Day 6: Canoeing on Lake Louise (optional activity)
The other optional activity was canoeing on Lake Louise. ABD provided each room with a certificate covering an hour of canoeing.
It was nice that this was included as part of the trip, because otherwise we would have thought quite a bit about the cost. That one hour canoe experience was about the same price as the entire Columbia icefields experience.
So for one, you have a big icefields center, multiple buses, specialty vehicles to go onto the glacier, walking on the glacier, and walking on a skyview that probably cost tens of millions to build.
For the other, you have canoes, paddles, a lake, and the guests do all the work.
The line for the canoe was pretty long, but Fairmont guests have a shorter line, and Lauren was holding some spots for ABD. I got a message to get down to the canoe stand. The staff gets you into life jackets, holds the canoe while you board, gives you a bit of instruction and then off you go.
It's best if you are familiar with how to steer and handle a canoe. Or you learn quickly. While it is a big lake, there are many other canoes out there and sometimes it wasn't obvious where others were going. Plus you must navigate your way back to the dock.
One person gets a whistle. If you get into trouble, blow the whistle and someone will come out to help. If you hear whistles, you are also supposed to blow your whistle to relay the signal back to the staff at the dock.
They said you had an hour, but I don't think they wrote down the time when you launched so I doubt they really tracked that. We paddled about 3/4 the way down the length of the lake before turning around and came back about 15 minutes before the hour was up.
View of the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise from the lake
It's a nice experience, and nice to not be nickel and dimed with many smaller expenses. Just gotta do that huge payment to ABD before the trip even starts...
There is one spot on the lake you must avoid: the outflow. It was a small spot and I think you'd have to be trying pretty hard to actually get your canoe to go out that way. But if you "succeeded" in that you would fly down rapids that eventually reach the Bow River, headed back towards Banff...
Don't go there