Rugged mountains, boreal forests, rolling prairie, desert badlands, hundreds of lakes and rivers, a wealth of wildlife, natural resources and cultural diversity make Alberta a great place to visit. Here are just 10 of the many things to see and do in the Wild Rose province.
Get Triassic: Unleash your inner paleontologist at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, with one of the world’s largest displays of dinosaurs and a slew of hands-on activities that bring the prehistoric past to life in Alberta’s badlands.
Ice is nice: A three-hour drive from Edmonton or Calgary will bring you to the Columbia Icefield, the biggest glacier in the Canadian Rockies that straddles Jasper and Banff national parks. Stroll the glass-bottom skywalk over a canyon, ride the hulking Ice Explorer and hike along the ancient ice.
Gopher it: A visit to Alberta wouldn’t be complete without seeing the Gopher Hole Museum in Torrington, an hour’s drive north of Calgary, where stuffed and mounted burrowing rodents pose in a series of kooky but cute exhibits.
Best folk fest in the west: The 38th annual Calgary Folk Music Festival (July 27-30) features 70 musical artists (to be announced in April) from across Canada and around the world. They will perform on several stages at the city’s Prince’s Island Park.
Epic vistas:Waterton Lakes National Park is part of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, a World Heritage Site. The area is home to elk, deer, black bears, bighorn sheep, mountain goats and the deepest lakes in the Canadian Rockies.
Big beaver: This towering tribute, the Giant Beaver Sculpture, to Canada’s industrious buck-toothed mascot in Beaverlodge, between Grande Prairie and the B.C. border, will entice you to take a break, snap some pictures and grab a bite enroute to or from the Alaska Highway.
Winter wonderland:LED light-embedded and icicle-lined waterfalls, as well as caves, slides, mazes and tunnels at Ice Castles fascinate and thrill kids and adults by day and night from December to March, and during Edmonton’s Silver Skate Festival (Feb. 10-20) in Hawrelak Park.
Biggest is best:Canada’s largest national park, where the Peace and Athabasca rivers converge, covers 4.5 million hectares of Alberta and Northwest Territories prairie, wetland and forest. Wood Buffalo National Park is home to a mighty population of wild bison and a major nesting destination for whopping cranes.
Pow-wow-erful:The Blackfoot Canadian Cultural Society’s International Peace Pow-Wow & Festival draws visitors from both sides of the border and beyond to the ENMAX Centre in Lethbridge for two days (Feb. 25-26 this year) of arts, crafts, food, music, friendship, tribal dance and Miss Blackfoot Canada specials.
Boldly go:A prairie town like no other in the galaxy, Vulcan’s huge replica of the Starship Enterprise, a café with Star Trek-inspired fare, a space-themed tourism/Trek centre, ‘Spock’s Bar’ and an annual Vul-Con fest (July 22-23), attracts Trekkies from all over.
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