There’s less than a month left to go until its Christmas and this year just like the last, we’ll be spending part of the festive season snuggled in a far cooler landscape. Preparing for our getaway brings back fond memories of our time in Canada with its snowy rooftops, Christmas décor, friendly people and freezing weather.

Although the weather wasn’t always accommodating, we chose to embrace the sub-zero temperature and try out many things that to my mind are as Canadian as it seems to get.

Strolling around Banff village While in Sydney, our shopping precincts are often surrounded by sky-high buildings, strolling through Banff village surrounded by magnificent mountain peaks and with the festive spirit still in the air was a different experience than what we’re used to. The shops were quaint and cute and a special point of interest for us was the popularity of the UGG boot. While quite common in Australia, we spotted those boots on every second person in Banff and we presume they’d be quite handy when tackling the weather.

 Snowboarding and skiing at Lake Louise There are several ski and snow boarding resorts in Australia but the experience of trying out winter sports in Canada just seemed a little more authentic strangely. Aanchal opted for snowboarding while I chose skiing as I had never tried it before. Some struggles and lots of falls later I somewhat got the hang of skiing, at least well enough to enjoy the experience. For Aanchal however, success wasn’t so easy with snowboarding being a much trickier option.

Warming ourselves up in at the lodge Tired and hungry after our sporting adventures, we retired to the lodge where we treated ourselves to warm soup and bread surrounded by high wooden ceilings and pillars covered in fairy lights.

Sulphur Mountain and Curling On our way back from Lake Louise, we decided to stop by Sulphur Mountain in Banff National Park and get a taste of Canadian natural thermal mineral springs. We visited the Cave and Basin National Historic Site which is the lowest of hot springs within Sulphur Mountain and stopped by the cave and accompanying museum before heading upstairs for a shot at ‘curling’, a sport that involves sliding stones on a sheet of ice. Given the photographs, you can judge how successful our attempts were for yourself. 

BeaverTails and poutine I’m a sucker for comfort food and that’s exactly what we got ourselves in Banff. Our first stop was for BeaverTails, fried dough pastries that as the name suggests resemble a beaver’s tail and come with delicious toppings including, chocolates, fruits and more. As a self-confessed sweet tooth, this was right up my alley.