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Back to the Cairn Coming this summer to the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies are exhibitions celebrating three prominent artists at the turn of the century and early 1900s. These painters offer a glimpse into past perspectives of our beloved local landscapes with their depictions of Lake O'Hara and Lake Louise before 1930. Now world-renowned destinations frequented by thousands of visitors, Lake O'Hara and Lake Louise existed in a different cultural world before the time of tourism, yet their natural beauty remains unwavered as we look back through years passed. Learn more about Group of Seven artist J.E.H. MacDonald, Frederick Marlett Bell-Smith, and Albert Bierstadt in our upcoming summer exhibitions, and discover the impact of their work which continues to resonate a century later. J.E.H. MacDonald: The O'Hara Era This summer, the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies offers a rare opportunity to view over 100 works by Group of Seven artist J.E.H. MacDonald from public and private collections. The exhibition highlights new research, original paintings, and modern photographs of the art of J.E.H. MacDonald during his annual summer painting trips to the Lake O’Hara region of Yoho National Park between 1924 and 1932. Commemorating the 100th anniversary of his first trip to Lake O'Hara, the exhibition promises to be an exceptional and unique experience, with the Whyte Museum as the sole venue. The exhibition will show paintings from The Whyte Museum collection as well as from the National Gallery, the McMichael Collection, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery Hamilton, University of Toronto Art Museum, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, and the Art Gallery of Alberta. Numerous individuals and corporations have also generously lent their pieces. ​ The show is strengthened by original research conducted by geologists Patricia Cucman and the late Stanley Munn, who meticulously identified the exact locations of MacDonald's works, along with photographs, over the past 18 years. Their findings, documented in a major illustrated book entitled "To See What He Saw: J.E.H. MacDonald and the O'Hara Years 1924-1932", offer a fresh perspective on MacDonald and his work. Additionally, intriguing discoveries such as paint scrapings and teacup shards have been found in these exact locations, providing further insight into MacDonald's creative process and daily life during his time at Lake O'Hara. Specimens were analyzed by the Canadian Conservation Institute to support the provenance. As well, the Whyte Museum has confirmed loan from Parks Canada of two Billy cans, stashed in rocks at painting sites by Macdonald. The combination of MacDonald’s paintings, artifacts, letters, and diary entries, as well as Stanley Munn’s contemporary photograph of the area will no doubt result in a compelling narrative of MacDonald’s O’Hara years providing a lens through which he has never been fully explored in exhibition. ​ Partnering with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and sponsored by Masters Gallery Calgary, we invite you to join us for this breathtaking exhibition featuring mountain landscapes inspired by MacDonald. The Whyte Museum will be the sole venue for this incredible exhibition, bringing MacDonald’s paintings to regional and international visitors alike. Bierstadt and Bell-Smith: The Influence of Lake Louise Between 1886 and 1914, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) encouraged artists to produce works for the promotion of western Canada as an idyllic tourist destination and desirable settlement locale. It was also a strategy to sell tickets as a means of diminishing the huge debt incurred by the construction of the rail line. Some of the best painters and photographers of the day were sought after and encouraged to construct a pictorial vision of the West, resulting in one of the most significant art collections ever amassed in Canadian history. Instead of paying the artists for their participation, perks were provided in the form of free rail passage, temporary railcar studios, accommodation at mountain lodges, and the promotion of their works at international exhibits. Sir William Cornelius Van Horne in his capacity as builder and later President of the CPR, rightly understood that a successful marketing campaign needed to target American and European sensibilities. Van Horne also knew of German born American painter Albert Bierstadt’s reputation as a leading landscape painter of the Hudson River School and its luminist movement. Having approached the artist on other occasions, Bierstadt finally accepted Van Horne’s generous incentives and departed from Windsor Station, Montreal on July 30, 1889. It was while resting at Glacier House, B.C. that he met Canadian painter Frederick Marlett Bell-Smith, who had painted in the Rockies during the summer since 1887. The two artists set out together, spending September camping and sketching at Lake Louise and throughout Bow River Valley. The area was remote and rugged yet provided spectacular vistas. Bell-Smith later wrote of their experience together citing Bierstadt’s compositional guidance and influence as having a profound inspirational effect. Bell-Smith’s oils and watercolours will be exhibited with Bierstadt’s Lake Louise canvas featured as the centrepiece of the exhibition. Sourced from historical material, the artist’s experience at Lake Louise will also be described.  The opportunity to exhibit these works together will provide a profound opportunity for the Whyte Museum’s national and international audiences to learn more about these artists and their influence on tourism in this region then and now. Back to the Cairn

On Friday, April 12th, 2024, the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies celebrated the opening of two spring exhibitions visiting themes of climate conservation: Ilana Manolson – Time: In the Mountains and Menagerie of Disappearance. Aptly aligning with Earth Day, both exhibitions explore the perspectives of different artists, mediums, and materials to examine the relationships between the Earth's vast environments and the humans and creatures who call it home. Visit these exhibitions at the Whyte Museum until June 2nd, 2024, and learn more about them in details below. Gallery 1 About the Exhibitions Ilana Manolson – Time: In the Mountains Time: In the Mountains strives to capture the different heartbeats of the earth over time, observed by Ilana Manolson while painting, hiking, and working in the Rocky Mountains. A distinguished painter, printmaker, and naturalist who has been shown in galleries throughout North America, Manolson combines her talents here to create visually confounding and expansive works that unfurl like rivers, trails, and scrolls. Unrolling to reveal the story as it goes, these scrolls effectively use the layering of mediums and materials to create a visual narrative for the viewer to follow. The only repeated detail lies in painted marks embedded in the work that act as a kind of EKG-like rhythm depicting the heartbeat of the Earth. Based on the Schumann Resonance, a magnetic tone found in Earth’s ionosphere, this heartbeat has recently started to increase in pace, indicating to Manolson that damage is being done to the Earth’s health. Using these marks and pools of paint to transform landscapes into equivalencies of tenacious life in which some species thrive and others disappear, Manolson manipulates the fluidity of her medium and it becomes a metaphor for the resurgence and the dying. She celebrates the natural world and its ineffable mysteries, even as we are aware of potential disasters. Even in the coming apart, there is great beauty. Menagerie of Disappearance Menagerie of Disappearance unites four unique artists, each employing diverse mediums to explore a common theme. Through photography, textiles, sculpture, and drawing, these artists provoke contemplation of our evolving environment. With an international presence, they join together to collectively narrate the tale of our troubled relationships with the creatures and environments around us. Highlighting the tension between perceived life and what is lifeless through a series of taxidermy raptors, Eva Brandl showcases photographic work honed over a forty-year career. Brandl invites viewers to parse out hinted narratives in her work that she’s sown through the use of staged backgrounds and forced perspectives. Jude Griebel’s monolithic towers of miniatures are complex structures that serve to highlight themes of waste, excess, and lived experiences balanced against the obvious amount of time and care needed to create each creature. His attention to detail and the size of each work invite closer scrutiny by viewers to identify the individual within the mass. Tamara Kostianovsky transforms repurposed textiles into sculptural carcasses, drawing lines between consumerism, fast fashion, and the relationships between humans and animals. Currently based in New York, Kostianovsky has been creating textile sculptures that delicately walk the line between engaging and shocking for twenty years. Working with specimens stored in the private collections at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Lorraine Simms has created a series of highly detailed graphite drawings of shadows cast by the skulls and bones of endangered animals. These beautifully haunting drawings offer evidence of disappearance, both of individual animals and of their species. Galleries: Gallery 1: Spring 2024 exhibition opening at the Whyte Museum. Photos by Katie Goldie.

Back to the Cairn Friends of the Whyte is a series celebrating community, featuring Whyte Museum members, donors, staff, and friends, to get to know them a little bit better. During the summer of 2023, the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies had a team of five interpreters sharing the history of Banff, engaging with visitors and sharing what the Whyte Museum has to offer. Whyte Museum summer interpreter Wendy Bradley is a long-term Banff local and artist with deep family roots in the Bow Valley. In this Q&A, we learn more about Wendy's experience as an Interpreter. 1. Tell me a little bit about yourself! What brought you to the Whyte Museum interpreter team? I'm a professional artist and Banff is my hometown - four generations of my family have lived here - two have worked at the Whyte Museum! I applied to be an Interpretive Guide last summer because I knew I would enjoy it. I also wanted to know more about Banff's early history and not rely on the stories I grew up with, but instead dig into important facts and dates about people and places. As a result, two of my favourite things have been a large part of every single day at work - art and history! 2. How would you describe this job position and your experience last summer to others? Working as part of a team of Interpretive Guides this summer, I experienced a collegial workplace where growing edges of curiosity and inquiry were shared. We delivered tours about historic people and places with reliable sourced materials and our Summer 2023 exhibit "For the Birds." We became repositories of relevant and useful information to provide insights and answer questions in informative and helpful ways. 3. If you could have dinner with one historical Banff figure, who would it be? Why? What would you want to ask/know? For me a dinner party with Peter and Catharine Whyte and my grandparents, Chuck and Doris Millar would be wonderful! As they were good friends, I would love to hear their conversation and memories of their lives in Banff. I wonder what topic they would discuss - what was important to them? One question I would ask is: What was a missed opportunity that would have impacted the development of Banff in their lifetimes? And would it be an opportunity to act on today if they could? It would be a fascinating dinner! 4. Why should others visit the Whyte Museum and Banff National Park? I recommend visiting Banff National Park as people have since 1883 because of the magnificent scenery, the opportunity to see wildlife in the wilderness, and to participate in world-renowned mountain culture. Hiking, skiing, sightseeing, festivals, dining, museums, history, and arts. One of those places to experience the rich mountain culture from its early settlement in Banff to today is at the Whyte Museum. It offers tours and exhibits steeped in the history of prominent people and places, a world class Archives and Library of the Canadian Rockies, and current exhibits in four galleries. Events at the museum feature many authors and artists, lectures on current topics, and some annual favourites enjoyed for many years, such as the Jon Whyte Spelling Bee and A Whyte Christmas. The Whyte Museum is the perfect starting point to gain a context for what Banff was, is now, and aspires to be. Thanks, Wendy, for your time with the Whyte Museum! Want to learn more about Canadian Rockies history? Discover our private and public tours coming soon at the Whyte Museum this summer. For summer 2024, four public tours will be offered: Heritage Homes Tour - a 25-minute guided tour of the historic homes of museum founders Peter and Catharine Whyte and notable locals Philip and Pearl (Brewster) Moore. Gateway to the Rockies Tour - a 25-minute guided museum tour. Learn how the mountains were opened up to all through stories of some of those drawn to these peaks. Historic Banff Walking Tour - get off the beaten path with a 60-minute guided tour through the Banff townsite, learning about the men and women who helped build and shape the town. J.E.H. MacDonald: The O’Hara Era – Summer Exhibition Tour - learn more about the rich history behind our summer exhibition at this guided gallery tour in the Whyte Museum. Check out our tours page for the most up to date information! Back to the Cairn

THE CAIRN News about Canadian Rockies’ art, history and culture and the activities and history of the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies.​ In the fall of 1976, the Whyte Museum published the first print version (click to view) of The Cairn newsletter to share what was going on at the Museum with the community. In that issue, Catharine Robb Whyte wrote in her greeting, “Pete and I always felt it was a way of telling our friends what is going on here and encouraging us all to work together.” In 2018, the 50th anniversary of the Whyte Museum, the print version of The Cairn ended and the monthly digital version began. All issues, print and digital, are below. Click on the covers to view. To receive the digital version of The Cairn by email subscribe to our E-newsletter, using the form at the bottom of this page . The Cairn — Digital Edition, from October 2018 The Cairn - Spring 2024 The Cairn - Winter 2024 The Cairn - Fall 2023 The Cairn - Summer 2023 The Cairn - Spring 2023 The Cairn - Winter 2023 The Cairn Fall 2022 The Cairn - Summer 2022 The Cairn - April 2022 The Cairn - January 2022 The Cairn - November 2021 The Cairn - September 2021 The Cairn - July 2021 The Cairn - May 2021 The Cairn - March 2021 The Cairn - January 2021 The Cairn - September/October 2020 The Cairn - August 2020 The Cairn - July 2020 The Cairn - June 2020 The Cairn - May 2020 The Cairn - March/April 2020 The Cairn - February 2020 The Cairn - January 2020 The Cairn_December_2019_Vol 2_Iss 12.jpg The Cairn — Print Edition, from Fall 1976 to Summer 2018 Click to view issues from the 1970s , 1980s , 1990s , 2000s and 2010s . 114_cairn_spring_summer_2018_front.jpg 113_cairn_fall_winter_2017_2018_front.jp 112_cairn_spring_summer_2017_front.jpg 111_cairn_fall_winter_2016_2017_front.jp 110_cairn_spring_summer_2016_front.jpg 109_cairn_fall_winter_2015_2016_front.jp 108_cairn_spring_summer_2015_front.jpg 107_cairn_fall_winter_2014_2015_front.jp 106_cairn_spring_summer_2014_front.jpg 105_cairn_fall_winter_2013_2014_front.jp 104_cairn_spring_summer_2013_front.jpg 103_cairn_fall_winter_2012_2013_front.jp 102_cairn_spring_summer_2012_front.jpg 101_cairn_fall_winter_2011_2012_front.jp 100_cairn_spring_summer_2011_front.jpg 099_cairn_fall_winter_2010_2011_front.jpg 098_cairn_spring_summer_2010_front.jpg 097_cairn_fall_winter_2009_2010_front.jpg 096_cairn_spring_summer_2009_front.jpg 095_cairn_fall_winter_2008_front.jpg 094_cairn_spring_summer_2008_front.jpg 093_cairn_fall_winter_2007_2008_front.jpg 092_cairn_spring_summer_2007_front.jpg 091_cairn_fall_winter_2006_2007_front.jpg 090_cairn_spring_summer_2006_front.jpg 2000s 2010s 1990s 1980s 1970s Footer

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Meet the Interns By Kylie Fineday and Kate Skelton Back to The Cairn Kylie Fineday In January, we welcomed Kylie Fineday as a student intern from the University of Lethbridge, where she majors in Art Studio. She will be working in our Curatorial Department until April, and is excited about the opportunity to learn about the history of the Whyte Museum and gain valuable skills and experience while working with us. During her time here, Kylie is cataloguing items into the heritage collection, assisting with exhibit installations, as well as taking on a curatorial project in our heritage gallery. Kate Skelton The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies welcomes Kate Skelton to her new role as Processing Archivist, starting April 1st. Kate Skelton was hired as an Archival Assistant Intern in September 2018, through the Young Canada Works at Building Careers in Heritage Internship program. Before her placement, Kate graduated from the University of Leicester, UK with a master’s degree in Museum Studies. Kate’s current work focuses on processing and digitizing materials which have been donated to the Whyte Museum – this includes numbering and labelling archival items, adding information to the Whyte Museum’s archival database and creating digital copies of photographs and documents from the Museum’s collection. In February, Kate also completed a digital exhibit on Nicholas Morant, a photographer for the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, which has recently been added to the Whyte Museum’s website . Back to The Cairn