191 metres, and I still know where the grease goes

I spent twenty-five years keeping the lift systems in the Calgary Tower running. Retired three years ago. I still ride up once a month, mostly to check if the new crew is greasing the guide rails properly.

My name is Norm Pawluk. I am sixty. For a quarter of a century my office was the machine room at the top of the concrete core and the pit at the bottom of it. My daughter Carla set this website up for me in February 2024 after listening to me give the same twenty-minute speech to her in-laws from Regina.

This site is a practical planning guide written from the machinery side. It is about the building, never pretending to be the building. I do not sell tickets, I do not take bookings, and I have no connection to the operators. Tickets are sold only on the official site — that is calgarytower.com.

Looking out across the downtown grid and river valley from the observation level — **From the observation ring looking out over the core.** Opened in June 1968 as the Husky Tower. The concrete shaft was poured in a continuous twenty-four-day slip-form run — no horizontal cold joints in the main column.

Logbook Note · Why a mechanic writes a visitor guide

A building tells you how to visit it if you know how it is bolted together. Two cars in one shaft means the queue bunches at shift change and supper rollover. A hundred kilometres of prairie between you and the Rockies means afternoon heat haze will eat your photograph in August. None of that is in the brochure.

What is in these notes

The Ride UpThe 62-second run, the 2019 drive overhaul, why the ropes sing in a chinook, and the week in 2005 I refused to step on the glass floor. Reading the SkyChinook arches, wildfire smoke, prairie inversions, and when the Rockies actually show up on the western glass. Planning & LogisticsC-Train 7th Avenue free-fare zone, Palliser parkade reality, timed entry slots, and how long to budget. Honest ReviewWhat the tower gets wrong: it is not Toronto, haze days cost the same as clear days, and the gift shop is skippable. FAQAffiliation answered first, plus heights, strollers, wind sway, and weather refunds. About NormTwenty-five years of hoist ropes, guide shoes, and night shifts above 9th Avenue.

A word about how some visitors found this page

This site runs small search ads so people planning a trip to Calgary can find an honest, practical breakdown before they go. If an advertisement brought you here and you were actually looking for the operator's own ticket page, go straight to the official Calgary Tower website. I do not sell passes, hold reservations, or earn a cent if you click over.

— Norm