Residents in Banff (hotel, home, living)

[cqr111]

Hello, I have a few questions about Banff and living there.
1. Because it's a town inside the Banff National Town, do residents have to pay some fee or something?
2. Could I go to live there for a year if I have family living there?
3. If I lived in Banff and I worked in Calgary, would I have to pay a fee everytime I had to work to Calgary and exit the park and come back later on?

[Lihalu]

Banff, AB - Official Website - Move to Banff

I'm not a Banff resident so can't speak about the logistics of living there, but the above link may be a good place to start!

Hope you're able to find all the information that you're looking for!

[thedwightguy]

No. you don't pay a "fee" but we do pay a National Park transit tag which is nada! Banffffff is great. If you get a chance to live there you meet a LOT...….of …….Austrailians. It's "all good".

[arctic_gardener]

Originally Posted by thedwightguy

No. you don't pay a "fee" but we do pay a National Park transit tag which is nada! Banffffff is great. If you get a chance to live there you meet a LOT...….of …….Austrailians. It's "all good".

Why are there so many Aussies there?

[ChevySpoons]

Originally Posted by arctic_gardener

Why are there so many Aussies there?

They're young adults, who are working on some sort of young-person's-temporary-working-visa program offered by the Canadian government.

Banff is a town built on tourism, and there are, at any given time, plenty of jobs in the hospitality industry: wait staff, bartenders, hotel maids, souvenir shop clerks, and so on. They are jobs that are easy to get and easy to keep, until one has to go back to wherever; at which point, there's another visiting visa-holder willing to take the job . And when they're not working, they can enjoy the national park: skiing, hiking, snowboarding, etc. It's a pretty good deal--they get to see a beautiful place that would be horribly expensive to visit from their home countries, and they're working and making money and they are able to see it.

The Australians stand out because of their accent, but there are others. You'll find many young Japanese working in souvenir shops that cater to Japanese tourists, for example; and I have no doubt that there are many young Americans too, though their accents don't stand out quite as much.

[mikeyyc]

Aussies, Quebecois and Anglo students learning Japanese.


Also, you can't actually live in Banff unless you have a job in the townsite, or own a business on the townsite. That's why Canmore is booming.