Lytton Museum and Archives

Lytton is a settlement off the Trans-Canada Highway that initially presents on a warm August afternoon as perhaps a rather sleepy place, but there is a big story here. Sam at the wonderful museum, with a rich collection of artefacts, explains that there has been a settlement here for 10,000 years. It became a mini-boom town during the gold rush (the gold was quickly exhausted) and again when the Chinese arrived to build the railway. A stupendous fossil of a giant shrimp, claimed to be 122 million years old, attests that Lytton was once underwater. Lytton’s visitors have included HM Queen Elizabeth who was here with Philip in the 1950s, when she traversed Western Canada by train. There are good cafés in the village and some small shops. Much else, including a maintenance base for the CN railway, which still throbs with activity. This is an ideal stopover on the way from the west coast to Banff.