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

Drumheller, Alberta's T-Rex has a viewing platform between its teeth!

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. The largest is Drumheller, Alberta’s T-Rex. Four times the size of a real Tyrannosaurus Rex, it weighs 145,000 pounds, stands 86 feet tall and is 151 feet long. The cost to build T’Rex caused a bit of mascot controversy in Drumheller. But today most who live here would tell you their mascot has brought them good luck in the form of tourism dollars. This dinosaur-themed town is now the heartbeat of the Canadian Badlands, an Alberta region known for its dinosaur fossils, many of which are displayed in Drumheller’s famous Royal Tyrrell Museum.

The Big Apple, Colborne, Ontario

Drive enough of Alberta and you’ll find mascots for just about everything. The world’s largest lamp for a lamp museum. A giant cornstalk in Taber, Alberta famous for its corn. Coronation Alberta’s giant crown was chosen to honour the coronation of King George V. A model of the  Starship Enterprise stands in Vulcan, Alberta.  Manitoba’s mascots include the Melita banana, a giant mosquito, the world’s largest curling rock, and ‘Tommy the Turtle’.  A massive snowman, a giant set of hockey cards, several big buffalo and and a huge pitchfork are some of Saskatchewan’s mascots.

Shediac, New Brunswick, lobster capital of the world

Joe Muffraw, the lumberjack from Mattawa, Ontario

Sparwood, British Columbia has the world’s largest truck and Sudbury, Ontario has the largest nickel. A giant lumberjack is Mattawa, Ontario’s mascot. It was carved by a local artist using a chainsaw. In Canada’s Maritmes, you can’t miss the enormous red lobster as you drive into Shediac, New Brunswick, the lobster capital of the world. On a road trip through Quebec’s Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, we found Verger Lacroix’s basket of fruit and wine representing the apple orchards here. The Colborne area of Ontario is another apple region. The Big Apple at the side of a Highway 401 exit here has sold millions of apple pies to travelers.

Giant fruit basket in Saint-Joseph-du-Lac, Québec

In Pictou, Nova Scotia, the town mascot is Ship Hector, a reproduction of a sailing ship that brought the first Scottish settlers to the birthplace of “New Scotland” in 1773.

Hector Heritage Quay Interpretive Centre and the Ship Hector – photo: courtesy Town of Pictou, NS

Got a mascot in your neck of the woods? If so, we would love to hear from you.

On-board Ship Hector – photo: courtesy Town of Pictou, NS

Crops growing on the flat land above Horseshoe Canyon

Our first introduction to the Canadian Badlands of Alberta was a ten minute helicopter ride (Mountain View Helicopters) over Horseshoe Canyon near Drumheller (about the canyon). This canyon is part of the Red Deer River Valley. Glenn snapped these graphically stunning photos from the air. Note the dark green borders. These are shelter trees that protect the crop fields from high winds. Horseshoe Canyon is about 17 km west of Drumheller (pop. 8000). It has been made famous by its Royal Tyrrell Museum, the largest in the world devoted to palaeontology (dinosaurs). It’s fantastic. Kids go absolutely ga-ga in the place. Another great dino destination in the Badlands is Dinosaur Provincial Park, about an hour and half drive southeast of Drumheller, near Brooks. I’ll talk more about both of these places in future blogs.

Driving in the Canadian Badlands is different. For starters, there’s no traffic. I hate driving in Toronto, it’s so car-clogged, but in the Badlands, driving is a blast. Even 45 degree turns on the highways have dotted lines for passing because you can see for miles! Restaurants and gas stations are few and far between though, so we learned quickly to top off our gas tank and carry lots of water.

Beehive hills near Drumheller, Alberta

The prairie out here changes. Sometimes it’s as flat as a pancake. Sometimes it’s rolling hills. On the flat parts, it’s startling to have the earth suddenly open up in front of your car as you descend into one of the Badlands’ river valleys. My first impression – the hills – they look like giant beehives. Very outer space-ish. A prairie dog was the first to greet us at Horseshoe Canyon. Western farmers apparently hate these little critters but I think they’re kinda cute. The canyon is also home to lots of antelope and white tailed deer. You can access the canyon floor by footpath but don’t try it if it rains, the earth here turns to mud pretty quickly and climbing back up in a storm would be a challenge. Horseshoe is not the only canyon near Drumheller. There is another called Horsethief Canyon. In the early ranching days, thousands of horses roamed this part of the Canadian prairie. Legend has it that many horses disappeared into these canyons only to later emerge with a different brand seared into their backsides.

Helicopter rides over Horseshoe Canyon

‘Copter rides operate from June until Labour Day at Horseshoe. If you stop here, be sure to check out Fossil Steve’s booth. Steve grew up in this area and began collecting dinosaur fossils when he was a kid. Besides being a wealth of information on the area and on dinosaurs, Steve sells fossils and lots of casts. I bought a beautiful 65 million year old ammonite from him for $30. Steve told me he found it several years ago before the Alberta Historical Resources Act came into law. It prohibits fossil hunters from going into the region and raiding sites for the purposes of fossil sales. You can view a copy of this act at http://www.canlii.org/ab/laws/sta/h-9/20040623/whole.html