Coming to Alberta

Coming to Alberta

“Mom you should just quit work and come out here to Alberta. We really need you and dad. My job is very demanding and J has to be away 4 days a week for his job. Your two little grandchildren would be thrilled to have you here."

It takes 2 days to get out of Ontario when going west. One needs to go up around the Great Lakes

Our daughter, partner and 2 kids were living in Alberta. Our son, his wife and 2 kids were living in Ireland. We were lonely in Ontario, away from our close family. Alberta was closer, so I retired a year early, and we packed up and headed west.  Playing a collection of country, rock and Canadian folk songs gave us the right ambiance. The CD, personally arranged by an Ontario friend of ours, was a farewell gift. Our journey was magical but also a little sad leaving Ontario. We had to drive up around the Great Lakes to go west. The two days it took us to leave Ontario were spent driving  through beautiful lush land. We passed Lake Superior which is called gichi-gami in Ojibwe meaning ‘great sea.’ It is known as the bottomless lake that never gives up its dead, because it is very deep and very cold. It is surrounded by white sandy beaches. The beautiful city of Sault Ste Marie is considered the heart of the Great Lakes and is situated where Lake Huron and Lake Superior meet. It has a magnificent waterside and an international bridge to its sister city Sault Ste Marie Michigan. This gives access to the mid western states. A holiday atmosphere is created because of this, which lends an exciting glow to the city

Winnipeg is the first major city we reached on leaving Ontario. This is the exact geographical centre of Canada. Standing on the corner of Portage and Main we felt the famous strong bitter winds. It is supposed to be the coldest and windiest corner in Canada. We also did a quick trip to the famous Forks where the Assiniboine and Red rivers meet. This is a sacred meeting place where Aboriginal people met for about 6,000 years. It is still the go to place for all major gatherings.




Even the name Yellowhead highway gives me that sense of a friendly pioneer filled Alberta. We  took it from Winnipeg to the city of Regina. This is the heart of the Prairies. Driving through the flat land with the huge globe sky cover, was enchanting. We had never seen anything like it before. We drove the highway for hours before we came across any cars. At one stage we almost drove into a field. Travelling on the one long stretch of roadway it suddenly stopped, and we needed to take a sharp right turn. Any of the little towns we ventured into had approximately 2 to 3 roads and then ended. We loved these vast horizons and felt we were entering a new world.

The Prairies

 Regina is a very pretty city. Our first stop there was the Royal Canadian Police training and heritage centre. It has been training RCMP officers since 1885. This was a very interesting place which covered the history of the the North-west Mounted Police in 1873, to the modern day Mountie.
We also visited an art gallery in the city. I have never seen such an unusual showing. There was an exhibition of toilets throughout the years. The most lovely exhibit of all was a homage to the prairies. It was a large area of the floor, covered with tall spiky white crystal, which caught the light, showing magical moving colours representing wheat fields.

Royal Canadian Police Training and Heritage Centre

Welcome to Albert

Cold Winters

On our journey to Edmonton, our final destination, we saw many nodding donkeys. These are the oil pumps which look, right, just like nodding donkeys. They are very common throughout Alberta. Grain elevators are also common and dot the landscape. As the railway lines spread all across the province in the early 1900’s grain elevators grew in numbers, built along these lines. They dried and stored the vast quantities of grain from the prairies. The railways then transported it to the refineries and mills.

The Railway is important on the Prairies

On seeing the sign “Welcome to Edmonton” we felt very accomplished and with tears in our eyes we turned and waved “bye bye”to Ontario. We had become Westerners.