Sunset over Cypress Hills Park

The Canadian Badlands has one of the best night skies on the planet due to a lack of light pollution. That was really brought home to Glenn and I on our last trip to this huge corner of southeastern Alberta. We saw the Northern Lights for the first time in years and constellations that we had never seen before. An extraordinary experience for two urbanites who live in downtown Toronto. One of the best places to view the stars in the Badlands is at Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. CypressHills.com

Carole and Andy, our Calgary buddies had waxed poetic about this park for years describing it as their favourite place to camp. When we visited it last year we got to see why. It was a hot July day with temperatures well into the 30C range as we drove along the Trans-Canada highway east of Medicine Hat and suddenly there it was, this giant green oasis rising above the parched prairie. Stradding the Alberta-Saskatchewan border and overlooking Montana’s Sweetgrass Hills. Canada’s only interprovincial park is a combination of rugged mountain terrain and lodgepole pine forest. It is the highest point of land between the Canadian Rockies and Labrador in eastern Canada.

In 2004, a declaration was signed between the provinces on Saskatchewan and Alberta and the Government of Canada, in partnership with the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada to designate Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park as a Dark Sky Preserve. There are very few designated Dark Sky Preserves in North America and Cypress Hills is one of the darkest. Astronomy programming is offered year round in the park by both Saskatchewan Parks and Alberta Parks. 2009 coincidentally is the Year of Astronomy so both provincial park bodies have big events planned.

This is the incredible view from the new one-room honeymoon cabin on the Alberta Western Uplands ranch, approximately two hours north of Medicine Hat, Alberta in western Canada. This ranch is also home to a refurbished 1903 homesteader’s cabin that sleeps twelve comfortably. Oliver North, who became famous during the Reagan years, stayed here once. In summer, the lodge operates as a B&B. A room and a full “cowboy” breakfast of bacon and eggs with homebaked beans and toast will run you between $100 and $130 Canadian. 650 head of cattle roam the ranch’s 34,000 acres. This is a working ranch. Round-ups, calving and branding are still done much the same way they were eighty years ago.

Another great honeymoon spot is Elkwater Lake Lodge & Resort in the heart of Cypress Hills, the only interprovincial park in Canada. The park straddles the Alberta-Saskatchewan border and commands a magnificent view of Montana’s Sweetgrass Hills. Cypress Hills is where Sitting Bull and the Sioux fled to following the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. The inn is open all year. Its accommodations include big lofts with fully equipped kitchens, flat screen TVs and wood burning fireplaces. www.elkwaterlakelodge.com

The Heartwood Inn & Spa, Drumheller, Alberta

Drumheller’s Heartwood Inn & Spa has its own “Honeymooner’s Cottage” located at the back of the property, surrounded by lilac bushes. The cottage comes equipped with a fireplace, fridge, queen-sized bed, cable TV and jacuzzi tub for two. www.innsatheartwood.com

How about a honeymoon in a tipi? The new Blackfoot Crossing in Siksika Nation offers tipi sleepovers in an authentic tipi village. Each sleepover includes access to all of Blackfoot Crossing’s amenities – tours, art gallery, library, and dance performances. www.blackfootcrossing.ca

Open road near Cypress Hills in the Canadian Badlands

BIG sky dominating the landscape. You can’t help but aim your camera skyward to capture the cloud formations. Land fertile and green from irrigation or rain abruptly changing to desert and sagebush as we descend into one of the river valleys.

Abandoned homestead near Little Bow Provincial Park

Abandoned grey-timbered homesteads dating back to the dirty 30s. Bright yellow canola fields contrasted against stands of dark green spruce. Miles and miles of prairie wheat waving in the constant wind. Mini dry bed river valleys intersecting the prairie – the locals call these coulees. Big river valleys too, dotted with hills that look like giant beehives. Each has distinctive black rings that we’re told are veins of coal and other minerals. Massive mushroom-like rock formations unlike anything we’ve seen before. No traffic. In fact, NONE for hours as we drove along the back gravel roads between Cypress Hills and Foremost.

Mother Mountain Tea House, Delia, Alberta

Lots of tiny towns with false storefronts just like old spaghetti westerns. Places with names like Etzikom, Rowley, Champion and Cereal. A store in some, open, maybe. Few if any people milling about save for the odd old man.

The Halkirk Hotel and Halkirk's last remaining grain elevator

Old hotels run by middle-aged chinese couples with very little english.

Pick up trucks of all types, some old, some new. Weathered churches and grain elevators. Off-the-beaten-track Canada. Amazing road stories.

The Delburne Hotel and Cafe