Walking through the Jasper Park Lodge kitchen, everything seems like a typical day. Busy workers briskly walk past carrying various dishes and meals, and cooks and chefs are hard at work.

But among the hustle and bustle there is something unique today. Of all those workers in the kitchen, there are five men reliving old memories.

Ray Fink, Cecil (Cec) McVeigh, Doug Munro, Ed Larmour and Dan Hudson are splitting lettuce, slicing bananas and doing dishes – just as they did 50 years ago when they worked at Jasper Park Lodge (JPL) as students for the summer.

Originally six high school friends from Ottawa, five of the men made the trip out by train, just as they did in 1960, spending the week touring their old stomping grounds, meeting JPL staff and making note of the changes over the years in town.

For Fink, the memories came back immediately.

“The memories came back so quickly, because it was exactly what I was doing. I was taking the dirty dishes (and putting them through the washer),” Fink says, proudly wearing a cap, which says ‘Summer of 1960 Jasper Park Lodge ‘Work-for-a-Day’ 50-Year Reunion’. The dishwashing machines have been improved, he said, but back in his time “after three weeks, your fingers got used to the heat, and you could pick up a really hot plate. So that really brought back memories.”

Many changes have occurred around JPL since the men worked for $100 a month, six days a week and sleeping in K Cabin, which still exists today.

Packed into the cabin, the six young men slept in bunk beds in one room, with three sets of drawers, with two drawers to each, for three-and-a-half months on the JPL site, then owned by CNR.

Back then, CNR had their own police force. McVeigh jokes they had a hard time keeping away from them with the tricks that they would play. He also notes today, only one person lives in the cabin.

“It’s a lot more cozier,” Munro says, referring to the new set-up.

Throughout the week, the men toured JPL where they met with current staff and shared stories, some of them giving a little bit of inspiration to the younger staff at the hotel.

“It was quite emotional for everybody, actually. It was great for our staff too,” says JPL general manager Amanda Robinson. “It certainly was an eye-opener for our staff, because all six of them stayed in one room in K Cabin,” she adds about their living arrangements.

“The funny thing was, one of the guys said when we were having lunch in the staff cafeteria, he said it was fascinating to him that the smells and the sights and the sounds were identical to 50 years ago. Which I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not,” she laughs.

Back in the cafeteria 50 years later, McVeigh talks about the strict rules they had to abide by that summer in 1960.

“We weren’t allowed to associate with the paying guests and we couldn’t come into the main lodge. We had a side entrance to come into the dungeon here. It was strict about associating with the guests. That was a firing offence, to talk to a paying guest.”

But on their days off they would still sneak onto the golf course and shag golf balls, as they called it, retrieving lost balls for golfers and getting five dollars for a bag of balls – a lot of money when you’re making $100 a month.

On other days, they would hitchhike to the Columbia Icefields or rent horses and go up the mountains to the ranger’s cabins.

Fink remembers one day fishing at one of the lakes when a man came up and said, ‘How’s it going.’ When Fink looked up, it was the vice president.

After spending a week in Jasper 50 years later, the men say the biggest change is the number of new buildings in town and the price of real estate. The group rented a car and went to Maligne Canyon as well as a few other ‘tourist’ stops.

“My wife heard that British Columbia was only 18 miles away, so we drove to the border and took her picture so she could say she has been in every province,” McVeigh says.

After their ‘day’ of work, which consisted of working in the kitchen for a couple of hours on Friday, the men received token paycheques during a dinner ceremony, where they were given pay for two weeks worth of work – of course, at 1960 wages. Each man was given a paycheck of $52.

But it wasn’t the paychecks that the men were in Jasper for, but the reunion of five friends and the experience of seeing Jasper again.

“The whole thing, the train trip out, seeing Jasper again, just A-OK. We were very well taken care of,” Fink says. “Just an A-1 experience.”

With their last day in Jasper, there was still one highlight they were looking forward too.

“Another highlight of our trip was the train ride out, and it’s going to be the train ride home. When we came out 50 years ago, we rode a steam train,” adds McVeigh.

That, they won’t get, but a train ride back to Ontario nonetheless will complete their memories of their time in Jasper in that summer of 1960.