The Whyte

The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies displays a massive, hand-carved totem pole that stands as the centerpiece of its main gallery. This building preserves the private collection of Bill and Catharine Whyte, a mountaineering couple who arrived in Banff in the nineteen twenties. They spent decades documenting mountain culture, gathering thousands of artifacts, journals, and photographs from the people who lived in the high country. Their home base eventually became this archive, housing the records of those who climbed these peaks.