Day 31 - Tourist in Drumheller

Today we woke up in Drumheller prepared to be tourest for the day.  We stayed at the Heartwood Inn in Drumheller which is a boutique hotel run by Zeke and his wife Patrice.  The establishment was perfect, great location, fabulous room with a jet tub and very nicely appointed.  After a nutritional breaky we were off in the truck to the east check out the badlands. 

Badlands created in the Red Deer River Valley

 

Suspension bridge over to old mine workings

We had driven to Drumheller in the dark the night before so we were keen to check out the lay of the land.   It was very flat until Drumheller but the Drumheller Valley has been heavily eroded leaving a steep sided valleys with muddy hills, coal seams and hoodoos.  The hoodoos look like giant mushrooms.  The hoodoos are in constant production as the erosion is ongoing.  We drove south of Drumheller along the "Hoo Doo Trail.  All along the "trail" are small town which are all ex mining towns, the Drumheller Valley was a major coal producer in the early 1900's with the last mines closing in the late 50's.  The town of Rosedale boost a suspension bridge the miners used to go to towork.  It was interesting to walk across.  Then we went to see the old Atlas mine which is closed for the winter, but we walked around outside a bit.  There were a number of deer around, an old dog and some decrepit buildings.  What was amazing was the number of tiny houses that were no more than 400 square feet.  Every 3^rd house was this tiny little thing.  Most homes were very tired looking too.  Our last little town was Wayne which again was a coal mining town that used to employ up to 1100 in the mining industry and now has a population of 26.  Here we saw the last chance saloon which was closed on Sunday and some ring necked pheasants.  Wayne was a bit of a disappointment as I thought it was a ghost town from the 1800’s, but really it was a modern day ghost town, less exciting than Creighton.

Julie with Albertasaurus at the Tyrell museum

Back to Drumheller to the Tyrell museum.  This is a world renowned museum for fossels.  It was really worthy of the world renowned title as there were whole dinosaur skeletons throughout mostly from Alberta.  We spent about 3 hours going through the museum before heading off back to Calgary to the grand finale reunion of phase 1 of our seabbatical. 

Once again the roads were great for driving and we were only about 1.5 hours from Calgary so landed at the Wright household.  Caroline had reserved tickets for all of us to go to the “Ironwood” and listen to Stephen Fearing and Lucas Chiasson.  Stephen is a Juno winner that many in the Wright’s circle of friends have been following for a few years as his record label is published by friend and Dawson’s fellow Cat skier Andy Hoag (queen’s 84).  Lucas opened for Stephen and he was great.  Lucas is only 18 and lives in Cochrane which is where our friends Martin and Sue currently live.  Turns out Lucas has also done some promo work with Sue and Martin.  We were also able to connect with Chris and Paula to say a personal thanks and good-bye for letting us use their cabin in Golden about a month ago when we skied Kicking Horse.  Sorry it is not a better pic, so much for blackberries!

Julie, Chris, Paula and Dawson