Alberta Destinations

Alberta’s badlands are a good place to visit

By Toni Dabbs

Photo by Toni Dabbs

Southeast of Calgary is an area known as the Badlands. The name is derived from the French phrase les mauvaises terres à traverser, which translates as "bad lands hard to cross." French explorers were some of the earliest Europeans to visit the area, and they found its rough landscape less than welcoming.

But over the years, both man and nature have hidden treasures among the Badlands’ rocks and canyons, and the region’s dry climate and inaccessibility have been partly responsible for preserving them. Such gems and the geology itself were what attracted my group to the area.

Compared to the early explorers, we found it easy enough to access our chosen sites, although we still spent many hours on the road and sometimes had to leave the modern highways to reach our more isolated destinations.

We began by driving south from Calgary to Lethbridge, where we would spend the night. While some people shopped or took in the city’s sights, I went to Indian Battle Park on the west side of town to tour a reconstruction of Fort Whoop-Up, a private trading post that gave a different meaning to the word "badlands."

Officially named Fort Hamilton, the non-military post was founded in 1869 by Montana fur traders who were happy to exchange contraband whiskey and firearms to the Indians for valuable pelts.

Things soon got a little wild in this lawless land, so the North West Mounted Police were formed to establish Canadian sovereignty and control the alcohol trade. For this reason, Fort Whoop-Up has been designated a National Historic Site.

On our way out of Lethbridge the next morning, we swung by the town of Coaldale to tour the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation, Canada’s largest wild bird rehabilitation facility, situated on 70 acres of wetlands. Although its primary purpose is rescue and release, the facility is home to some birds that, for various reasons, are unable to return to the wild.

Director Colin Weir introduced us to several permanent residents (such as Spirit, a golden eagle blinded by a shotgun pellet) that have become animal ambassadors for the foundation’s education and conservation programs. Weir also showed us the Natural History Centre, which includes an eagle aviary, and the flying field amphitheatre, where we watched a demonstration of a Harris hawk in flight.

From there, we headed even farther south, almost to the Montana border, to visit Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park. We had a look around the Interpretive Centre while we waited for our Alberta Parks guide, a young woman named Juanita from the First Nations Blood Reserve.

Juanita took us into a restricted area to view a small fraction of the 50,000 images, painted pictographs and carved petroglyphs mainly done by First Nations Blackfoot people, that adorn the sandstone cliffs alongside the Milk River within the park’s 4,400 acres.

It’s believed that the images, some of which might be 5,000 years old, depict everything from daily activities to sacred ceremonies to spirit legends. Many have survived because they are in such hard to reach locations.

Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park is also known for its hoodoos, which are pillars of rock eroded into strange shapes by frost and windblown rain. We made several stops to photograph these typical Badlands rock formations, staying on trails to avoid close encounters with the prairie rattlesnakes that populate the park.

We weren’t done for the day, though. We piled back into the van and aimed it toward Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park, which straddles the Alberta-Saskatchewan border 70 kilometres north of Montana.

The remote park not only includes the highest point of land between the Canadian Rockies and eastern Canada, but it also features a Dark Sky Preserve that is ideal for stargazing.

I had feared accommodations would be somewhat rustic in this out-of-the-way place, so I was delighted when we checked into the Elkwater Lake Lodge and Resort, which managed to be both practical and tasteful.

After dinner at the lodge’s restaurant, we were collected by two enthusiastic Alberta Parks guides (both named Nicole) who took us to the Dark Sky Preserve for an astronomy lesson.

As we sipped hot cups of tea in the cool night air, one Nicole pointed out meteorites and constellations that we could see with the naked eye, while the other Nicole set up a telescope that allowed us to see certain stars and planets in greater detail. We were amazed by how spectacular the night sky looked without interference from the artificial light pollution of cities.

The next day started with another long drive, through Medicine Hat, to Dinosaur Provincial Park, a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Site.

The 19,980-acre park boasts one of the largest known concentrations of dinosaur fossils. Approximately 38 different species from the Late Cretaceous Period (75 million years ago) have been found within park borders. That’s four to five per cent of the world’s known dinosaur species.

We examined some reproductions of complete dinosaur skeletons in the park’s visitor centre before boarding a tour bus that would take us into the restricted area where we could see authentic dinosaur bones where they were discovered.

Our Alberta Parks guide Lauren also told us how the park had been a lush temperate zone when inhabited by the dinosaurs, how subsequent climate changes had created the fossils, and how the current Badlands landscape had helped preserve them.

We found the park’s geological features, mostly resulting from erosion, to be as interesting as the fossils.

In addition to its own share of hoodoos, the park contains: coulees, rolling ravines scooped out of hillsides by glacial melt at the end of the Wisconsinian Ice Age (17,000 years ago); rills, networks of narrow vertical channels on steep slopes caused by runoff from rainstorms; and horizontal tunnels and vertical pipes cut by snowmelt or rainwater runoff flowing underground.

Our loop tour gave us lots to talk about as we drove west back to Calgary. And we all agreed that the Badlands are a good place to visit.

Info to go:

Hyatt Regency Calgary (403-717-1234, www.hyattregencycalgary.com) is located close to downtown shops, restaurants and attractions. Guestrooms are spacious and elegantly decorated.

Ric’s Grill Lethbridge (403-317-7427) is set 150 feet above the city in a converted water tower. Neither the view nor the food disappoints.

Fort Macleod (403-553-4703, www.nwmpmuseum.com), situated just outside Lethbridge, was built in 1874 as headquarters for the North West Mounted Police. Exhibits depict development of the force through more than a century of service.

Medalta Potteries (403-529-1070, www.medalta.org), established in Medicine Hat in 1912, produced sturdy household crockery, hotel sets and artware until 1954. Today, its products are collectibles and its plant is a museum.