And Life Goes On: Along the Rest of the Trail and Back to Lethbridge

After we left the Museum, we took the long way along the North Dinosaur Trail (Hwy 838) to get to Drumheller. We just needed to see one more Canyon and, of course, the Bleriot Cable Ferry that crossed the Red Deer River.

Bleriot Ferry: You would think that after spending seven years taking the cable ferry back and forth to work at Little Narrows (Cape Breton), another cable ferry would be the last thing we wanted to ride on. Not so. A little secret? I was really looking forward to it.

“Nobody’s going to take the ferry when there’s a bridge nearby,” explains Danis, (Gilles Danis of the Homestead Museum) “except if there is historical significance, like the Bleriot Ferry.”

Because of the few families in the area, the government of the day could not see their way to construct bridges across the Red Deer River so the local people generally forded the river or crossed on rafts. The Munson Ferry started running over a century ago and in 1955 was renamed the Bleriot Ferry in honour of its first ferry Captain, Andre Bleriot.
Today 90% of the traffic is tourists but many of the locals still use the ferry to cross the river.

Neither the Ferry nor the channel is as big as Little Narrows but I enjoyed the crossing anyway.

The Horsethief Canyon

Legend has it that thousands of horses belonging to various ranchers roamed freely in the Valley. They would enter the canyon and would return carrying a different ranch brand . . . hence the name Horsethief Canyon.

Other stories claim that thieves once used the tucked-away area to hide stolen livestock.

There have been over 35 dinosaur discoveries recorded in the region uncovering fossils dating as far back as 70 million years ago. Today, even though it is off the beaten track and not as popular, the Horsethief Canyon is an extension of the same formation as the Horseshoe Canyon and offers very popular hiking trails.

We arrived at Drumheller on a Monday evening. “A Ghost Town in the making". Our motel was downtown and we assumed that it would be easy to find a place for supper within walking distance. You know that assumptions never work?
Right – there were no restaurants around that were open on Mondays! Really! Yup – we did walk to a place and were amazed to find more empty store fronts than there were businesses. Maybe we missed something!

When we got up the next day, it was dull with on and off rain showers so we didn’t spend much time wandering around the town.

Drumheller Valley was founded on the discovery of coal. Coal mines dotted the Valley. Because coal is no longer a viable product, they have turn many of the mining areas into historic tourist attractions.

The Star Mine was one such place. They have reconstructed the Suspension Bridge that replaced the row boats that took the miners to work across the Red Deer River.

We stopped by the Atlas Mine Site and were going to explore the hoodoos but the rain came belting down so we just stopped briefly to look at them.

Brooks Aqueduct (Provincial and National) Historic Site

And how long have we lived here in Southern Alberta? We had never heard of the Brooks Aqueduct before (and we had even lived in Brooks for a couple of months). So this became the last stop on this leg of our tour. We’re always curious to check out a place we had never heard of before. Unfortunately, we discovered that the Aqueduct was not open to the public on Tuesdays.

And what day were we there? Tuesday, of course. BUT . . .

We wandered around anyway. The CPR had constructed the Aqueduct in early 1900’s.

My first thought was why would the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) construct an aqueduct? When it came right down to it, the settlers needed water in order to survive the dry parched area of Southern Alberta and the Railway needed settlers in order to sustain their business.

Construction of the Aqueduct started in 1912 and began delivering water by 1915. Three hundred plus workers and 38 construction crews built 3-kilometres of an elevated trough of 19,000 cubic meters of steel enforced concrete capable of delivering 70 cubic meters of water per second. It is most impressive.

The Aqueduct remained functional until 1979.