Local Legend: Ralphine Locke
Ralphine Locke tells her stories of a bygone era and reminds us of the importance of giving back – no matter what your age.
Story by Lynn Martel. Portrait by Kristy Davison.
Highline Magazine, Winter 2012/13 edition.
Ralphine Locke has a really good memory.
She remembers sleeping in a canvas-topped cabin in B.C.’s Bugaboos on one of legendary mountain guide Hans Gmoser’s first heli-skiing adventures in 1966.
“I was thrilled to death to be there,” she recalls, “but it was a little chilly.”
She remembers riding on horseback with her uncle Jim Brewster for a VIP tour of his new Sunshine ski area when the horses became mired in softening spring snow.
“They had to buck to get themselves free,” she says. “I hung on to my seat. It was a big adventure.”
A self-described tough kid, Ralphine was just ten years old at the time.
Born in 1925, she is the only documented person to be born at Lake Louise where her father managed Brewster horse and bus tours during the summers. They lived in a cabin where the current Chateau Lake Louise parking lot sits.
“It was a wonderful time,” she says. “Mom encouraged us to notice everything about nature. We were so free. There were bears around, but we never worried; we just gave them lots of room.”
In winter they lived in Banff, skiing at Norquay long before chair lifts. The hardships of WWII, however, sent the family to Calgary where Ralphine married Banffite Gerry Locke (no relation to Charlie Locke) and raised two children. Her son, Harvey, founded the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.
Then, in her will, Ralphine’s cousin and celebrated Banffite, Eleanor Luxton, requested that Ralphine join the board of the Eleanor Luxton Historical Foundation. She accepted the challenge with gusto.
Now 87, this diminutive yet industrious great-grandmother has seen two of Eleanor’s books re-published and has gained museum status for the historical Luxton home where Ralphine guides visitor tours. She launched a creative writing contest for Banff Community High School students modelled on one she has run for three decades at Strathcona Tweedsmuir School. She consults on Whyte Museum exhibits and works on the Bison Belong campaign. At the 2011 Banff Mountain Book Festival, she sparkled on a story-telling panel.
“I like to be busy,” Ralphine says. “That’s one of the nice things about living here. There’s so much going on.”
UPDATE: March 11, 2014
Ralphine Louise Locke passed away peacefully in her Banff home on March 7, 2014, while a chinook wind was blowing. She was 88 years old.
We’ll never know Rocky Mountain grace like Banffite Ralphine Locke. She was the perfect combination of pioneer and pearl; a true adventurer who always treasured the beauty she found in exploring nature, in meeting people, and in preserving history. Locke herself was a treasure to this community: she served on the Town of Banff’s Heritage Committee as a reference for Banff’s history, she ran the Luxton home museum as a volunteer and in 2009 she was honoured with a lifetime achievement award for heritage conservation by the Town of Banff. Subsequently, she received one of the inaugural SHINE awards from The Banff Community Foundation. Locke exuded a kindness that made us feel more connected to the Bow Valley than before we met her.
And we’ll think of Locke often — when we read great poems, when we watch the clouds slowly move over Lake Louise, and when we smell the first flowers blooming in the Luxton garden.