2016 July Alberta 1

Antelope in Montana before heading into Alberta.  Our tour group started in Great Falls, Montana.  First stop was Hill Spring just south of Fort MacLeod in Southern Alberta.  Below is a canola field with Glacier Park in the far distance.  Canola gets it's name from Canada Oil.   Love these yellow fields.

View from our campground below right, also with Glacier Park in the far distance.

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This museum has the largest collection of horse-drawn carriages

in North America.

Remington Carriage House in Cardston, Alberta (south of Calgary).  To the right is the shop where they reconstruct carriages.  Below is a carriage they had just finished.  This shop completely rebuilt the wheels and suspension system, and repainted the body.  Takes a lot of training to learn how to refurbish these original carriages.

Below are archaeologist at a dig just West of Fort MacLeod.  This area is called "Head-Smashed in Buffalo Jump".  They have discovered arifacts from Indian camps that go back 6000 years.  Different Indian tribes would camp at this location.  They learned how to stampede the Buffalo over the cliff.  This ritual started long before they had horses or guns.  They managed to get enough meat to sustain them for many months.

There is a very nice museum displaying early Indian tribe life in this area.  Below is the cliff that was used to stampede the buffalo over.  The archeological dig was at the base of this cliff.

Area where thousands of Indians would camp during short periods while they were hunting the buffalo.

Depiction of the buffalo stampede.  Indians used every part of the buffalo.  Nothing went to waste.

Our tour guide at the museum was from the local Blackfoot nation.

Fort MacLeod, Alberta.  Mid 1800's RMCP (Royal Mounted Canadian Police) fort.  This fort was established to control the whiskey traders that were not such nice people.

These college age kids came from all over Canada to work during the summer here.  This was called a Musical Ride, formations done to music.