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Three Ravens: Summer menu taste drive

by on June 5, 2013 in Arts, Banff, Conferences, General, Ideas

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Alberta beef tenderloin in Three Ravens Restaurant. Photo: Don Lee.

Dungeness crab, buffalo mozzarella, seared steelhead trout, cinnamon infused black Thai rice, melon and celery salad, onion marmalade, sautéed heirloom spinach, wild mushrooms, Banff Centre grown Mizuna, garlic Brava sauce… My mouth waters reading the menu in our Three Ravens restaurant; visions of delicious dishes brought to life by the creative mix of ingredients, inventive pairings, and visual images our server crafts in my mind. A few of us got to taste some of the new summer menu items recently, and I can tell you each dish exceeds the expectations conjured up by words on a page.

We began with bread and butter, which I only mention to set the mood: this is not your ordinary butter. On the table our server places four different shaped, uniquely flavoured butters:  salted, mango-sambal, sundried tomato-basil, and orange-chive. I love the sundried tomato-basil and I can’t get enough. ‘Remember Monique, you still have a whole meal ahead,’ I try to remind myself.

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Learning to juggle with Flyin’ Bob

by on June 3, 2013 in Arts, Banff, Community connection, Festivals, General, Theatre

Flyin' Bob at Banff Elementary School. Photo: Meghan Krauss.

Flyin’ Bob at Banff Elementary School. Photo: Meghan Krauss.

I should start by saying I always wanted to know how to juggle, the key word  being know as opposed to learn or practice.

The week leading up to the first annual Banff Children’s Festival here at the Centre a number of workshops were held at the Banff Elementary School ranging from hula hooping, to storytelling, to Flyin’ Bob. Alongside Mr. Shields’ grade six class I wanted to see Flyin’ Bob work his magic and teach the children circus skills. The plan was just to watch, meet Flyin’ Bob, and talk to the kids about their experiences.

But walking into the gym and hearing the catchy music and seeing the tables of scarves, feathers, balls, and sticks, ranging in colours from pink, purple, yellow, red, green, and blue laid out in front of me, I felt like I was in grade six myself. My curiosity piqued and I suddenly wanted to touch everything on the table and play. “Instead of watching,” Flyin’ Bob tells me, “if you really want to understand the process you’ll have to join in.”

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Three tips for viewing wildlife in the wild

by on May 23, 2013 in Banff, Community connection, General

Now is a great time of year to explore Banff National Park and maybe even catch a glimpse of some wildlife. Here are some tips to enjoy Banff’s fauna all while staying safe and – above all – cool.

Viewing tip # 1: Play it cool, man. Banff is home to plenty of wildlife star power: grizzlies, wolves, elk, and moose. These are Banff’s prime time players, mountain town equivalents of Marlon Brando, Karen Kain, or Arcade Fire. They’re kind of a big deal and everyone’s pining for a glimpse. Canadians are purportedly far too respectful and modest to go chasing after stars, right? They say when Wayne Gretzky was in his goal-scoring and assist-threading prime in the 80s, he could walk around as he pleased in Edmonton and the good people of the ‘City of Champions’ would always let him be. People respected his personal space – very cool.

The same logic applies in Banff. I think it’s uncouth – even trite – to go chasing after these animals. They need their space and this is their home. Don’t force things: get an early start, pack a camera, and maybe, just maybe, magic will happen. Know that approaching wildlife at roadside bear jams is the mountain parks equivalent of a fully grown adult fainting and screaming at the sight of Justin Bieber – decidedly not cool.

Viewing tip # 2: Hiking in groups and carrying bear spray are Banff’s version of Converse shoes and tattoos. Confession: I no longer own any Converse shoes (a travesty I know) or have any tattoos. In my eyes, however, musicians and fans who don these at rock shows have instant indie street cred… they look the part. The same applies to getting out and about in the park. Here are two simple ways of fitting in and staying safe while hitting the mountain trails. Continue Reading →

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A short history of Acoustic Ecology

by on May 15, 2013 in Arts, Audio, Banff, Library & Archives, Podcasts

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From left: Chris Wood, Nathan Clarkson and Camara Miller. Photo: Meghan Krauss.

What was the first sound you heard this morning? Take a moment, what can you hear right now?

In 1973, R. Murray Schafer started a movement to be more conscious of the sounds in the environment, what they mean and the effect they have on us. While teaching at Simon Fraser University, Schafer started the World Soundscape Project (WSP), a collection of “ear minded” people who began making audio recordings to build a “museum of sounds.” In the early 1970s, Bruce Davis and Peter Huse drove across Canada to collect “soundmarks,” unique and disappearing sounds, as well as recording conversations with people across the country about the acoustic spaces they inhabited.

In 1993, a broad spectrum of academics and professionals gathered at The Banff Centre to discuss Acoustic Ecology (the field of study initiated by Schafer), what it was and where it was going. At the time, interdisciplinary discussion was a new concept and The Banff Centre was a leader in this way of thinking.

Twenty years after that conference, where is “acoustic ecology”? Continue Reading →

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Around Banff: seasonal art and culture

by on April 26, 2013 in Arts, Banff, Community connection, Events, Festivals

When I found myself between snowboarding and hiking seasons this month, I took in a few of the events for springstART, a three-week festival of art, culture, and local history that takes over Banff in April. I’ve always been fascinated with observing home interiors, so the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies heritage home tours was at the top of my list. I did three intimate tours, through rustic homes filled with relics of world travels and Banff paraphernalia: the home of philanthropists, world travellers, and visual artists Peter and Catharine Whyte, collectors and community leaders Philip and Pearl Moore, and the former home of Norman and Georgina Luxton.

I also visited the Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum, where a tour guide explained the lives of the Stoney/Nakoda and other Treaty 7 First Nations people indigenous to the area. And fittingly, because ART is highlighted in the name of the festival, there were lots of galleries and art exhibitions to see, including at The Banff Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery, the Whyte Museum, Canada House Gallery, Willock & Sax Gallery, and others, along with a public art installation launch took place in the alley behind Town Hall.

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The world through the webcam window

by on April 23, 2013 in Banff, General, Ideas

Lately, I’ve been watching Cascade Mountain and a few of the buildings at The Banff Centre via the Centre’s cool webcam. I check it out in the morning, I guess, to try to simulate the thrill of getting that first view of the mountains when actually lucky enough to be in the Rockies — and disciplined enough to get up early. Occasionally, I use it as a momentary emotional escape hatch out of an office tower meeting pushing an hour that should have been 30 minutes. You get the picture.

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For a rectangular image that sits on my laptop, the webcam screen is, in a way, enlargening. Typically, when I get back from a vacation, whether to the mountains or wherever, I return resolved not to submit to the tyranny of the now visible. And to remember, for instance, that at this exact moment there are people walking into the Safeway on the corner of Robson and Denman in Vancouver, or walking past the Peace Tower in Ottawa. Right now,  just not right here, laundry is on the line in a neighbourhood in Havana. Right now at Cafe Trieste in San Francisco there are sounds of a latte being made and maybe some accordion music being piped in. At this very moment at Coyotes in Banff, if you glanced to your left walking down the stairs, you would see the kitchen chefs at work. And in another instance of right now but not right here, Cascade Mountain looms over The Banff Centre.

The webcam experience also does an opposite kind of work, investing a newness in the seemingly mundane scene in front of us. One of the many criticisms of webcams is that nothing happens. That’s true, until you look.

And see that where once there was no truck:

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Moments later, there is:

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Other times, smudgy contingencies, like a piece of snow or ice on the lens, makes for newness:

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Taking us further out to the “exotic,” yes, but also further in to the familiar. There are deeper depths to plumb when thinking about webcams and what they involve the viewer in. One question, for me, is to what extent I am being viewed (by myself?) as I gaze at Cascade Mountain? Another, is whether I am mistaken by feeling I have somehow gotten away from the grids and arithmetic and garishness of the rational city by slipping into the Rockies via this computerized portal?

A longer version of this post was originally published by Glenn Kubish on his personal blog http://glennkubish.blogspot.ca/ and was reposted with permission.

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