The Beer Parlour Project - Grand Union Hotel

Margarit and I headed down to Crowsnest Pass on the afternoon of Friday September 15th.  We dropped off Helena at school in the morning, and then hit the road.  Hailey was going to pick up Helena from school later that afternoon.

We arrived in Blairmore at around 3:00 in the afternoon and met up with Chris and Connie.  We had reservations to stay at the historic Cosmopolitan Hotel and checked in shortly after we arrived.  The Cosmo, as it is affectionately known, recently changed hands.  The last time we were here, in the fall of 2022, the Cosmo was a happening place.  It was owned by a very friendly East Indian couple and they served great food in their restaurant.

This time around we never met the new owners.  Their prices had significantly increased, and their new staff was not very friendly, and a little disorganized.  The booking that I did on line charged me a very questionable service charge and the hotel staff refused to offer any help in dealing with it.  I am still fighting with the booking website for an explanation, and hopefully at least a partial refund.  The restaurant was not even open for breakfast and had a very limited menu.  And their tavern was a lot quieter than it had been a year prior under the previous management.  We were not able to make any plans to document this tavern as the new staff simply didn't seem very cooperative.

After checking in we headed down the highway to Coleman and headed for the Grand Union Hotel.  This would be the seventh location that we explored for the Beer Parlour Project and thus this one became BP7.0.  This hotel does not rent rooms by the night so it was not an option to stay here.  Rather the rooms are rented by the month, and only the tavern is open to the public.  We met the owner, Glory-Jo, and she was a fantastic host.  She had arranged for a historian friend of hers, Stephanie Laine Hamilton to meet with us.  Stephanie has a history degree from University and is very well versed in the background of the Crowsnest area.  She had recently published a book about the history of all the hotels and pubs in the area.  A project eerily similar to ours, but specifically focused on the Crowsnest Pass area.  Her project was more written history, while ours will be broader based on western Canada, and have more of a visual element.  She was thrilled to meet us as we were to meet her and we shared a lot of information.

Glory-Jo took us on a tour of the hotel and showed us all of the inner workings.  She even posed for some photographs.  She is planning to retire and has the establishment up for sale.  We understand that a deal is pending with a buyer that plans to restore and continue to operate it.  It seems a return visit is very likely.

Later in the evening a local band played for a while and we hung around, having a few drinks and listening to the two sets.  They were pretty decent and had a great set list of cover songs.  We stayed until shortly before 11:00 and then once the band had finished up we packed up all of our gear, said our goodbyes, and travelled back to Blairmore for the night.