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A mystery solved … of a life well-lived

How many of us, long after we’re gone, live on through our passion? For many, that pride takes the form of their children. For others, it may be found in their work.

How many of us, long after we’re gone, live on through our passion?

For many, that pride takes the form of their children. For others, it may be found in their work. But for others, often artists, writers, or sculptors, like Michelangelo and David, their passion arouses more than admiration and curiosity. It makes us want to know more, much more, about who created the art.

I live part of each year in a cozy, corner home on Banff Avenue, one of only four single family homes left on Banff’s famous street. With stunning views of Norquay and Cascade mountains, my partner had turned it into a welcoming bed and breakfast.

Built in 1955, observers would say it’s an “ordinary home,” and they would be right, except for one salient feature. If they opened the front door, to their left, past the windows and wing backed chairs, they would be greeted by an impressive stone fireplace.

This is no ordinary fireplace. Rising from floor to ceiling, it is plain to see that each and every stone had been carefully selected over a lifetime; stones mortared above and below a Rundle rock mantle, with patience and craftsmanship. Stones with stripes, some with fossils, quartz and crystal, are nestled beside prehistoric club heads. Smooth green surfaces the colour of jade join a palette of rich, warm colours from burnt orange to Swiss coffee. One of the stones has an image in the shape of a duck, another in the contours of Africa. Every stone is distinct, from a size that would fit into your pocket to others weighing 30 pounds or more.

And what is amazing, what the visitor wouldn’t see, is that downstairs beneath the living room, under the top floor fireplace, is a second stone fireplace with rocks just as exquisite and rare.

This was clearly a work of passion. But who was it that laboriously collected these stones? And why? Was it a knowledgeable geologist, or just a lover of natural beauty? Where were the stones found? And when? And from the number and sizes of the rocks, how did he or she carry them here? And what about the old wrought iron screen in front of the fireplace with the letter P on top and the initials P, J, J, G welded on the bottom? What did the letters represent?

By coincidence, I was soon to find out. The answers would, surprisingly enough, reveal a man well known to Banff. A man who, through his passion which lives on through the stone fireplace, would change dramatically for me how he’s perceived. And, as importantly, it would suggest how he and others in his family might have wanted to be remembered.

But there are two other pieces to the story, parts of the puzzle that had piqued my curiosity as much as the fireplace. On the back corner of the lot, in a shaded spot that evokes a small town tranquility, stands a tall spruce tree. Clearing twigs one day, breathing in its sweet smell, I looked up and discovered a rusted bicycle rim 20 feet up the tree, now embedded in the bark through the passage of time. How fascinating, I thought, it’s a pulley that carried a line to the back of the house that stood before ours. Like the stone fireplace, I’d gaze at it and be pulled back in time.

The second curiosity was the spirit that resided in the house. A short time after moving in, while down in the washroom, I heard footsteps walking around the upstairs entrance. The sounds were so clear I called out to see who was there. But I was the only one home, and all the doors to the house were locked. Connie, my partner, expressed surprise, but then experienced the exact phenomenon a few months later. Laughingly, she said, “I’ve from time to time smelled pipe tobacco wafting pleasantly through the house.”

But whose treasure, if not a magnum opus, lives on in our home… the person who so carefully transported the many stones… the same person who many years ago attached a bicycle rim to a then much smaller tree?

A few months ago, while updating her B&B license, Connie walked into the office of the Parks Administration building. “Out of curiosity,” she said to the attendant, “would your records identify the original property owner?”

The Parks employee pulled out an old document, and then paused, saying, “I’ll be, the original leaseholder was Ebenezer William Peyto, better known as Bill Peyto. It appears he leased the property, with no improvements, in 1907. And then he built a home there where he lived until he died in 1943 at the age of 74.”

This was the same Bill Peyto whose arresting visage graces the entrance signs welcoming modern day tourists to Banff, with an expression of certitude amidst the confusion felt by the new arrivees. As surprised as the attendant, Connie asked, “What happened to the house and property?”

He glanced at the records. “His estate was managed by his brother Walter, whose son, Stan Peyto, purchased the property. Apparently Stan and his wife Inez moved into Bill’s house, and in 1955 they tore down the dwelling and built the present home that you now occupy. It appears that Stan and Inez lived in the home for 30 years.”

“Is there a photograph of Bill’s house?” Connie asked.

“I don’t know, but if there is, the archives might have it.”

A few days later, Connie and I strolled into the Whyte Museum archives office. “There should be a photo,” said the archivist. “In 1937, the local government, in fear it wasn’t collecting all of the taxes from cabin rentals, went around and took a photo of every house in Banff, more often than not, of the backyards.”

She directed us to large diagram on a table and indicated a block and lot number for every house in Banff. “I’ll retrieve the files,” she said. “Please slip on the white gloves in the box before handling the photos.”

A few minutes later, under the glow of a small lamp, we found ourselves staring at the front of Bill Peyto’s home. Sure enough, its roof in relation to Tunnel Mountain’s skyline was identical to ours. As I studied the photo, looking for other similarities, I thought about the homes that had come and gone in Banff and which, besides a 1937 unintended chronicle, had little record of their history at all.

But who is Bill Peyto? As so often happens with iconic images, whether it’s the “showman” P.T. Barnum or the “humourist” Mark Twain, or, in this case, the handsome steely-eyed “mountain man” Bill Peyto, their complexities are slowly stripped away.

And it’s the thrill of biography, as biographer Ted Hart accomplishes in Bill Peyto’s Mountain Journal, to reach behind the surface for a glimpse of who people really were. Yes, Bill Peyto was a loner. Yes, he was a prospector having staked a claim, and, yes, he was an entrepreneur and mountain guide; occupations he parlayed into years as one of the national park’s wardens. But what most people don’t know, what isn’t as easily seen in his rugged photograph, is that Bill Peyto was also… a scholar.

He was fascinated with paleontology and geology and immersed himself in the books of his time on the subject. Quoting from Ted Hart’s fictionalized, yet studied, account of his activities, Bill Peyto can be heard saying, “There’s a nice green meadow with interesting quartz outcroppings in the limestone,” or “My time poking around the rocks has been productive. I’ve gathered samples, some containing copper from the lakes at the foot of Healy Pass,” or “It’s here near Emerald Lake in a fossil bed that I picked up my first sample of Cambrian Trilobite.” And further on, Hart relays Bill Peyto’s excitement “finding invertebrate fossils embossed in the rock,” and how “quickly he got out his hammer to chip some loose.”

Bill Peyto didn’t choose to have many close friends. But he relished the company of one man who shared his interest for fossils and minerals, and his findings of prehistoric clubs and arrowheads. It was Norman Sanson, the well-known Banff museum curator and weather recorder. Together, they went on collecting expeditions around Lake Minnewanka and hidden areas known only to a few.

And though I could be wrong, if I needed any further evidence that it was Bill Peyto who passionately collected the rocks now beautifying our fireplaces, it was the tiny script I discovered on one of the stones that was inscribed…“Sanson-1887.”

But if Bill Peyto carried these rocks out on horseback to his home on Banff Avenue, who built the two fireplaces? Did his nephew Stan and his wife Inez design them, employing Bill’s collection, which was no doubt stored in his sheds, or when they razed Bill’s house in 1955 did they somehow build around two fireplaces that had already been vertically constructed?

“We’ll have to ask Inez,” Connie said. And though Stan had passed away in 1984, Inez, now 90, still resided in Canmore. “I’d be delighted to drive over for tea. I’m so happy you are interested!” Inez replied to our invitation.

A neighbour, Bob Edwards (known as “Sharkey” in his younger years for his hockey prowess), who has lived in a home behind us during his 80-some years, remembered Inez well. “She’s one of the nicest people you will ever meet.” Edwards also remembered Bill Peyto. Smiling, he said, “He’d ride up Beaver Street on his way home, and we’d run and hide, for he’d shoo us away for playing in the street.”

I suspected the children had exaggerated their fears. Bill’s brother, Walter, lived diagonally across the street, where the Shell station now stands, and Bill enjoyed the company of Walter’s six children, carving wooden toys and telling stories for their wide-eyed pleasure.

INEZ’S STORY

Inez has an ageless beauty, mirrored by an infectious enthusiasm and girlish charm. And if 90 years had brought its hardships, she was disinclined to show it. Inez arrived accompanied by her son Paul’s wife, Susan, who, like Inez, had a pioneering feminine toughness.

No sooner had Inez and Susan strolled in the door than Inez exclaimed, “There’s the fireplace,” and she walked over with pride for a closer look. Inez took a seat in a comfortable chair. “My son Paul made the wrought iron screen. That’s P for Peyto on top and the initials of my four children, Paul, Jimmy, Judy and Gordon along the bottom.”

Wistfully, she added, “It’s so wonderful the home is still here. It’s the last Peyto home still standing in Banff.”

While Connie brought out the tea, I asked “Can you tell us about the fireplace?”.

“Stan and I had it built when we constructed the house.”

“Where did all the incredible rocks come from?”

“The whole family collected them. Stan never went anywhere without his backpack. Often, we would find them in creek beds where water and time had enriched their colour. Over years of family outings we selected them, some by a stream half-way to Radium, some near Bow Lake by Dolomite Mountain, and others in the Cascade valley. And, of course, quite a few were from uncle Bill’s collection of specimens.”

Susan remarked, “My husband Paul is just like his great uncle Bill. He’s happy spending days alone in the backcountry. And he’s always returning with exotic stones and artful pieces of wood.”

As Inez reflected on her family, I couldn’t help thinking how remarkable it is that Bill’s fascination with geology had been shared by Stan and Inez, and now through another generation of Peytos… a similar appreciation lives on.

“Do you remember much about Bill Peyto?”

“What you saw was what you got!” Inez laughed. “He was a handsome man. You knew when he walked into a room that this was somebody special.”

I surmised he had what we call today, presence. It emanated, I suspected, from knowing exactly who he was, what he valued, and what he enjoyed, which was more often than not being left alone among the natural wonders; the rocks and minerals, wildlife and fauna, in the back country of the Canadian Rockies.

There was a moment of silence. “But Bill,” Inez said, “was always a perfect gentleman.” And then she added an anecdote that was telling. “Walter’s wife, we called her grandma Peyto, baked delicious homemade bread, but she’d purposely burn one of the loaves for Bill. That’s the way he liked it.”

And suddenly, the image of Bill, the lone trapper and guide, was softened by a matronly woman who looked upon him with love and regard.

“Do you think Bill Peyto would have enjoyed the notoriety he’s received?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Inez replied. And I remembered something poignant from Ted Hart’s account. If I’m going to be famous for anything, Bill Peyto had said, I’d rather it was for the discovery of something scientifically important, perhaps a new fossilized species embedded in a stone.

Combing through the archives, there was one other photo I discovered. It was a photo of Bill Peyto with his wife Ethel, much later in life, standing happily, it appears, on the back stoop of their house. Unseen in front of them, about 60 feet away, stands a sturdy, still-growing spruce tree. And above them is the other end of the pulley that had pulled me back in time.

Jamie MacVicar is the author of the newly released non-fiction narrative The Advance Man: A Journey Into the World of the Circus, about his experience as an advance man for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.


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