DIGITAL LIBRARY

Gain a deeper understanding of Banff this summer with a guided tour at The Whyte. From historic homes and townsite stories to newly revised truth-telling interpretation and a brand-new Art Gallery Tour for Thick as Thieves, The Whyte Museum tours invite visitors to slow down, look closer, and connect with the art, history, and culture that shape Banff and the Bow Valley. Whether visiting for the first time or rediscovering familiar places, each tour offers a meaningful way to

Explore photos from opening weekend at The Whyte as we celebrated the launch of our summer 2026 exhibitions, Thick as Thieves and When our eyes touch. The galleries came alive with artists, curators, members, partners, and community guests gathering for an evening of art, conversation, and connection in Banff.

When our eyes touch invites visitors to look again at Catharine and Peter Whyte’s portraits, relationships, and legacy. Through archival research, community engagement, and close attention to portraiture, the exhibition explores intimacy, agency, colonial context, and the humanity behind familiar stories of The Whyte’s founders.

The idea of this cohort being in relation with one another, through nationhood, artistic process, locality, kinship, or experience, is embedded in this exhibition and in Indigenous curation as a discipline. In contrast to Western art spaces, where artists, curators, museum teams, mentors, and communities occupy separate roles, the IAM Project fosters relationality, connection, and support interwoven within the entire project network.

When you support The Whyte, you are supporting the daily work of individuals and departments caring for art, preserving stories, researching histories, building exhibitions, and creating meaningful visitor experiences. Discover a few highlights of the breadth of careful work across departments and disciplines. This summer, we ask you to become part of the community of donors who support our museum work.

Thick as Thieves and When Our Eyes Touch run May 1 to November 8, 2026, at The Whyte in Banff AB. This exhibition explores connection, influence, and relationships that shape our world, inviting reflection on trust, power, and community. Presented alongside portrait paintings by founders Peter and Catharine Whyte, it opens a wider conversation about bonds that can be intimate, strategic, sustaining, and complicated. Organized and circulated by the MacKenzie Art Gallery, curat

This winter, a renewed energy filled The Whyte as the museum welcomed a major contemporary solo exhibition by multidisciplinary artist Elise Rasmussen, An Alpine Trilogy. Presented alongside it in the Rummel Room, Second Take: Histories of Film in the Rockies offers a complementary journey through cinematic and cultural memory.

Between 1915 and 1917, Ukrainian and Eastern European immigrants were imprisoned in Banff National Park’s Castle Mountain and Cave & Basin internment camps. Forced to build roads, hotels, and golf courses under harsh conditions, these “enemy aliens” endured starvation, abuse, and extreme weather. Today, the scars of this history remain, reminding visitors that the park’s beauty was shaped by both natural wonders and human suffering.