Location
Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada

Num-Ti-Jah’s location, standing alone on Bow Lake with no other tourist facilities in sight, is one of its greatest appeals. Guests will enjoy the lodge’s rustic atmosphere, captured in its log construction, knotty pine walls, Arts and Crafts furniture and huge stone fireplace. Spacious rooms provide a comfortable sleep, while the Elkhorn Dining Room serves hearty Canadian fare in a setting evocative of the lodge's pioneer past. Guests at Num-Ti-Jah Lodge are part of a colorful history that dates back to 1898, when a 21-year-old English pioneer named Jimmy Simpson camped at Bow Lake and vowed he would one day “build a shack here” as a base for outfitting expeditions into the surrounding mountain grandeur. Twenty-five years later, he erected a log cabin on the site and called it Num-Ti-Jah , the Stoney Plain Indian word for pine marten. As Jimmy’s fame as a guide grew, so, too, did word of the magnificent landscapes into which he led scientists, mountaineers, hunters and artists. By 1937 the Banff-Jasper Highway was completed as far as Bow Lake, bring more visitors to Num-Ti-Jah. Jimmy and his family started building the present-day lodge in 1940, and a decade later, a log-and-stone hotel with 16 rooms stood on the shore of Bow Lake. After Jimmy died in 1972, his son ran the lodge until 1996, and while its rooms and amenities have been upgraded since, its authentic pioneer heritage still permeates this noted hostelry today.