Num Ti Jah lodge – Banff National Park, Canada

When Jimmy Simpson camped at Bow Lake in 1898, he vowed that one day he would "build a shack here". Twenty-five years later he began building the first log cabin on the site and had a permanent base for his outfitting tours. He called his operation Num-Ti-Jah, a Stoney Plain word for pine marten, a small animal similar to a sable. In 1937, the Banff-Jasper highway was completed as far as Bow Lake. Jimmy, his wife Billie and their children Margaret, Mary and Jimmy jr. began expanding on the original dream of a "shack". With the earnings from Margaret and…