Canmore NWMP Barracks

What follows is a partial copy from the Travel Alberta website in reference to a tourist attraction. I like to store these things in the event that a site is updated and some of the material modified or removed.

The Northwest Mounted Police barracks, built in 1893, is Canmore's third oldest building after the Canmore Hotel and the Ralph Connor Memorial Church.

The two Mounties stationed at Canmore constructed the barracks from logs cut with dovetail notches and chinking mixed from mud and straw. The Mounties also added an open veranda that was not part of the approved plan. Finally, they built a barn and a corral for their horses.

Inside, the barracks included a jail, two bedrooms, an office, and a kitchen. Usually, the Canmore barracks were home to only one member of the NWMP at a time, occasionally two.

In 1918, Corporal Charles H. Clarke moved into the barracks with his wife, Dora, and their five children. The Clarkes built an addition on the east side of the building in 1923 with a sitting room and another bedroom to better accommodate the family. The barracks are maintained as it was when the Clarkes lived there.

The NWMP abandoned the barracks in 1929. The Department of Interior, which held the lease, at first rented the barracks but then sold them in 1931. The Town of Canmore bought the barracks in 1989, and a year later, the Alberta government declared it a provincial historic resource.