Growing up on a farm in Quebec, Micheline Boisvert remembers her family helping travellers. “We lived near the rail tracks and people riding the train would always stop by,” she says. “As kids, we would wake up in the morning with guests in the house. We were the first house [close to the train station] and [travellers] would lay down and sleep. We would feed them and get them back to the train.” Many years later, she would make her living taking care of travellers by opening the Calgary City View Bed & Breakfast right next to the Stampede grounds in Calgary.
Micheline didn’t intend to open a bed and breakfast. She originally bought the house to have extra rooms so the tenants she was boarding could have a place. “I didn’t even know what a bed and breakfast was,” says Micheline. Soon, the excellent location was highly sought after. “I’m right in front of Stampede,” she says. “At Stampede time, everybody was asking me to come and stay here. Finally, in 1993, I quit my job as a nurse and set up full time as a bed and breakfast.”
