Canada Guide
Alberta and the Rockies
Heritage Park Historical Village
Opening time: Mid-May to Aug daily 9am–5pm; Sept to early Oct Sat & Sun 9am–5pm
Price: $22.95 admission with rides, $13.95 without rides; free pancake breakfast with admission 9–10am
Website: www.heritagepark.ca
A sixty-acre theme park centred on a reconstructed frontier village 16km southwest of downtown, Heritage Park replicates life in the Canadian West before 1914 and panders relentlessly to the myth of the "Wild West". Full of family-oriented presentations and original costumes, this "heritage" offering – the largest of its type in Canada – is thorough enough for you never to feel obliged to see another. The living, working museum comprises more than 150 restored buildings, all transported from other small-town locations. Each has been assigned to one of several communities – fur post, native village, homestead, farm and c.1900 – and most fulfil their original function. Thus you can see a working blacksmith, buy fresh bread, buy a local paper, go to church, even get married. Transport, too, is appropriate to the period, including steam trains, trams, horse-drawn bus and stagecoaches. If you're here for the day you can pick up cakes and snacks from the traditional Alberta Bakery, or sit down to a full meal in the old-style Wainwright Hotel. To get there by car, take either Elbow Drive or Macleod Trail south and turn right on Heritage Drive (the turn-off is marked by a huge, maroon steam engine); or you can take the C-Train to Heritage Station and then a free shuttle bus that operates during park hours.