Downtown Banff

Downtown Banff was a strange sight to see. This is my second time in the area, the first being in fall, just after most of the tourists had left. This time I was there in June/July, right about the time the tourists start to appear.

The downtown became clogged and crowded quite easily, and while it is a developed area surrounded by gender neutral nature, the city itself is wrought with gender and sexuality. Each tourist brought their own gendered performance to their presence in the space, creating a public space that was not so much influenced by the shops and architecture itself, but by their home cultures carrying the influence on their travels, and the tourist mentality (what happens in Banff, stays in Banff) sometimes slightly muted by the influence of the surrounding nature and landscape of the Rockies.

Within town I was invited to meet some of the local ladies (local being people who rent a space rather than travel through), I was subject to feminine gender specific outfits, small shirts and short skirts, the usual attire for a group of hot young single ladies. The men were a little more subtle but in their masculine attire – long baggy shorts or jeans and t-shirts. This was hardly any different than what I saw in all other cities on my travels, the North American uniform being split into the female showing legs, arms and chest, and the male wearing the proper length to get a wonderful farmers tan. The female shaves all of her body hair, while the male uses his to assert his masculinity. There are rare exceptions to this attire, people who are often seen as deviants or modern hippies.

There was an obvious mating ritual going on at any point past dusk, the whole downtown sprouting bars and the daily shops closing for the night. On a night out with a friend and her mother and aunts, we were targeted for conquest by two drunken ‘sailors’ who were obviously drunk tourists themselves. This is a gross ritual I tend to avoid, but I was entranced with how the three women fell into the trap of the not so charming drunken liars. There was an obvious play of gender in this scene. Those men would not have been there if they didn’t perceive us all as women. The three women would not have been charmed and smitten if they had not been men. There was a sexual tension in every exchange. The mating ritual reminded me of a drunker, more embarrassing version of the cops in Times Square hitting on my group of women.

Does the transient tourist nature of the space make the sexuality more volatile? Does the tight surrounding nature influence the sexuality? Does it influence perceptions of gender? Banff seemed to have a different sexual atmosphere than other locations, one that was hidden within nature yet accentuated by the circumstances of the location whereas gender was similar to the other cities.

Nature in Banff

Arriving at Banff I was wondering whether the nature surrounding the area would hold any gender from its connection to the town and the Center. Walking through the paths however, there are only small indications of human interaction, old fire pits, worn paths, the occasional insertion of man made art using foreign objects and pieces of nature. Most of my surroundings in those forests are completely wild, allowing a genderlessness that comes from lack of social context.

Some small gendering happens with stories of the wildlife in the area, a young mother elk was living in the woods while I was a the center, something we were to watch out for because she would defend her young. This strong motherly dominance shows a female strength that is often missing in human gendering – a mother while strong, must be a role model, a calm and understanding figure.

From that point I realized that any gender I put on to the space was just that – my own assertion of a gender, my own influence labelling the space. The trees are tall and erect, but not masculine, despite mimicking the masculine body. The mountains like breasts, crevices like vaginas, but shape does not specify gender. The nature itself was truly gender neutral. The only true hints of gender came in through human made objects or interference with nature. Small permeations of socially constructed gender extend from the Banff Centre, but diminish as you enter the forested areas, away from the town.

It seems strange to me that I can see the construction of gender and sexuality so clearly in this place, but the juxtaposition of the tourist town and the wild nature accentuates the amount of gender and sexuality within society. New York had much more than Banff because of the confined space and the mass of identities, but it didn’t seem as noticeable as here in Banff, next to nature.

Banff Institute

The institute itself was a strange collection of masculine and feminine signifiers. The Institute itself is slowly leaning away from their arts based focus and slowly embracing the money making aspect of their conferences and meetings of people from around the world. This step to me seems to me masculinising the space; the buildings are being created for corporate aspects, following a traditional and patriarchal formats.

The artwork that was scattered about the centre refutes the stark corporate nature of the space, exposing masculine and feminine creativity, giving an equal balance of feminine and masculine references. Of the participants I have often seen a larger female representative but an equally gendered staff.

Despite the majority of women, feminine art does not dominate the institution causing a discrepancy. The gendered representation is often equal through the gender neutral practise of art and the open and accepting ways of artists.

Sexuality is a different story. Like Downtown Banff the space is neutralized from the nature that permeates the mountain space, but sexuality is actually hidden in plain sight. The centre is known for breaking up relationships and beginning flings or trysts. The odd combination of tourists, visitors and short term artists creates a strange dynamic that encourages sexual conquest but prevents that sexuality from being obvious. The sexuality of location doesn’t affect the display of sexuality within the participants. Most, being artists are often covered in paint, smocks, dust and dirt and chose their wardrobe accordingly rather than don bikinis and skimpy clothing.

The centre itself represents the juxtaposition of gender neutral nature and socially engorged human life. It is a pocket of social up in the mountains, a small climb away from the town itself. It encourages the immersion of people into the nature, exposing the neutrality to the participants but also beginning to infuse nature with human signifiers that get left behind by the visitors. The woods surrounding the buildings of the Centre have human made influence throughout, usually in the form of an installation art piece,, giving it a residue of gender and sexuality to nature.