Brisbane was still home, but for a few months our everyday life had a mountain backdrop. We were based in a house in Canmore with our daughter, and gradually the town became somewhere we lived rather than somewhere we were passing through. That difference mattered more than I expected. We had time to return to places. We could leave an outing for another day. We stopped treating every clear morning as our last opportunity to see the Rockies.
Edlyn and I had wanted a break from the pace we had been keeping. We started our family sabbatical in February, after a conversation with family in Kelowna over Christmas helped turn a vague idea into something we actually pursued. By the time autumn arrived, the appeal of having a base was obvious. A house in Canmore gave us room to settle, and the surrounding mountains meant we could keep exploring without packing our whole life each time.
Looking back through these photographs, I noticed how many were of ordinary views. A street on a walk through town. Mountains through a window. A path with the leaves turning. Those were the parts I wanted to record here, because they explained what staying longer felt like better than another list of attractions could.
A town we could take our time in
Canmore felt slow paced to us. I liked that there was space to have a day without making much of it. On a short holiday, an unplanned afternoon can feel like something you have wasted. With a longer stay, that pressure eased. We could go for a walk and let that be enough. We did not need every outing to produce a story worth telling.
That was an adjustment for the way we had travelled when we were younger. Back then, we had two backpacks and kept moving between places so we could see as much as possible. It suited us at the time. Japan was our first trip together in 2013, and we kept returning over the years. We also travelled through Europe, where moving on was often part of the excitement. Staying in one place for months would have seemed like a very different kind of trip.
Travelling with our daughter changed what worked. We started thinking more carefully about the area we would be staying in, and whether it suited an ordinary family day as well as a sightseeing day. Canmore gave us a base from which we could explore, then come back to somewhere familiar. I appreciated that more as the weeks went on. The town did not have to entertain us every minute for the stay to feel worthwhile.
School became part of our life here
Our daughter attended a local school during our stay. We are keeping its name private, but it was an important part of our time in Canmore. It meant our family life had some structure within a much bigger break from our usual routine. We were travelling, and we were also making space for the everyday things that mattered to her.
I do not want to speak for her or turn her school experience into a public travel story. For us as parents, though, having that part of life in place helped us settle. The sabbatical was something we had chosen as a family, and we wanted it to work beyond the photographs and weekends away. Finding a rhythm mattered. We could enjoy being somewhere different without needing every day to feel completely unfamiliar.
It also changed how I thought about a longer trip. There was more to organising it than deciding where we wanted to go. We had to think about how we would live once we arrived. A school day and a mountain day asked different things of us, and both belonged in the same few months. I liked that our time here had room for each of them. It made the stay feel like a chapter of family life rather than an extended sightseeing schedule.
Having room to learn again
The slower pace gave Edlyn and me the opportunity to take short Harvard courses online. That was one of the benefits I had not really pictured when we first talked about taking a break. I had thought about travelling and spending time together. I had given less thought to what it would feel like to have room for learning simply because we were interested.
What stayed with me was having the opportunity to do them at all. We had stepped away from our usual working lives because we needed a break, and being able to use some of that time for something different felt worthwhile. The days had space in them that had been harder to find before.
There was a useful lesson in that for me. A sabbatical did not need to be full of constant travel to be doing something valuable for us. Some of its value came from staying put long enough to choose what we wanted to give our attention to. Being in Canmore helped create that space. The mountains were there when we wanted to head out, and there was also a home base when we wanted to stay in and concentrate.
We could take a day trip each week
Weekly day trips became part of the appeal of living here. We could explore from Canmore without turning every outing into a move. That made a difference with a child. We could put our effort into the day itself, knowing we had a base to return to afterwards. We also had more freedom to spread things out instead of trying to fit the entire area into one busy weekend.
The Rockies offered far more than we could have covered comfortably on a short visit. Having time meant we could be selective. We did not have to take the longest possible route or add another stop just because it was nearby on a map. Some outings could stay simple. When a place deserved longer, we could think about a night or two away instead of squeezing everything into the journey home.
Fernie was one of those longer trips. We stayed for three nights in a large RV, which gave us a different experience from our house base. I would keep it as a separate stay rather than suggest it as a casual day trip from Canmore. That distinction became important to how we travelled. Being based somewhere did not mean every destination had to be reached and left in a single day. We could make the plan fit the place.
The big outings still mattered
Staying longer did not make the famous places less impressive. Moraine Lake and Lake Louise were still part of the experience we wanted to have. What changed was the amount of pressure around them. They were outings within a longer stay, rather than the entire reason for it. That gave us more room to enjoy what we had come to see.
One memory that stayed with me was the chairlift at Lake Louise resort. We rode up as a family towards the bistro, and I enjoyed the wildlife we saw along the way. The plants and the view were a big part of it too. It was a different perspective from standing beside the lakes, and it became one of the moments I kept coming back to when thinking about our time in the area.
There were practical reminders as well. We booked our lake tickets on 6 October and were lucky to get the arrangements in before the seasonal services finished. It left me wanting to start the planning much earlier next time. I would give myself months to look into the transport and booking dates. That would be about taking the pressure off the trip, rather than filling every day in advance. The official release dates still need checking for the year you visit.
Autumn was part of the experience
The autumn photographs were among my favourites from our stay. Golden leaves changed the feel of the walking paths, and the light on the mountains could make an ordinary view worth stopping for. I liked seeing those changes from somewhere we had been living for a while. We had enough time to notice the town feeling different as the season moved on.
The views through the windows were part of that. They were not an attraction we had bought a ticket for or driven a long way to reach. They were simply there during our time at the house. Looking back, that was one of the things I valued about Canmore. We could have an ordinary day and still feel connected to the place around us. There did not have to be a major outing attached to it.
Autumn also made it clear why visitors need some flexibility. A plan that worked earlier in the season could depend on services that had finished by the time someone else arrived. We learned that with the lake bookings. I would still plan the important parts, especially transport, but I would leave space around them. The slower pace we enjoyed was much easier to keep when we were not trying to force a fixed schedule onto every day.
Ordinary spending was still ordinary spending
Being away for months meant thinking about costs beyond the big activities. We still had the everyday decisions about food and what felt worth paying for. A beautiful location did not automatically make every purchase feel like good value. I wanted our guides to reflect that, because it is the kind of information I find useful when I am planning somewhere new.
At the Fairmont at Lake Louise, sandwiches and coffee came to about C$60 for us. That was a bill I remembered, and it was a useful reminder that a simple lunch at a major visitor destination could become a noticeable part of the day’s spending. It did not tell the whole story of the outing, but it belonged in the story. Families need those details alongside the photographs when they are deciding what to budget.
Around Canmore, we had our own preferences too. I thought Blondies made a great latte. Rocky Mountain Bagel Co. on Bow Valley Trail felt too expensive for what I got and did not live up to the hype for me. Those are personal opinions, and I have kept them that way in the coffee guide. I would rather explain where I would spend my own money again than pretend every stop was equally memorable.
What staying longer gave us
A few months in Canmore gave us the chance to get past the feeling that we should always be doing something. We still wanted to explore. We also wanted the break to be a break. Having a house base helped us hold on to that when there was so much nearby we could have tried to fit in.
I enjoyed the freedom to return to familiar views. The photographs of the town and the mountains through the windows meant something because they were part of our everyday surroundings for a while. They brought back the feeling of being there without needing a dramatic event behind them. That was what I had hoped a journal could hold on to: the parts of a trip that were easy to forget once we started talking only about the highlights.
We came away with a better understanding of how we liked travelling as a family. Staying in one place gave us time to settle, and the weekly outings kept the sense of discovery. Our daughter had school, and we had room for the short courses. We could take a longer trip away when it suited us. That combination worked for this part of our lives, and I would happily travel that way again.
What I would tell another family
I would give Canmore enough time to become more than a place to sleep between outings. Even on a shorter visit, I would leave a day without a major destination attached to it. There was a lot to enjoy in the town’s pace, and we would have missed some of that if we had been trying to leave early every morning.
I would also separate the things that needed booking from the things that could stay flexible. Our lake transport was worth planning early. A walk through town did not need the same treatment. That balance would be different for each family, but it helped me think more clearly about what we wanted from the stay. We were there to spend time together, and the plan needed to support that.
Canmore gave us a setting for a slower version of everyday life. That was what made the months feel different from a holiday, and it was what I wanted these photographs to remember.
Plan five days in Canmore, take ten days or leave room for two weeks.
