Take time for ‘high tea’ in the Canadian backcountry
by Amanda Follett
While it’s true, for the most part, that mountain folk tend to demonstrate little refinement when feeding their mountain appetites, they do occasionally enjoy a smidgen of tea on backcountry excursions.
The tradition of serving ‘high tea’ in the Canadian Rockies dates back to 1905, when the Lake Agnes Tea House was just a shack on the shores of a tiny tarn, nestled in the mountains above Lake Louise. From the shack, women would serve tea to Swiss mountaineers as they guided clients into the surrounding peaks.
Today, the trails to both Lake Agnes and Plain of Six Glaciers tea houses are some of the most travelled in Banff National Park, but visitors can still get a spot of tea and something to eat as they relax amongst the mountains. While either tea house can be accessed in a half-day trip from Lake Louise, the 15-kilometre loop that takes hikers past both is a great way to spend a day.
Both tea houses are open from early June until October, closing after Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend. August is one of the busiest months for the tea houses, while the weather is warm and school is out. The most rewarding time to visit is September or early October, when the trails are quiet, the Larches are turning, the cool air is perfect for hiking and a pot of tea by a cozy fire is a welcome reward when you reach your destination.
While staff at the tea houses are lucky to call this mountain retreat home on quiet days and summer evenings, for most of the season they field questions from curious day trippers about this unique piece of Canadian History. If you plan to visit, here are a few fast facts to get you primed on the backcountry destination. You could even give your server a hand by answering questions from the person at the next table!
Pick a quiet spot on the deck of the tea house and drink in the views that are a reward at the endpoint of your hike.
Q: Do you live here?
A: Yes. Staff members live at the tea houses during their workweek, often taking their days off to hike down and explore the rest of the area. No, they are not a family of mountain hillbillies born and bred in the high peaks. Most are seasonal employees, for the most part students, and a great many become addicted to the mountain lifestyle, returning season after season to this beautiful backcountry spot.
Q: Where’s the gondola to get back down?
A: You get down the way you came up: hike. Tea house staff doesn’t have any secret access road, as some visitors stubbornly believe. They hike the same trails as everyone else, carrying laundry and their week’s supplies with them when they come. If you’re not the athletic type, you can take a horseback tour to either tea house.
Q: Do you hike supplies up here yourself?
A: Two or three times each season a helicopter slings loads of non-perishable supplies, such as flour and canned goods, to the tea house. Fresh produce and other perishable items are carried up by packhorse once a week. When early season snowfall makes for a slippery trail and horses can no longer make the trip, staff are sometimes required to hike supplies up on their way back from days off — not always a pleasant task, should you find yourself lugging a Thanksgiving turkey through bear country.
Q: Where’s your trash?
A: Teahouse staff pack all garbage out with them when they hike down and they ask that you carry out with you what you carried in.
Q: Can you fill my water bottle?
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The Lake Agnes Tea House, just a short hike from the Chateau Lake Louise, is a welcome resting stop that comes complete with fresh baked goods and hot beverages.
A: At Lake Agnes Tea House, water comes from the lake and is boiled before being served in lemonade and teas. According to health regulations, staff can’t fill your water bottle from the tap, but they may direct you to the lake, which they and their predecessors have sipped from for almost 100 years. (At one time, a pipeline supplied Lake Agnes water to the Chateau Lake Louise.) At Plain of Six Glaciers, visitors can help themselves to water from a well behind the tea house.
Q: Can I have ice in my drink?
A: The lack of electricity in the backcountry makes for a distinct lack of ice. (Food is kept chilled in a cold cellar.) If you would like ice in your lemonade, staff will likely direct you to the nearest glacier. Also, don’t bother asking for the soda machine, to pay with your debit card or charge your cell phone.
Q: What are those pesky critters going after my apple crumble?
A: The furry, chubby ones are likely golden-mantled ground squirrels, commonly mistaken for overweight chipmunks. (Chipmunks, unlike most other things in the mountains, tend to be smaller in the Canadian Rockies than most other places.) The grey and black birds you see lurking about are Clark’s nutcrackers, known colloquially as the “camp robber”. They may look nice as they perch overhead, but watch for them swooping down to nab a bite of your lunch.
Q: This critter’s hungry — is it okay to feed him?
A: He’s not hungry — he’s an overweight sugar-addict with bad manners. Not only is it illegal to feed wildlife in Banff National Park (and, yes, those rules extend to the little creatures as well as the grizzly bears) it is also very bad for the animals. Sugar and other unnatural elements found in human food can be deadly for wild animals and feeding them also encourages bad habits, making them a nuisance to future visitors. You may think you’re doing that cute, furry face a favour by slipping him a piece of your chocolate chip cookie, but you might ultimately be killing him.
Fast Facts:
Lake Agnes Tea House lies at 2,135 metres of elevation and is located 3.4 kilometres from the Chateau Lake Louise.
Plain of Six Glaciers Tea House lies at 2,070 metres of elevation and is located 5.5 kilometres from the Chateau Lake Louise.
Canadian Pacific Railway owned both tea houses for many years (and, until recently, the Chateau Lake Louise) until it sold Plain of Six Glaciers in the late 1970s and Lake Agnes not long after, in the early 1980s.
Both were bought by individual women who continue to run them from Lake Louise.
Also, in both cases, the tea houses are managed on a day-to-day basis by the respective daughters of each owner.
Only cash is accepted at either tea house, although if you offer to carry down a couple bags of garbage you might be able to finagle a cookie.
All baked goods are created onsite, in propane-powered ovens.
Amanda Follett is a Canmore-based writer who did a stint living and working at the Lake Agnes Tea House when she arrived in the Bow Valley five years ago.
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