JON WHYTE: Keeper of Place

Quote: Mapping Memory Activity

My Banff is private, secret, silent as memory. You can’t visit it, even briefly, except through me. It’s a world of caves and tunnels we dug in the soft river sand of our backyard, under the brambles of wild roses; it’s the universe of knights and chivalry we used to fantasize when we played in the station bush, and the secret cove and beach of First Lake where we used to skinny-dip; it’s where we built the tree-house . . . it’s Jimmy Simpson’s stamp collection and Mrs. Simpson’s string ball, shortcuts through Lefroy’s, music floating like smoke over the crystalline stillness of winter from Uncle Allan’s skating rink, the tree we found the porcupine in . . . and the sweat and urine, hay and oats-rich odors of Ike’s stables where lantern-jawed Bill Dennison sat slouched beneath the sinister brim of his black Stetson.

You can never hope to visit that Banff, because it can never exist again, though it continues to exist for me more richly and permanently than all the other Banffs . . . nor would I choose another place to live. 

– Jon Whyte
“The Secret Banff: The Town Behind the Tourists”
Calgary, August, 1979

Jon Whyte: Keeper of Place || Whyte Museum