You can explore the Plains of Western Canada in Alberta by making a key summer event – The Calgary Stampede – your launching pad for cowboy and Aboriginal adventures. You can hit the main attractions while feeding your need to wander.
Discover Alberta summer holidays and read on to see how where roads to ranches and reserves can take you within this province of mountains, prairies, lakes and foothills.
Creative Western Adventures offers a Calgary Stampede package that includes city attractions, a day learning how to ride a horse, a cattle drive on a reserve, Aboriginal attractions and an overnight in a tipi. You can travel with the tour company or you might want to fashion your own trip.
Start with Calgary
Before enjoying the Calgary Stampede, which runs July 4-13, 2008, you can explore Calgary.
The city of Calgary brims with Old and New West attitude that combines the cosmopolitan charm of a big city -- including fine dining, art galleries and museums, shopping and other urban adventures – with its roots in ranching and oil.
The Creative Western Adventures package provides a hotel in Calgary and you’ll visit some of the city’s top attractions including the Calgary Tower, Fort Calgary, Canada Olympic Park, Heritage Park and the Calgary Zoo.
Visit Main Attractions
The Calgary Tower at the heart of the city features an enclosed walk-out high above the city where you can stare past your feet at the bustling pedestrian traffic below, as well as get a stunning view of the Canadian Rockies and the prairies.
Visit Fort Calgary and its interpretive centre, and you’ll delve into the history of the Wild West by touring the 1875 fort and barracks.
Canada Olympic Park is where the 1988 winter Olympics played out in the city and it includes infrastructure for sports including bobsleigh, luge and skeleton. You can even take a bobsleigh ride on the track that World Cup and Olympians still use to train.
During summer, the mountain biking program at Canada Olympic Park is one of the tops in Western Canada. You can even do audio tours of the Olympic museum at the park or ride the fastest zipline in North America.
Heritage Park is Canada’s largest historical living village and it introduces you to ‘how the West was won.’ You’ll interact with early settlers who are in costume and learn about life at the turn of the century. Popular exhibits include a bakery, an ice cream parlor and an amusement park.
The Calgary Zoo is where you can find gorillas, hippos, osprey, and many more animals. The zoo is one of the most popular attractions in the city.
You can also visit the Glenbow Museum, with its rich and varied collection of Native art, Western archives and permanent exhibits including Mavericks, which features the incorrigible characters who helped shaped the province of Alberta.
Explore the Stampede
If you’re traveling with Creative Western Adventures, you’ll spend two days at the Calgary Stampede, and that includes tickets to the Chuckwagon races and the Grandstand Evening Show. Most people in Calgary dress up in Western duds during the 10 days of the Stampede, and you can buy everything from cowboy hats and boots to bolo ties and shirts throughout the city, if you want to participate.
The Calgary Stampede features one of the richest rodeo purses in the world and the Stampede attracts top talent, from bull riders to bronc riders to barrel racers. If you’ve never been to a rodeo, check it out, as this is the big one in Alberta, aside from the Canadian Finals Rodeo held during the autumn in the city of Edmonton.
Learn How to Cowboy
If you don’t already know how to ride a horse, the Creative Western Adventures package takes you to Camp Carmangay, where you will spend a day learning the beginning of how to be a cowboy. The next day takes you to the Siksika Reserve, where you have the opportunity to participate in a cattle drive as you experience ranch life with the Blackfoot Indians.
Visit Blackfoot Crossing
The rancher who leads the cattle drive runs about 300 head of cattle, so get ready for adventure, pardner. You will also camp in wilderness before visiting Blackfoot Crossing Interpretive Centre, a newly built experience that highlights the Siksika Blackfoot Nation. And you can spend the night in a tipi on the reserve.
Opened in the summer of 2007, the $25 million historical park combines decades of work within the Blackfoot community to create a centre dedicated to showcasing their unique culture. In addition to housing historical artifacts and exhibits, the park includes many opportunities for visitors to experience Blackfoot Culture first-hand.
After breakfast if you’re traveling with Creative Western Adventures, you can spend a day on the river listening to stories about Aboriginal culture and there will be time for discussions during this learning adventure. When you leave the Siksika Reserve, you will head back to Calgary. The Creative Western Adventures tour is spread out over seven days.