Stories

Have you ever heard of Newell? It is an area full of fun water recreation and more! Start planning your trip with this awesome itinerary.

Learn about the Cypress Hills region and how to make the best of your time while you add it to your #BucketlistAB

Enjoy the delicious craft beer scene in Medicine Hat with this awesome one day itinerary.

It's hard not to think back to the "old west" days when driving through the coulees of Lethbridge. They're almost like a canyon cutting through the prairies, dry and rugged, with rattlesnakes and scorpions on the lam. I can see the odd cactus still holding on to their spring flowers.

As one of Canada's UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is an incredible aboriginal legacy, helping to preserve more than 6,000 years of Blackfoot cultures and traditions that happened here in the North American plains.

Words can hardly describe the moment I came upon the vast destruction caused by Frank Slide. Driving from Pincher Creek, we passed by green fields, wind turbines, and mountains. Everything was neat and intact. But as we approached the town of Frank, a massive landscape of rubble lay on both sides of the highway and carried on for as far as we could see. Looking through the windshield, we could see the mountain that gave way, a brief moment in history that became Canada's deadliest landslide.

Did you know that a small town in southern Alberta is the birthplace of the modern oil and gas industry in Western Canada?

When a town is named after the main attraction, you know it's a place you don't want to miss. The Fort, which is located in Fort Macleod, is home to the museum of the Northwest Mounted Police and First Nations Interpretive Centre. I decided it was time to check it out. For all the history buffs out there, this is one place to add to your bucket list.

Home to cactus and rattlesnakes and a desert-like climate, (yes, right here in Alberta!) I was surprised to learn about all the fun you can have on the water in Lethbridge.

Even though I attended the University of Lethbridge many years ago, I never took the time get to know the city’s natural areas. I always loved the look of the coulees, whether I was driving through them or seeing them from the school, but I hadn't really explored them. 

2017 was an exciting year for Canada. We celebrated our 150th birthday while also celebrating that Lonely Planet named Canada the No. 1 country to visit in the entire world.

I've lived in Alberta my whole life and had never heard about the Remington Carriage Museum until we began a road trip through Southern Alberta. Situated in the scenic town of Cardston, the museum is home to more than 270 carriages and is the largest of its kind in the world.

With our rental bikes loaded in the back of our truck, we drove down Highway 3 and past the famous Burmis tree to try out the fairly new Crowsnest Community Trail, a 23-km, non-motorized route connecting the communities of Crowsnest Pass.

Surrounded by prairies, historical sites, and the Rocky Mountains, Pincher Creek often gets left out of a traveller's itinerary. That can happen when there are so many beautiful sites nearby – like Alberta’s newest provincial park – Castle. You just have to walk around town, talk to the locals, look a little deeper, and you’ll be in the know.

Growing up in a small prairie town in the ‘80s, like I did, you had to make your own fun. It was an era of fast cars, wild fashion and some pretty darn good rock and roll. Probably a good thing most of us were too young to drive. But that doesn’t mean we’re too old to party now. And Three Hills gives you licence to let loose.

Purple wildflowers carpet the grassy hillsides as the morning sun warms the Waterton Lakes valley. In the distance, we see a mother bear carefully watching over her three frolicking cubs on a closed trail below Bears Hump on Mt. Crandell.

Not sure what I expected when I selected Level 2 on the power mode switch. Helmet strapped on, I took my first pedal stroke and with a surprising burst of energy my electric assist mountain bike burst to life. Now that’s more like it.

Rolling prairie hills and grasslands abruptly give way to the montane forest and mountains of the Canadian Rockies as we drive westbound. The Castle wilderness almost appeared as a line across the land where it was decided the prairie would become towering mountains. It was here drove into Castle Provincial Park.

The mighty Canadian Rockies thrust themselves upward abruptly from the soft rolling landscape of the Alberta prairies as we turned into the Waterton Lakes National Park driving from Lethbridge. Honestly, the anticipation of rounding the corner and laying first sight on the iconic Prince of Wales hotel.

As you head east through Central Alberta, through Red Deer County from Highway 2 to 2A to Highway 21, the towns seem to get progressively smaller and the space in between get wider. No — not wider, that doesn’t quite capture it. Bigger, broader, more open and expansive. I don’t know if there’s a single word that exists to explain the sensation: the feeling of leaving behind the urban buzz of modern life for the solitude of wind blowing through long grass. This is prairie-raised Alberta writer W.O. Mitchell’s territory, out beyond where the sidewalk ends.