One day-itinerary - Pincher Creek

As we pulled our minivan into the parking lot at Dinosaur Provincial Park, we couldn’t help but feel a twinge of excitement about our upcoming Fossil Safari Tour.

In front of me, on a polished long table in a refurbished industrial building on the outskirts of Medicine Hat, sits a piece of wood cut in the shape of the province of Alberta.

Everybody loves the mountains, but nobody likes the long drive out to see them. If you make the trek, you’ll often find yourself among throngs of tourists, standing in queues from sunrise to sunset. It’s a beautiful landscape, but one full of selfie sticks, elbow bumping and mounting frustration.

The Cypress Hills rise 600 metres above the surrounding prairies making them the highest point between the Canadian Rockies and the East Coast. The unique mix of climate, geography, and ecosystems create a home for an extensive diversity of plants and animals. The entire area is also steeped in rich history with archeological evidence confirming human habitation as far back as 8,500 years.

“This is one of the tougher routes I run,” says Chris Humphries as we finish warming up. “The hills are killer, and they sneak up on you,” he says of the route that makes up Medicine Hat’s popular Conquer the Ridge half marathon.

Nestled in the southern Canadian Rockies, the Crowsnest Pass – or fondly referred to as “The Pass,” boasts spectacular scenery, a rich coal mining history, friendly communities, and great hiking. Whether you’re just passing through and want a short hike to break up the drive, or have a weekend to bag some peaks, there is a wide range of trails in The Pass that will take your breath away. With so many hikes to choose from, I called upon local residents, Pam Drover and Heather Davis, to help select the top 5 hikes in the Crowsnest Pass.

“We like to say that Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and the Royal Tyrrell Museum are the battleships, and we are the Royal Yacht,” says Howard Snyder, manager of the Remington Carriage Museum with a twinkle in his eye. There is indeed a regal feeling about this grand building – at 64,000 square feet – full of carriages that have transported dignitaries such as Queen Elizabeth II, Pierre Trudeau, and Ulysses S. Grant.

The wind is strong from the east. Our jackets flap, our hair tangles and our invisible scent carries with the wind. If it was our day for driving the buffalo over the edge of the cliff, we’d go hungry. The massive mammals would have smelled us long ago and thundered away. At Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump World Heritage Site near Fort McLeod, you find out just how much that buffalo meant for survival for the Blackfoot Nation.

It’s been a few years since I lived in “The Hat” as we used to call it. So, when the chance came along to go back and experience Medicine Hat on a brewery tour, I was pretty excited. It would be interesting to see how much the city has changed. One thing’s for sure, there weren’t any craft brewers like Hell’s Basement Brewery and Medicine Hat Brewing Co around when I lived there. Today, they’re putting the small southern Alberta city on the international craft beer map.