Nestled in the Rocky Mountains within Banff National Park, the small community of Lake Louise sits at an elevation of 1,600 metres, making it the highest community in Canada. Located just off the Trans-Canada Highway approximately 180 kilometres west of Calgary, the settlement lies about 3 kilometres northeast of the famous lake that shares its name. The area experiences a subarctic climate, with annual snowfall averaging around 279 centimetres and winter temperatures that can dip below -50 degrees Celsius. Snow is possible in any month of the year, and the frost-free period averages only 14 days annually.
Long before European settlement, Indigenous peoples – including the Nakoda, who called the lake Ho-run-num-nay, meaning “lake of the little fishes” – inhabited this region, hunting bison, elk, and moose while fishing the waterways and foraging for edible and medicinal plants. A Nakoda guide led CPR worker Tom Wilson to the lake in 1882, and Wilson originally called it Emerald Lake. The community itself went through several names – Holt City and then Laggan – before becoming Lake Louise. The original railway station from around 1890 was replaced in 1910, and that 1910 station was declared a federal heritage railway station in 1991, operating today as a restaurant. Lake Louise was incorporated into Rocky Mountains Park in 1892, and a 2011 census recorded a population of 691 residents, many of whom work in the local tourism and service industries.