Favourite Southern Alberta Landscapes

Hi Mary and Kelvin,

Remember when you sent the note below to Kelvin, Mary?

I love the landscape of Southern Alberta and want to expose my own kids to it over time. I have my favourite places, but just wanted Dad to point out some of his favouites. Even just things like the smell of a field after harvest, the smell of making pickles, the sunset in the winter, the sound of snow underfoot.. Anything that he find beautiful about having grown up on the prairies.

So, you make an interesting point.

Favorite places in southern Alberta.

Are you going to tell about your favourite places in Southern Alberta?

Here is one of mine.

I only knew one place in southern Alberta when i was growing up: Cardston. My Aunt Lenore and Uncle Mac lived there with my cousins, Maccy, Geraldine, Eileen, Marse and Kim. Our family took occasional trips to Cardston, leaving the paved road at Lethbridge and travelling the last 30 miles on a dusty, dirt road, past the Hutterite colonies that looked so strange to me – geese running about and perhaps a few people walking in the yard. Next came the Blood Indian Reservation with stern warnings – that land belongs to them and we are not allowed to go on it. I already knew that, for the southern border of the reservation was a wire fence along the avenue of the north side of Lenore’s house and we knew there was no climbing that fence to play on the other side of it. Maxine’s classmate, Charlie Smallface must have climbed over the fence to the Cardston side, for I do remember him and a pony. Well, we might have climbed over the fence to his side, but not very far.

As we came into Cardston, my father always pointed out the hospital where he was born. A couple of blocks later we were at my Aunt Lenore’s.

Whoever had such a holiday as the one we would have there! A garden that stretched a long way into her back yard. We only had to weed two rows each. On the grass of the backyard is where I performed my first funeral with my cousins assisting me. We buried a dead bird in a shoe box. I wanted to pass the sacrament during the same service but mother said that you don’t do the sacrament at a funeral.

We were always there for the first of July parade and we entered a float each year. The float was a cardboard box that we decorated as a fancy car and wore, strapped over our shoulders down mainstreet – the city kids part of a country parade.

You could walk to the Cardston temple grounds. There wasn’t much there to do, but to look at the granite and walk on the sloped yard, or perhaps pass the tabernacle, which our cousins told us they could go in when it was conference. Adults dressed in their Sunday clothes would walk into the temple, many of them carryng suitcases. The scene was somewhat surreal to me, having never seen anyone walking around with a suitcase a church before, and I wondered what they were going to do and would it be fun.

The community wading pool down the street was a more interesting spot – some water and playground equipment, cracks breaking up the dry ground, a few tufts of yellowed prairie grasses here and there.

Uncle Mac owned a dealership – Texaco. We weren’t allowed to go to Mac’s gas station, though when I was older I do remember geting to shine the windows of a car or truck that would drive up as he would fill their gas tanks.

Aunt Lenore’s house stood out in five ways.

1. She had one kitchen counter full of African violets.
2. She had renters downstairs, so we weren’t allowed to play down there.
3. She had a closet full of flannel board stories – she would allow us to take them out of the envelopes they were stored in and put the figures up on a flannel board – my favourite story was of Joseph going to Egypt.
4. Her girls had a doll collection shelf which we were allowed to look at.
5. Lenore had chartreuse linoleum, a very fashionable statement.

Over to you Mary. Or anyone?

Got a favourite place in southern Alberta?

It won’t be long now until the crocuses raise their head and the faces of Richardson’s ground squirrels poke out from their holes ... in southern Alberta.