed at its far end by the wall of Mount Victoria and the Victoria Glacier. The Canadian Pacific Railway built its hotel at the near end, so that every lakeside window frames the same view. Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, in Lake Louise, Alberta, has been added to for 130 years and the view has not changed.

History

Tom Wilson, a packer with the railway survey, was led to the lake by a Stoney guide in 1882. The CPR, which was building hotels along its line to sell the mountains to tourists, put up a single-storey log chalet on the shore in 1890. It burned in 1893 and was replaced; a larger wing by Francis Rattenbury followed around 1900, and a concrete tower by Walter Painter in 1913. In July 1924 fire destroyed the older timber sections, leaving only the Painter wing, and the Montreal firm Barott and Blackader rebuilt the hotel in the form it keeps, with the long lakefront elevation finished in 1925.

Swiss mountain guides, brought over by the railway from 1899, led guests onto the glacier and the surrounding peaks from the hotel for half a century. The Chateau closed each winter until 1982, when it opened year-round for the first time. The Glacier Wing, a new block of rooms, was added in 2004, and the hotel passed with the rest of the Canadian Pacific hotels into the Fairmont brand.

Architecture and design

The hotel is a long chateau-style block of pale stone and render, eight storeys at the Painter tower, with a blue-green roof and the public rooms arranged along the lake side so that the Lakeview Lounge, the Fairview restaurant and the ballroom all look at the glacier. Inside, the scale is that of the railway hotels: high plaster ceilings, tall windows, brass and wood. The Swiss guides' heritage shows in the Walliser Stube, a panelled Alpine room, and in the rotating displays of climbing history in the corridors.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has about 539 rooms and suites in the main building and the Glacier Wing. The lakeview rooms, on the glacier side, are the ones to ask for; mountainview rooms face the forest and the slopes behind. Fairmont Gold rooms occupy a floor of the main building with their own lounge.

Dining

The Fairview is the formal dining room, with the glacier in its windows. The Walliser Stube serves fondue and Swiss dishes in the panelled room named for the Valais, home of the hotel's first guides. The Lakeview Lounge takes afternoon tea, and Alpine Social is the casual restaurant and bar. A café on the ground floor serves the day-trippers who walk the lakeshore.

Wellness

An indoor pool, whirlpool, steam room and fitness centre are on the ground floor, and the spa offers treatments. In summer the hotel rents canoes from its boathouse; in winter the lake freezes and is cleared for skating in front of the terrace, and cross-country trails leave from the door.

Weddings and events

The Victoria Ballroom and the Mount Temple Ballroom are the principal function rooms, with a series of smaller meeting rooms alongside. The hotel hosts weddings throughout the year, with ceremonies on the lakeshore lawn in summer and indoors in winter, and conferences of several hundred delegates. Capacities depend on room and layout.

Location

The Chateau is four kilometres uphill from Lake Louise village on the Trans-Canada Highway, 57 kilometres north-west of Banff and about two and a half hours by road from Calgary International Airport. There is no scheduled passenger rail; the Rocky Mountaineer stops at Lake Louise in season. Moraine Lake and the Plain of Six Glaciers trail are the two excursions guests make. As the only luxury hotel in Lake Louise on the lake itself, it has the shore to itself at dawn.