The Story Behind Canmore’s Newest Downtown Mural

A cougar stalks a hare through a snowy prairie. Yamnuska glows orange in the background, catching the first rays of the low winter sun. A small cabin sends smoke from its chimney, while the warm glow from inside spills onto the snow. Nearby, a red CP Rail engine chugs toward the mountains.

It’s the scene depicted in a new downtown mural by Canmore artist Pat Jakubiec, who works professionally under the name Tower.

The mural faces the parking lot between 9th and 10th streets, just west of 7th Avenue behind JK Bakery Cafe. Unlike much of Jakubiec’s work, nobody commissioned him to paint it.

It was a passion project.

“It wasn't contracted, it wasn't paid for. It's all out of pocket,” Jakubiec said.

He painted the mural over about five weeks, working at a slower pace than he typically would on a commissioned piece. He would head out in the mornings, before the parking lot got too busy and the summer sun became too hot.

“It was nice to just really enjoy it in little sections,” he said. “This has been quite relaxing, therapeutic, even.”

The mural replaces another of Jakubiec’s works that had been on the same wall since 2023. After trees were removed and exposed more of the bare wall beside the original mural, he decided against simply filling in the empty space.

Instead, he covered his previous work with primer and started again.

The old mural, which Jakubiec painted in mid-December, featured Mount Lady Macdonald alongside graffiti lettering of his tag, a train, an elk and a marmot. This time, he painted during the summer and crowdsourced some funding from friends and family to help cover the cost of the project.

Having free rein allowed Jakubiec to create something more personal, drawing on a favourite landscape and his own memories of travelling from Calgary to Canmore.

“It's one of the most epic parts of driving to Canmore,” Jakubiec said. “It's just like an image that's burned in my memory of making trips out here.”

“That area where the prairies meet the mountains. It's just, I think, a special place in Alberta.”

Jakubiec grew up in Calgary and moved to Canmore six years ago. He has been spray painting and making art for more than two decades.

His roots are in graffiti lettering, and he is entirely self-taught, learning to paint murals on donated walls in Calgary. He has gone by Tower since he was a young artist and kept the name as his work and style evolved.

“I've done thousands of pieces,” Jakubiec said. “It was just a progression led by myself and experimenting.”

His work can now be found throughout Canmore and the Bow Valley, as well as in Calgary, Saskatchewan and Vancouver.

Jakubiec works exclusively with spray paint, even when creating smaller pieces on canvas. His murals often feature bright, vivid colours and what he describes as “obscure colour palettes.”

That style is on display in his latest Canmore mural, which features vivid shades of blue, orange and pink.

“I just always try to kind of flip the script,” he said, describing his approach as “almost like painting like I was colourblind.”

The project also comes during an intentional step back from commissions for Jakubiec.

He describes 2026 as a reset year, giving himself more time to develop as an artist and expand his style without the external pressures, expectations and timelines that come with commissioned work.

That willingness to experiment also means Jakubiec has little hesitation about eventually painting over his own work.

He once had access to a legal wall in Calgary where he and his friends would repaint their work every weekend, allowing them to quickly develop their skills and styles. For Jakubiec, replacing an old mural isn’t a loss. Each new piece is another opportunity to apply what he has learned since the last one.

He does, however, try to photograph each mural so the work can live on after the wall changes.

“I'm also very rarely attached to anything I paint,” Jakubiec said. “It's just a step in the journey of being an artist.”

There’s no set timeline for how long his latest mural will remain. Eventually, Canmore’s weather will take its toll, and Jakubiec may decide it’s time to create something new.

For now, though, he says it’s “too fresh to even think of changing it.”

Jakubiec said he’s grateful to the people who helped make the project possible and have supported him throughout his artistic journey. He’s also open to finding more opportunities to create similar work in the community.

“I'm always looking for more projects in the same capacity,” he said. “Open to walls being donated and people helping me see my vision.”