The Bow River flows placidly underneath Alberta's iconic Castle Mountain.
Once seen, never forgotten.
For you history buffs:
"Castle Mountain is a mountain located within Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, approximately half-way between Banff and Lake Louise. It is the easternmost mountain of the Main Ranges in the Bow Valley and sits astride the Castle Mountain Fault which has thrust older sedimentary and metamorphic rocks forming the upper part of the mountain over the younger rocks forming its base. The mountain's castellated, or castle-like, appearance is a result of erosive processes acting at different rates on the peak's alternating layers of softer shale and harder limestone, dolomite and quartzite.
James Hector, who accompanied the Palliser Expedition, encountered Castle Mountain in August 1858 while leading a side expedition to find the headwaters of the Bow River. He noted that it "...looks exactly like a gigantic castle" and named it Castle Mountain.
In 1881, Joe Healy received some ore in trade from a First Nations person which was discovered to contain a relatively high silver content. The following year he settled at Castle Mountain as a prospector. News of Healy's ore soon spread; others began to arrive and the settlement of Silver City, situated near Castle Mountain, quickly developed. It was already thriving when the Canadian Pacific transcontinental railroad was built through the area in 1884. Over three thousand people lived there at its height, but it was almost entirely abandoned in 1885 because the mines failed to yield a significant profit.
At a meeting of the Ottawa Canadian Club in January 1946 at which World War II general Dwight D. Eisenhower was a guest speaker, Prime Minister Mackenzie King renamed Castle Mountain in his honour. Alluding to Scotland's recent gift to Eisenhower of a castle, King said, "We haven't any ancient castles, but we have something more enduring, we have ancient mountains ... we have a mountain named Castle and we have thought that to change the name to Mount Eisenhower we would pay a tribute in the form of permanency expressing our admiration years after the castle in Scotland has completely disappeared." Immediate reaction was mixed; many Banff residents approved, but a telegram sent to King in the name of "members of the ski clubs and climbing clubs of the Rocky Mountains" protested the "inappropriate name of Eisenhower Peak". By the 1970s, increasing displeasure at the new name was being voiced by Banff area residents through petitions submitted to the Alberta Heritage Sites Board for the restoration of the original name. A change of name was already planned by 1976, but its implementation was delayed to avoid causing offense on account of the American bicentennial commemorations taking place that year. The mountain was officially renamed Castle Mountain in November 1979, but an isolated pinnacle at the southeastern end was designated Eisenhower Tower."
Wikipedia
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