Banff Indian Days, July 21-22-23, '31

              Banff Indian Days, July 21 -22-23, '31 
July 21, 1931

NO SECTION of Canada has a monopoly on Indian summer, but to Banff alone belongs Indian days. Indian summer occurs in the fall after the first light fall of snow; Indian days are in July and are only three in number, but for those for whom they are named; there is more real pleasure crowded into that short period of time than they know in the other 365 days of the year.
 
      For three days the Indian is king in Banff. Under the steep cliffs of that mountain named Stoney Chief by his ancestors but re-christened Cascade by the white man, he pitches his village of teepees. Close to Cascade stands Stoney Squaw, bearing today its original Indian name. It is a pretty mountain with its open patches of green, where the wild forget-me-nots grow in profusion. Unlike its companion Stoney Chief, Stoney Squaw does not rise above timber line and has no steep, forbidding cliffs, but only gentle pine-covered slopes. In comparison with the austere majesty of the greater mountain, whose face loses none of its severity when bathed in sunshine and which seems to frown on the valley in stein arrogance when crowned with storm clouds, the smaller one seems to take on an air of sweet femininity. It is then that the reason for the choice of names, made years ago by the Stoneys, is apparent to all.

      Stoney Chief and his squaw, as they then stood and stand today, were typical of the brave and his squaw of the ancient tribes. Today, during the three days when the Indian is supreme in Banff, Stoney Chief looks down on the Indians' teepee village in the same manner as in by-gone years it looked down on the teepees of his ancestors.
As evening comes on, the sun as it sets crowns, Stoney Squaw and bathes the little village with its departing light as though it were the mother saying good, night and-blessing her children and their simple life.

      Many times during their three-day visit, the older Indians stand and gaze steadfastly at the surrounding peaks. Arms folded, oblivious to all the activity around them, their wonderful head dresses and brilliant costumes make them conspicuous figures. As they thus stand there is no doubt that for them the wheels of time have temporarily rolled back, and in imaginations they are once more standing as they did in youth-as did their fathers before them-lords of the mountains and the plains-majesty amidst the majestic.

      The younger men are not affected in this way, for their contact with the whites and the different environment in which they have been raised has to a certain extent dimmed the lustre of the memories and the traditions to which the older Indians cling. Even on Indian Days the younger redskins prefer the dress of the paleface, their tastes running to cowboy costumes.

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The event that led to the adoption of Indian days occurred in 1880. In July of that year all rail traffic both east and west of Banff was tied up for a period of ten days when heavy rains washed out the tracks in both direc- 

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