Canmore or Lake Louise?

Neither place is for a beach trip, but Canmore at least lets you swim. Quarry Lake, on the edge of town, has a grassy shore and clear water that is cold but swimmable on a hot July afternoon.

At Lake Louise the glacial silt that gives the lakes their colour also keeps them near freezing all summer, so a dip is a dare rather than a swim. The nearest lakes that warm up are near Banff, a 45-minute drive.

Canmore eats better. Main Street and the streets around it have bakeries and coffee shops for an early start, brewpubs for the evening and a few more ambitious kitchens cooking bison, game and Pacific Northwest fish, and there is a summer farmers' market. It is a mountain-town range, but you have real choices, and Banff is twenty minutes away.

At Lake Louise, dinner almost always means a hotel dining room or lodge, with high prices and bookings needed in summer. The best food memories are the trail teahouses at Lake Agnes and the Plain of Six Glaciers, where tea, soup and baking come at the end of a climb.

Both places come up short on sights, and the difference is in what little they have. Canmore tells a coal-mining story through its small museum, miners' cottages and the old Mounted Police barracks, and the Nordic Centre is a legacy of the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Lake Louise's heritage is all about early tourism: the Chateau, which grew from an 1890s log chalet, and the log railway station the Canadian Pacific built for its first visitors. For museums, both rely on Banff.

Canmore at least has evenings out. Its brewpubs and pubs fill with climbers, locals and weekenders from Calgary, sometimes with a band in the corner, though most wind down before midnight.

Lake Louise has a hotel lounge and a fireside lodge pub, and the crowd is in bed early for sunrise at the lake or the first lift. From either place a late night means Banff, which is a short hop from Canmore and a long drive back from Lake Louise.

Both are outstanding, and they offer different kinds of mountain. Lake Louise puts you beside the famous postcard scenery: the Victoria Glacier above the lake, Moraine Lake below the Valley of the Ten Peaks, teahouse trails, grizzly country around the gondola and one of Canada's largest ski areas. The Icefields Parkway and Yoho are close by, but the main lakeshores are crowded in summer.

Canmore is the rock climber's and scrambler's town, with Ha Ling Peak, the Three Sisters and Mount Rundle rising above the streets, Nordic and mountain-bike trails at the Nordic Centre, and elk wandering through town. Kananaskis Country to the south gives quieter peaks and lakes than anything near Lake Louise.

Neither is a base for touring towns, and both point their days out at Banff, which is twenty minutes from Canmore and about 45 from Lake Louise. Canmore is also just over an hour from Calgary, close enough for Heritage Park or the Stampede in July.

Lake Louise, sitting further up the valley, is the better start for the Icefields Parkway and for crossing the Continental Divide to Field, Yoho and Golden, while Calgary is about two hours off.

Canmore is the easier place with children. The paved paths along the Bow suit pushchairs and bikes, short walks such as Grassi Lakes end at water, and the recreation centre's pool and indoor climbing wall save a rainy day. In winter there is sledding, skating and gentle Nordic trails.

Lake Louise has its family moments, from canoeing on the lake to the gondola and the walk to the Lake Agnes teahouse, but it suits older children who walk willingly. Summer crowds, cold high trails and nothing indoors make wet days hard to fill.

In Canmore you stay in the place you want to be: the small downtown is easy on foot, the riverside trails make bikes practical, and local buses plus a regional route to Banff cover a good deal without a car. Kananaskis and many trailheads still need one.

Lake Louise village is tiny, but the lake and the Chateau are a steep 4km uphill, Moraine Lake is further up a winding road and the ski area is across the valley. Lakeside parking fills very early in summer, so days revolve around park shuttles and buses, with a car needed for anything beyond.

Canmore's Main Street gives you an hour of browsing: outdoor gear and clothing shops, and galleries selling mountain landscapes and Indigenous work. Lake Louise has a small village mall with gear, maps, groceries and souvenirs, plus a few boutiques in the Chateau, good for what you forgot to pack. For real shopping, both look to Calgary.

Neither is cheap, but Canmore is the more manageable of the two. It has far more places to stay, including self-catering condos, a supermarket for picnics and a wider spread of restaurant prices, and the shoulder seasons bring real savings.

Lake Louise has only a handful of hotels and lodges, and in summer their rates are among the highest in the country, with resort-priced meals and gondola and lift tickets on top. The usual way round it is a hostel, the campground or a room in Canmore with day trips up the valley.

Canmore has a modest but real calendar. The Canmore Folk Music Festival, one of the oldest in Canada, fills a riverside park over the August long weekend, the small arts centre puts on concerts and theatre, and the Banff Centre with its mountain film festival is twenty minutes away.

At Lake Louise, the most you are likely to find is a pianist or folk singer in a hotel lounge, so any concert means the drive to Banff.

Canmore has more choice for winding down after the trails. The Nordic-style spa at Kananaskis Village has outdoor hot and cold pools under the peaks, the Banff Upper Hot Springs are about half an hour away, and the town has yoga studios and massage therapists.

Lake Louise's calm depends on the season. The lakeside hotels have spas, and in winter and the shoulder months the forest and frozen lake are very quiet, but in July and August coaches crowd the shore from early morning.