Alberta, Canada

Located in western Canada, the province of Alberta is bordered by the Canadian Rocky Mountains to the west and vast prairies and badlands to the east.  To the north lie the Northwest Territories.  The state of Montana is the southern border.

Alberta scenery is much different than that in BC.  In a lot of ways it is prettier, some ways boring.  Instead of the mountains and lakes, you get rolling hills with fields and cattle and some sheep.  The roads may not be in as good a shape, but there are divided highways with higher speed limits and the towns have a more modern feel to them with more of the chain stores and fast food.

I thought it was very cool that the TransCanada Highway goes right through Jasper National Park on its way to Edmonton.  The smoke was terrible, but I bet the scenery was outstanding, if you could see it. There was a herd of caribou having dinner beside the road, creating quite a traffic jam.  Rather than contributing to the mess, I didn’t stop for pictures .. but it was cool to see.

Because of the smoke I decided to cancel my reservations at Jasper and head north.  There were actually two reasons, besides the terrible smoke, that I opted to take this detour; because of the short summer season, I don't know when I will be able to get back up into the Northwest Territories again ... and they were so convenient to my current location.  The other reason was the Auora Borelias.  I arrived a little too late for a viewing in April and wanted to see the Northern Lights before I went back south.  The Northwest Territories is suppose to be the very best place, so ....

The first stop on my way was in Peace River for the night and another trip to the tire repair.  That one tire is going to be the death of me on this trip.  I have since found out that the problem is not in the tire or the stem, but in the tire monitoring sensor.  So I took it off and all seems to be fine .... except that I worry myself to death about it.

While at Kal Tire, I had an interesting conversation with Chris about the Manning Moose.  He grew up in Manning and, when I told him I was going there to photograph the moose, he laughed.  Apparently, the moose used to be a piece of  plywood and the townspeople (youth?) kept stealing parts of the moose so the city finally replaced it with a large metal one.  The only problem is that the body of the “moose” is a horse and they added antlers.

The next stop was High Level and a visit and stay at the Mackenzie Crossroads Museum.

From here you head north on the Mackenzie Highway, the only road in/out of the NWT from Alberta to Yellowknife. 

And as you approach the border to the NWT, there is just mile after mile of the same … it may have been the most boring drive so far but the good news is I got 10 miles per gallon vs my normal 8.5 mpg, which is good considering the price of diesel up here.