DIGITAL LIBRARY

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.

Preparing the winter exhibitions offered an opportunity to reframe Peter and Catharine Whyte’s work. The discovery of numerous sketches from their 1937 Assiniboine trip, alongside Catharine’s vivid letters and Peter’s annotated photographs, revealed a richer story. Arranged chronologically, the exhibition invites viewers to follow the journey from bright autumn days through the gathering storm to a landscape transformed by fresh snow.

On a warm September evening, guests gathered beneath the glow of The Whyte for the inaugural Night at The Whyte fundraising dinner and live auction. The Heritage Gallery transformed into an intimate setting of candlelight, conversation, and community. From a curator’s tour with Joseph Sanchez to the energy of the live auction, the evening celebrated art, connection, and generosity in support of exhibitions, education, and storytelling in the Canadian Rockies.

Fourteen years later, the Fireside Chats at The Whyte remained a warm, community gathering. As Director of Archives and Special Collections Elizabeth Kundert-Cameron observed at the final event, familiar faces returned year after year, and Chic’s stories “evoked… the feeling of being at a family party.” What began as an open house in the Abegweit became a recorded oral history, preserved in The Whyte's Archives and Special Collections Library for future generations.