In 1883, when three Canadian Pacific Railway workers stumbled onto the warm, mineral-filled waters in a cave nestled in Sulphur Mountain in Banff, they couldn’t have guessed that their discovery would lead to Canada’s first national park. But just a few years later, that’s what it would become. Although it’s true that those three workers—brothers William and Tom McCardell and Frank McCabe—did first see the waters for themselves in 1883, First Nations people had been enjoying the hot springs well before then; the Bow Valley, where the cave sits, has…
