Alberta
Red Rock Coulee will make you feel like you’ve visited the planet Mars. In this part of the Canadian Badlands, about 50-60 kilometres southwest of Medicine Hat , Alberta, when the sun is low in the sky, the entire landscape burns with a golden, orange glow that I have never seen before. The best time [...]
Judy comments on some differences between urban Toronto and the Canadian Badlands.
Canada’s wildlife often makes news headlines. In the past year, a grey whale wandered into Burrard Inlet in downtown Vancouver. A moose was videotaped trotting down a footpath beside Calgary’s busy Memorial Drive. A cougar chased two girls down a street in an Alberta town. A coyote ate a small dog in Toronto’s Beaches and [...]
Halloween is big business in Canada. Just ask Statistics Canada. Every year, it releases Halloween stats that include the latest demographics on trick or treaters, the number of Canadian farms with pumpkin patches, the amount of money Canadians spend on Halloween candy and even a list of places in Canada that may give you the [...]
Chambers’ Dictionary of Etymology defines the term “mascot” as an animal, person or thing that is supposed to bring good luck. According to the dictionary, the word is borrowed from the french word, “mascotte” meaning sorcerer’s charm or good luck piece. Canada is a land of mascots. I’m not sure why but they’re plentiful here. [...]
Two of the creepiest places to spend Hallowe’en in Canada are Fort George in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, and the Atlas Coal Mine near Drumheller in the Canadian Badlands of Alberta. Niagara-on-the-Lake is said to be the most haunted town in Canada and the creepiest place in town is Fort George. Its Hallowe’en ghost tours are so [...]
A highlight of our Canadian Badlands Alberta trip in 2007 was the annual Oyen Bullarama. We arrived in the late afternoon in Oyen, a town of 1200 near the Saskatchewan border. The parking lot was already a sea of pickup trucks. A bullarama is professional bullriding and “bloodless bullfighting”- the latter is basically a guy [...]
One of the highlights of our visit to the Canadian Badlands (http://canadianbadlands.com) in southeastern Alberta was touring the Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site.(http://www.atlascoalmine.ab.ca) It’s managed by an amazing storyteller. In the space of an hour or so, she brought to life a wild and woolley era of Canadian history. One hundred and thirty nine coal mines [...]
