Taking the road: Alberta South to North

On May 2012 Saad and I decided to buy a used car. It was a whole adventure to get it, but at the end  we got “Goldie.” Goldie is a Ford Focus 2001, and although it is a bit old  it has proven to work well enough to take us around.

Our first trip was to Lethbridge, in Alberta. Goldie did not come along, but we rented a car and drove for about 7 hours starting in Edmonton southwards. The road to Lethbridge is flat with  prairie-like geography. After passing Calgary, there was no much in the road, just big farms every-so-often.

While in Lethbridge Saad and I attended the University of Lethbridge’s Religious Studies conference. We stayed in a Travelodge because hotels down south are quite expensive despite the fact that the city is small and not very touristic.

We were quite surprised to find that there were lots of police check points (about every two blocks) and a lot of American police officers around. We also thought it was interesting to see American flags in public buildings and businesses standing, often times, higher than Canadian ones.

Although we traveled there on early May, we had a snow fall on May 7!

We were not ready for that, especially because it was snowing for 5 or 6 hours straight!  We left Lethbridge two days later, and we took the route up north back to Edmonton.

On our way to Edmonton, we stopped in both Claresholm and Fort Macleod. These two little towns are very Western-like and not very diverse. We certainly felt like two observed ethnic minorities walking around, but the towns were interesting for a quick visit.

The next weekend we decided to visit Athabasca. We wanted to test Goldie on its first road trip to make sure that everything was ok. The trip is two hours from Edmonton to Athabasca, and it is a very flat and quite boring. There is no towns in between, and we did not find any animals.

Athabasca advertises itself as a historic touristic town since it was a very important town in the 19th century due to the fur trade and the gold rush. We initially wanted to see the farmers market; yet, we found out, once in the town, that the market does not have a set schedule or even location!

Nowadays, Athabasca is a very industrial town. There has been little investment to highlight historic sites and allow for tourism. Thus, we ended up eating at Athabasca’s Burger Bar and having ice-cream in one of the two convenience stores. 

Although the town’s band was scheduled to play in the kiosk besides Athabasca River, the weather was rainy, so while we sat to observe the band from the car, no one else was around…

We stayed in Athabasca for few hours after having coffee in Athabasca hotel. The hotel is one of the historic sites, but the restaurant smells funny and serves little more than sandwiches and regular coffee. After stopping by in the hotel, we hit the road again. The ride back home was sunny and nice, and although the trip was great and Goldie did well, we were quite disappointed about our trip up north. 

The weekend after we visited Elk Lake National Park, it took about two hours to arrive. We stopped in the way to have lunch in Fort Saskatchewan, a little industrial town, which is cute beautiful and well-organized.

Once in Elk Lake, the weather turned to be bad, gloomy and rainy. Nonetheless, we had a good time. Elk Lake is beautiful, we got to see a bison and the beach is amazing. The sand is fine and the view, especially at sunset, is amazing. Some people were canoeing and kayaking and on a nice day the park may be a great place for a family BBQ.

After Elk Lake we went back to Edmonton, to prepare for our next trip… featured in the next post!