Last fall, the Fairmont Spa Banff Springs debuted a new partnership with Mother Earth Essentials, an Indigenous-owned beauty product brand based in Edmonton. Founder Carrie Armstrong is a Cree woman and a descendant of a long line of medicine women who uses knowledge of plant medicine passed down by her grandmother to create the Mother Earth products.
Armstrong designed custom massage and facial oils specifically for the Fairmont Spa Banff Springs using plants native to the land that Banff National Park occupies. The products are used for a 90-minute body experience — a sage and peppermint salt scrub, followed by a massage using wintergreen and black spruce oils and an application of a facial oil made from berry seeds. The spa also uses Mother Earth products in one of the pedicure treatments and sells Mother Earth products in its retail area.
Armstrong is an educator who began developing the Mother Earth brand when she was teaching at Edmonton’s Indigenous-program junior/senior high school, Amiskwaciy Academy. In addition to creating the products, she trained the Banff Springs spa technicians on the medicinal elements, allowing them to share this knowledge with clients as part of the treatment.
“When I did the training, they had already been using the products for some time and I got such great feedback,” Armstrong says. “They loved the feel of the massage oil, and when I told them the story and the plants it made them really appreciate it.”
The plant knowledge and education adds another layer to the spa experience at the Springs that continues when clients move out of the private treatment rooms into the shared spaces — the mineral and waterfall pool area and serene outdoor hot pool exclusive for spa guests — with grand views of the Rockies.
Encouraging guests to contemplate the roots of wellness culture in the region while relaxing in this environment is apropos: Indigenous peoples enjoyed natural hot springs in the area long before the arrival of railway workers and the construction of the grand hotel designed to draw well-heeled train travellers to Banff. Acknowledging the Indigenous contribution to the Banff spa experience feels like an essential element that has long been missing.
The Springs Mother Earth Essential partnership opened the door for a similar collaboration with the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge. That project has an even deeper meaning for Armstrong, whose ancestors lived on the land that, in 1907, was declared Jasper National Park.
“My great-grandmother got pushed out of Jasper when Parks came in and said, ‘We can’t have Indigenous people here, we’re opening a beautiful national park. You guys don’t belong here.’ So it’s full-circle to be coming back,” Armstrong says. “That’s reconciliation in action.”
405 Spray Ave., Banff, to book, call 1-403-762-1772 or email, bsh.spareservations@fairmont.com.
