Although the front of this menu effectively advertises the golf course associated with the Banff Springs Hotel, the text on the back says nothing about golf. Instead, it claims that Scottish fur traders who first came to the Canadian Rockies found them similar to Scottish highlands, which seems ridiculous as they are nothing alike. The text then implies that those fur traders named Banff after a Scottish highland town, when in fact the name was selected by CP financier and president George Stephen, who did name it after his birthplace in Scotland. Golf’s Scottish heritage isn’t mentioned.

Click image to download a 1.2-MB PDF of this menu.

The photo itself is credited to “Associated Screen News.” As noted a few days ago, Associated Screen News was created by the Canadian Pacific in 1920 to promote Canada through newsreels and other films.

The menu itself was used on a special train for the Massachuetts-Rhode Island Knights Templar, who were taking a “Pacific Northwest Canadian Tour” in July, 1934. The menu doesn’t say so, but the Knights Templar held its annual convention on July 7-13 in San Francisco that year. The menu is dated July 14, so the tour was taken on the way home from that convention.

This seems to be a seven-course menu: an appetizer of cucumbers or olives; cream of cauliflower soup; broiled halibut Hollandaise with potatoes persillade; apple fritter with maple syrup; roast beef with more potatoes and vegetables; salad; and a choice of desserts. The course between fish and meat is supposed to “clear the palate”; I’ve never heard of an apple fritter being used for that, but it sounds good.