Cranbrook and Tourism
Cranbrook has long been a gateway to tourism in the Canadian Rockies. This arch welcomed motorist-visitors in the 1940's.
In deciding where to site the museum, it helped that Cranbrook already had sizable
tourist traffic, mostly from visitors travelling between the United States and several
nearby National Parks, including Banff, Kootenay, Yoho, and Glacier. Also, Fort
Steele operates as a provincially owned historical site, with a steam-powered
railway that runs in the summer. The neighbouring city of Kimberley, boasts a large
ski hill and calls itself the "Bavarian capital of the Rockies." It has electric
locomotives running on underground narrow gauge mining trackage, and has an
above-ground tourist mining railway. The modified CPR station in the heart of
Kimberley is also preserved, along with a wooden CPR caboose parked nearby.
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