The Canmore Golf and Curling Club's 100-year milestone doesn't arrive with a ribbon-cutting or a grand opening. It arrives the way most genuinely good things do in Canmore – quietly, with deep roots and a lot of people who remember when.
Founded in 1926 by residents who cleared the land by hand, raised the money themselves, and built something from nothing on the valley floor, the Club turns 100 this year. It is, by any reasonable measure, one of the more quietly remarkable institutions in the Canadian Rockies.
From Coal Dust to Fairways
The Club's origins are inseparable from Canmore's identity as a coal-mining town. What started as the Canmore Golf Association was built by the kind of people who spent their working hours underground and apparently wanted something to do above it. For decades, the Club ran alongside the rhythm of the mine – until 1979, when the mine closed, and Canmore found itself at a crossroads.
What followed was a period of reinvention that the town handled rather well, all things considered. In the mid-1980s, Canmore was selected alongside Calgary to host events for the 1988 Winter Olympics. In that same spirit of renewal, the local golf and curling clubs merged to form the Canmore Golf and Curling Club as it exists today – two sports, one banner, and a shared sense that community is worth organising around.
The Club That the Olympics Didn't Ruin
There is a particular kind of place that survives a brush with international attention and comes out the other side still belonging to the people who built it. The Canmore Golf and Curling Club is one of those places.
Generations have learned to golf and curl here. Families have gathered on the patio after a summer round with the Three Sisters looking on in the background, which is either very inspiring or mildly distracting, depending on your short game. Members have turned up for bonspiels, league nights, and closing days with the reliable loyalty of people who have decided this is their place.
Visitors, too, have found something here that the bigger resort operations rarely manage – a club that reflects the actual character of the town rather than a curated version of it.
A Century Celebrated, a Second One Beginning
The Club's mission has remained consistent through a hundred years of change: to provide high-quality, affordable golf and curling, create genuine experiences for members and guests, and remain a warm home for sport and connection. It is not a complicated mission. The difficulty, as any long-running institution will tell you, is simply keeping it.
Throughout 2026, a series of events, legacy projects, and community gatherings are planned to mark the centenary. Member-focused celebrations, public moments of recognition, and heritage features honouring the Club's roots are all in the works, with more details to follow as the year unfolds.
For visitors to Canmore this summer, the Club sits on 170 acres on the Bow River valley floor – a mountain golf course with the kind of views that make a double bogey feel almost acceptable.
A hundred years on, the people who cleared this land by hand would probably be pleased. And a little surprised by the green fees.
My grandfather, grandmother and mother played it often in the 1930’s.