My view of Alberta

After I spent last week getting to know Alberta a little better I decided there is landscape-wise not much to it apart from the Rockies. Back in 2006 I made it all the way from Jasper through Banff down to Waterton National Park and back. The Rockies are like a paradise, surely a bit rough but soooo beautiful. Lakes, rivers, mountains, wildlife, trees. 

From Calgary I drove through the prairie to Drumheller and visited coal mines, hoodoos and crazily carved sandstone canyons in the Red Deer River valley. This river and what has developed around it after the last ice age is truly amazing but it's located right in the middle of the Alberta prairie, not quite as flat as Manitoba & Saskatchewan but not exciting either. The wind last week was unfortunately very fierce and literally blew our hats off our heads while the sun was burning stubbornly from the big blue sky. Not my kind of weather. The carved out river valley, called the Badlands for a reason, appears rather hostile and from what I found out does not have much wildlife in it. I understand that it is worth protecting and there are several provincial parks for that reason (and to make the collection of the plentiful fossils illegal it seemed), but there's little appeal for outdoor enthusiasts like me. Often a parking lot and a picnic area made up all the "amenities". No hiking trails whatsoever. Driving back to Edmonton from Drumheller seemed a never-ending journey through endless prairie landscape again, with oil & gas wells scattered about! 

One of the last weekends we spent in Elk Island National Park, 30 min east of Edmonton, and although this was a nice change to the city it was a little disappointing. Elk Island encompasses the Beaver Hills, 50-60 metres high sticking out from the prairie. Originally founded to protect a herd of Elk it later became home to plain bison and then wood bison. Today it counts 700 bison! That's lots considering the size of this, in Canada the only fenced-in, park. Of course we saw the bison. We also saw lots of birds including a bald eagle, frogs, waterfowl, a beaver, two coyotes, and lots of gophers. I was surprised by the number of bogs, swamp and ponds. Elk Island also features lakes with picturesque islands and I longed to go canoeing. The forest is boreal forest, yes, it's a boreal island in the prairie, definitely worth protecting! But the forest was also my disappointment - the trees are so little. Most actually had there tops chopped off, from storm, not from human hands. The forest obviously had not seen a fire in a long time although controlled fires are applied in the park to prevent meadows from overgrowing. I know that in the north trees grow slower and with long winters growing season is short and the dry climate of the last decade certainly did not help but I am missing big, tall trees. I mean Germany does not have big trees compared to B.C.'s rainforest but they are majestic compared to the stalks here. Where is the shelter from the sun that makes summers more pleasant? 

It's interesting. I never thought I am so keen on the landscapes I grew up with but not having them leaves me a little empty too. Like in Spain or Mexico I admired the palm trees but even they did feel wrong somehow. Luckily, we have some nicely grown trees right out of our apartment (which we will not stay in because the management company and landlord suck).