The Hertz office happens to be at the Fairmont, Banff Springs.
This turns out to be, unexpectedly, relevant to me and my successors, as, after getting out their Canadian photo album after the trip, it turns out that my parents were here, at this hotel in 1943.
I'm not sure if they stayed here but there's a picture of my mother leaning against an archway here and two photos of the hotel at a distance, taken by my father.
They were newly married and living in Calgary at the time and as the album reveals, came to Banff when my father was on leave from the Royal Air Force, Empire Air Training Scheme, where he was a flying instructor.
My mother became pregnant but lost the baby in Canada. This exact history is how I came to be born; when I was; how I came to live in Australia; and how my children and grandchildren exist at all.
Under the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS) tens of thousands aircrew were trained to fight in Europe. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc recruited suitable young men to undertake elementary training, after which promising candidates were sent to Canada for advanced training, before being deployed to the UK.
Like Australia, Canada was, at the time, a Dominion of the British Empire. Canada also had suitable training space, beyond the range of enemy aircraft, as well as excellent climatic conditions for flying. It was also adjacent to American industry and had its own aircraft building capacity. Unlike Australia, it was close enough to Britain to quickly transport men and aircraft, using established North Atlantic shipping lanes.
As a result, my parents met many Australians and liked them.
Then, in Canada, my father suffered a second back injury, when another aircraft smashed into his on the runway. He'd previously been injured in a combat related a 'prang' in England. This second injury, which plagued him for the rest of his life, caused my parents to look for a warmer climate, and Australia here we came.
I knew they had been to Banff. Yet, I was not aware of the importance of this place to my very existence when we came here.
It was thanks to Hertz that we discovered that the Fairmont has an excellent coffee shop, open to the public. So, it was from yet a different hotel in Banff, that we all came here again, after our trip up to Jasper.
