A pilgrimage to what remains

All my hope on God is founded
He will still my trust renew
Me through change and chance he guideth
Only good and only true
God unknown 
​He alone
​Calls my heart to be His own"

Bankhead's Holy Trinity Church (Built 1908).

Living up in Banff is like living in a postcard.  I have the tremendous privilege of being able to escape to somewhere beautiful at any moment. The options are endless - a jaunt over to Bow Falls, a bounce over to Twojack Lake…  The opportunity to go and bask in the beauty of God’s creation is unparalleled. Most of my little explorations are impromptu in this way, with no deeper meaning. However, last Saturday, I thought I’d go and take a little mini-pilgrimage to somewhere at the fringes of our local church - the church of the Most Holy Trinity, at Bankhead, Alberta.

Bankhead is one of hundreds of little towns that once dotted the country, and whose memory is now a faint watermark. Extremely few, if any, people are alive today who ever lived there, but it was once a sizeable coal mining town of almost a thousand souls, nestled on the eastern side of Cascade Mountain. Cascade contains sizeable deposits of anthracite coal, the highest quality available, and in an era when steam engines ruled the rails, a ready supply of high-quality coal was necessary to ensure that the Canadian Pacific Railway trains made their way up and over the Continental Divide.

Founded in 1903, Bankhead was poised to become the centre of industry in the Bow Valley, with a population equal to that of its neighbours in Banff and Canmore. It was planned as a thoroughly modern town, with a municipal water and sewer system, electricity and streetlights; neither Banff nor Canmore could boast of such luxuries yet. Sure, Bankhead was a mine town, but it was going to be a model mine town, one that its residents could be proud of. Occupying pride of place in the town was the church of the Most Holy Trinity, built in 1908, an elegant edifice on a concrete foundation, complete with a rose window over the front door. The Bow Valley missions had no resident pastors of their own, but Fr. Anthony Zyla, OMI, would visit regularly for Masses, as much of Bankhead was Catholic, and those who were not often had the means to travel to the Protestant churches in Banff.

To visit Bankhead today, one could not draw more different conclusions at first glance. The mine closed in 1922, and most of the town’s inhabitants moved away, their bright homes moved into Banff or beyond. The rhubarb that the Chinese slag pickers had planted in little market gardens to sell now grows wild among the slag heaps. The streetlights and tennis courts are long gone.

Photography: Solomon Ip

Pride of man and earthly glory,
Sword and crown betray his trust;
What with care and toil he buildeth
Tower and temple fall to dust
But God’s power Hour by hour
Is my temple and my tower."

Holy Trinity today looks nothing like the old photographs. The superstructure was sawn in half and carted away to Forest Lawn, only to be replaced by the current Holy Trinity Parish in 1962. Cresting the hillock the church was built on, one finds phantom remnants of what had once been the temple of the Lord. The concrete steps and foundation are in remarkable condition for having been abandoned over a century ago, welcoming parishioners to a place that no longer exists except in memory. 

The birches and spruces grow tall now along the foundation - divinely assigned to delineate where the hallowed walls had been. What was once the sanctuary or sacristy is now overgrown, and the walls of the parish hall in the basement are marred with graffiti. And yet, one knows instinctively that this had once been a place of communion between God and His people. One senses a peace that surpasses human understanding, more so than in the mine ruins below. Holy Trinity meant something to the faithful who worshipped there, and it can be felt to this day.

So, what does this mean for a Christian pilgrim of 2026, a century after the last Mass was held? For me, the key is in the church’s namesake itself. We give glory to God the Holy Trinity Who was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.  God is infinite; we are not. As grand as the cathedrals of the world are, and as dear as our parish churches are to us, there will come a day when they are no more. Centuries or millennia from now, human society will have changed its trappings innumerable times over. The houses of God we have built will need replacing at best, or be abandoned to time at worst.

Only what is most important will remain. The Scriptures tell us exactly what these are: faith, hope, love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness… These are the fruits of a Christian life, fruits borne of a tree planted by running water, evergreen, as the first psalm reminds us. These are the fruits of a life caught up in the love of the Holy Trinity, whirling onward towards eternity in the dance between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are called to be present in the world, as signs and wayposts to others that there is a Life and a Love beyond when time will end, Who wants us to enter into the joy of the eternity He has prepared for us.

Still from man to God eternal 
Sacrifice of praise be done,
High above all praises praising
For the gift of Christ his Son.
Christ doth call
One and all:
​Ye who follow shall not fall.

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Written by Solomon Ip, St. Mary's Parish, Banff. 
​Hymn texts from “All My Hope on God Is Founded.” Author: Joachim Neander; Translator: Robert Bridges (1899).