Central Canada meets western Canada

Judy — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:24:34 +0000

In the Canadian Badlands between Cypress Hills and Etzikom, Alberta

Even though we’re big travelers of Canada, there’s still plenty to see. Canada is so big and the average vacation so short ( 2 weeks) that it’s difficult to cover a lot of ground. One way to do it is a fly-drive.

Hoodoos and beehive hills near Drumheller, Alberta

A 4-hour flight west from Toronto will put you in Calgary. A car rental and an hour later and you’re in southeastern Alberta, a landscape so foreign from central Canada that a travel writer from Toronto described it as reaching out and slapping her. 63 municipalities have coined it the Canadian Badlands and aim to make it Canada’s next iconic travel destination (just like the Canadian Rockies, an hour west of Calgary). From a road trip perspective, we think it’s already there.

The massive prairie landscape is intersected by river valleys with hills that look like giant beehives. The valleys are part of a prehistoric sea that once occupied a good portion of North America. Wind and water have stripped away the sandstone and they’ve revealed something else. Dinosaur fossils. Millions of them. Two places to learn about the biggest finds are Dinosaur Provincial Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the Royal Tyrrell Museum, the world’s largest devoted to palaeontology.

If you love driving but hate traffic, this is the place. Armed with an Alberta road map and GPS, we crisscrossed the region by paved and gravel road, sometimes not seeing another car for the better part of two hours. Gas stations are scarce though. So are corner stores and other things that we take for granted in the city. Topping off the gas tank and having lots of drinking water in the car quickly became necessities.

Streetcar in downtown Toronto, Ontario

On the Trans-Canada Highway west of Brooks, Alberta

The Ultimate Canadian Road Trip

admin — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 19:19:57 +0000

: Rainbow in the big Alberta sky

No traffic, big skies: For downtown Torontonians, we learned we could actually enjoy driving again. We crisscrossed The Canadian Badlands in southeastern Alberta from Calgary to the Saskatchewan border south through Medicine Hat and Cypress Hills to the Montana border, west to the border town of Milk River and north through Siksika Nation to Stettler and Drumheller. Here are some of the highlights.

Interior of the new Blackfoot Crossing interpretive centre, Siksika Nation, Alberta

The new Blackfoot Crossing: Canada’s largest aboriginal historic site. This place so impressed us. Although smaller, I would put it on the scale of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Extraordinary collection of Plains Indians history on the site of the famous Treaty Seven signing by Chief Crowfoot who is also buried close by. The site overlooks an original grassland valley that has not been touched by modern civilization. You can feel the ghosts of the Blackfoot riding horseback here. http://www.blackfootcrossing.ca/

Pots on exhibit at Medalta Potteries National Historic Site, Medicine Hat, Alberta

Medicine Hat’s incredible historic clay district: I had no idea of this city’s pottery history. The first finished goods to be shipped from western Canada to eastern Canada were crocks, etc from Medalta potteries (now, a national historic site). This clay district supplied Canada’s hospitality industry with dishware, etc. You can still find old crocks and dishes at flea markets all over Canada today. We got great shots of present day Medalta collection and of its wonderful gift shop where you can order fabulous reproduction bowls and more. http://www.medalta.org/

Oyen, Alberta’s annual Bull-a-Rama: a professional bullriding and bullfighting event that literally took our breath away. So up close and personal compared to the Calgary Stampede. The dust was flying. This is where we got to meet real Badlands cowboys. Everyone wears Wranglers’ cowboy cut jeans (and I mean everyone). They serve homemade corndogs and beer and everyone from infant in arms to great-grannies comes out for this annual event. We snapped some incredible pix here too.

Dinosaur Provincial Park: a UNESCO world heritage site where you can hike to a huge centrosaurus bonebed. It is as if the gods shook a big bag of bones onto the site. It’s about the size of two tennis courts and contains the bones of an entire centrosaurus herd – near Brooks, Alberta. UNESCO

Canadian Roadstories » Dinosaur Provincial Park

Central Canada meets western Canada

The Ultimate Canadian Road Trip