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You've told yourself forever that you were going to find a day to spend with a friendly latte, some art galleries, antiques and maybe a designer store or two. This is the day, and this is the place. You're on 124th Street and looking both ways, you see why people have been talking. You could be in any big city, but this street in Edmonton just seems to take the sophisticated life you've been looking for at a more relaxed pace. (124street.ca. 780.413.6503) As you wander through the European layout of Nanton’s Ultimate Trains Big Sky Garden Railroad, passing through miniature villages, rivers and bridges, the ten year old in you comes back for a visit. You marvel at the detail, the number of trains running by and how everything seems to just be right in this 7000 square foot giant train set, displayed against the vast prairie sky. It isn’t until your kids come get you from the play station that you regain your sense of time again and say goodbye, for now, to your inner child. (ultimatetrains.com; 403.646.1190) A couple of months ago the thought of Dragon Boats racing across a high mountain lake outside of Banff would have seemed out of place. But sitting on the shore of Lake Minnewanka in mid-August at the Banff Annual Dragon Boat Festival, with your cheers echoing off the mountainsides as the colourfully decorated boats race to the finish line, you begin to believe that there may be no better place on earth for this. August 13-14. (banfflakelouise.com; 403.762.0284) On a beautiful sunny Alberta day you're wandering east of downtown by the river. Over yonder you spy the palisades of Fort Calgary, first built in 1875 by the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) to bring law and order to the old west. Walking through the entrance you are greeted by an officer in a red uniform. He invites you in to try on a traditional NWMP uniform and see what it was like to lock up a whiskey trader. Inside the historic jail cell, you remind yourself not to say walk on the way over to the Deane House for one of their famous scenes. (fortcalgary.com; 403.290.1875) In the hot mid-August Alberta sun you're snacking on mini-donuts and perusing the playbill of an avant-garde performance you just came from that blew you away. A welcome shadow moves across your face. Looking up, you're delighted that it's not a cloud, but a clown on stilts. With a brief respite from the sun, you have time to wonder in amazement at the colours, the sounds and the artistic craziness that make up the Edmonton Fringe Festival and fill Old Strathcona for 11 days from August 11-21. The busker moves on and so do you, wading again into the spectacular mayhem. (fringe theatre adventures,ca. 780.448.9000) wat Adberto Canada nea rboom fills the air so much that you can feel it in your stomach. The fireworks burst, perfectly timed to the drum roll of a classical overture, filling the late August night sky with a dizzying array of light. Even the “Oohs and Ahhs’ from the crowd seem in perfect time with the music. Only when you're at Calgary's GlobalFest, from August 19-27 can this happen while you and the family lie back and savour creamy espresso Italian gelato. (globalfest.ca. 403.569.9679) “Should have brought a kilt,” you think to yourself as the fresh mountain air, filled with the eerily rhythmic sounds of the bagpipes descends on you. It's riding the air currents down the mountainside at the Canmore Highland Games. Fortified with a hearty pancake breakfast, and filled with highland vigor, you cheer as the caber is tossed and momentarily consider joining the Highland dance taking place. “Aye” you think, one of your relatives must have been Scottish. And if not, you'll pretend that's the case today. (can move highland games.ca. 403.678.9454) As you hover at 1000 feet, the chopper blades slicing through the air, you look down over the otherworldly formation of Horsehoe Canyon in the Badlands. Here, in a place that time forgot, you imagine the mighty Albertosaurus chasing down its prey amongst the hoodoos. The scenery is spectacular from the ground. But from up here with Mountain View Helicopters, you gain a new appreciation for just how bad the Badlands really are. (mohels.com; 403.334.4354) Summer's coming to an end as you can feel a slight fall chill in the air at MacDonald Island Park in Fort McMurray. But as the band hits the stage at Summers End (September 25), and you start dancing to the beat, you warm up fast, as if it were still early July. An hour in and you've actually worked up a sweat. And there's two more days to go. Now that, you say to yourself, is how to send off summer in style. (eventswoodbuffalo.com; 780.791.1600) Time stops when a horse in the Spruce Meadows Masters Tournament leaps into the air. A nudge of the rail and he’s out of contention. Clear it by even a millimeter and he's world famous. Sports history is being written right here and now. And you're watching, almost willing the horse over the jump. The best, deliciously dramatic part of it all, is that this exact same moment will occur over and over again for the next four days, from September 7-11, on Calgary's southern outskirts as the top horses and riders in the world vie for equestrian glory. (sprucemeadows.com; 403.974.4200) There’s more for you | TravelAlberta.com FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2011 + Lethbridge Herald page ~ B7
Newspaper Details
Lethbridge Herald
Lethbridge, Alberta, CA
Fri, Aug 12, 2011
Page 34
Full Page
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Anonymous
CA 30 Jul 2026
Other Publications Near Lethbridge, Alberta
Lethbridge Herald
Lethbridge Daily Herald
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