As history will record it, the First Nations of Canada were not to have this land to themselves forever. Others, many of whom were fleeing from persecutions and poverty in their home countries of Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Ukraine and others, fled their home countries for a promise of a better future in these enormous lands in North America.

The ones I mention in this blog are but a few of the immigrant groups, there are many, many more – as any major city in Canada will prove.

The Ukrainians

The Ukrainians were brought in to plow the land. The great prairies needed farming – farming for the production of especially wheat – Ukraine was said to be the bread basket of Europe and now they were to be the same for their new country Canada. The Ukrainians fled persecutions and genocide in their own country and many had little or no education or were illiterate. Maybe for this reason the Ukrainians fell victim to bigotry and discrimination.

The Ukrainians worked very hard, and as soon as they were settled and the farms had gotten under way schools were built to meet the needs of this growing population – whose leaders saw the importance of having the children educated. By 1916 there were over 400 schools teaching both English and Ukrainian. But in this same year, the government of the three prairie provinces Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta abolished all programs for teaching Ukrainian – from then on it was to be only English! A forced assimilation. Now, where have we heard that before? But luckily times changed and Ukrainian was re-introduced as a subject in several provinces in the 50s and 60s´.

Today an estimated population of 1.3 million people in Canada claim Ukrainian decent – my friend studying her ancestry…

….and discussing the exhibition –

Ukrainian costumes….

…could almost have been Paris today –

Easter eggs and pottery in elaborate decorations and colors…

Artist interpretation in wood…

…and the curator preparing a new exhibition – the Ukrainians are proud of their cultural heritage and take pains to preserve it, not just in museums but also in daily life –

The Scandinavians

Many Scandinavians also sought their fortune in the beginnings of what is now Canada. They were brought in to farm the land, but many also came themselves and went into the mining and oil business. As far as I know, they had a much easier time of adopting to their new country, which may have had cultural and/or religious origins.

West of Red Deer, Alberta, we encountered a small Danish museum which is still very much alive and thriving in an area settled by many Danes.

The museum building was originally built as a dormitory for young women. The first Danish settlers brought with them the understanding, that education was important, especially for girls who otherwise would end up in domestic service – hence the boarding school for girls only to prevent this from happening…

Replica of a Danish church…..

The hymn book – ” Slowly the moon is rising, the golden star adrift.…” –

Complete with stained windows…

…and the Little Mermaid outside –

The museum also functions as the meeting place for Danes from around the area – in the summer there are many events taking place, much as in a Danish “Folkehøjskole” – a folk high school, which is almost an inexplicable institution – a kind of boarding school originally for the education of young men from the farms (1844) and soon to become for everyone, but still with focus on culture, identity and the building of citizenship as much as academic subjects. First and foremost it mirrors the Danish belief that cultural education is important and is for everyone – “popular education” .

And therefore – this small museum – the meeting place that it is – has a proper chef in the kitchen of the café – a chef who is from BC and has taught herself the art of Danish cooking….she made us some delicious open faced sandwiches (smoerrebroed) complete with a Danish schnapps –

There was a current exhibition on Jens Munk, who was sent out by the king of Denmark to find the Northwest Passage – instead he found The Hudson Bay and Canada – paving the way for the French and the English –

And here we leave the prosperous and happy Danes in Alberta and drive out into the vast plains of Saskatchewan – where we in the middle of nowhere came across this little church…we could see it for miles ahead of us and I knew, that it must be Scandinavian –

We unhooked the chain – as you can see, the church is closed and boarded up….

…and the gravestones proved us right – Scandinavians!

…and this one reads: “Then go dear aunt to the day of resurrection where we will meet in the heavenly abode” – I think it is Norwegian –

We left as we came….on the dirt road to no where –

In a town called “Elbow”….another culture has found its way to Canada, even onto the prairies of Saskatchewan….the East meets the West –

And lastly, the Snow Goose migrating south under the October sky –

The wayfarers

Dotted across our road map are these small green areas – “Indian Reservation” the text reads, as it did on the US maps as well.

Long before the white man entered the scene these endless mountains and prairies were inhabited by others. Indigenous Peoples as they officially say in Canada, First Nations as the ancient peoples call themselves. They lived in tribes and the many tribes have names – names that some will remember from their childhood books – The Blackfoot, The Cree, The Mohawk. Once they roamed these plains hunting for food and creating their lives and culture according to the landscape and natural habitat. The change of this way of life is history now, but Canada as a nation has taken great pains to try to reconcile their past with their present and giving equal opportunities to all its citizens.

We visited two different historic sites connected with the First nation peoples. There seems to be a marked difference between the “reservations” of the US and those of Canada. In Canada the First Nations are protected in the sense that the government subsidizes the preservation of their different cultures, which means that the areas in which they live are not as stricken with poverty and poor education and their lands seem well kept – at least the ones we have driven through. This is, of course, a much more complicated matter than I have any understanding of – I know that Indigenous Peoples have taken their causes to court here in Canada and have in many cases won their land claims based on old treaties and contracts from the 1800´s – something I could not imagine happening in the US – or many other countries for that matter.

In this blog it will suffice to take you through the pictures of a beautiful new visitors center on the lands of the Blackfoot Nation, which is a confederacy of several nations and to a Heritage Site called Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump – plus a mention of the Badlands of Alberta.

The Blackfoot Crossing National Park

We were alas not allowed to take pictures of the very well constructed exhibitions inside the building, so you will have to make do with the pictures of the beautiful architecture of this fairly new National Heritage Site called The Blackfoot Crossing Historical Park.

In this case the tribe in question is called the Siksika – who are a part of the Blackfoot Nation. It is their history, artifacts and stories which are on display in the museum – as well as the history of the First Nations and the meeting of cultures when the Europeans first entered these lands.

The building in all its beauty on a cold day in October – the architecture is thought as a tipi…

….and the entrance as decorative feathers throwing its shadows on the ground –

Inside the great glass entrance hall from where you can see the whole valley below –

And a look at details…

The Center is also a site for research…the library in the background –

The valley below the Center where the Blackfoot lived for centuries – the Valley is now protected because it is the site of the signing of a peace treaty between the Blackfoot Chief Crowfoot and the Canadian government in 1877. A reservation was created and today about 4,000 people still live on this reservation –

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

Yes, it is a strange name is it not? Nevertheless, understanding the history behind a place like this is the key to the understanding of how ressourcefullness and ingenuity gave the First Nation peoples of this area in Alberta the means to survive for thousands of years – the protagonist of the story being the buffalo. The buffalo was not sacred in a religious sense, but it was revered and loved as a means for survival – it gave food, it gave skins for warmth and its bones were made into tools –

And for this purpose killing it was a necessity. With creativity and skill the men of the tribe lured the buffalos over the top of a cliff whereby hundreds of animals were killed at the same time – therefore the term Buffalo Jump.

Afterwards the buffalo were dragged out onto the plains where the women were waiting to do their part of the job – preparing the meat, drying the skins and so on – the tribes were now able to survive the winter.

The sad story is, that these millions of huge animals roaming the plains of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were soon to become almost extinct – when the white man needed the skins and to some extent the meat – and suddenly the buffalo jump was used for killing a lot more animals than necessary for survival. The skins were sent to the booming industries in eastern US to be used for manufacturing and industrial purposes.

Today, the buffalo is kept in national parks in the US and Canada and the population is said to be growing.

The jump as it looks today in the snow….

….and the museum built into the cliffs – with a last glimpse of the Rockies in the background –

Something that we did not know before visiting these two museums was, that before the Indigenous Peoples of these more southern parts of Canada were introduced to the horse, brought up from Mexico, they used dogs – much as in Greenland – the horse changed their whole way of life, as did the gun!

Ancient art –

Lastly a few pictures of the Albertan Badlands – dinosaur land one could also call it – numerous dinosaurs have been found here and are still being found – The Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller tells the story –

The Badlands and its dinosaurs

From the Tyrell Museum, where many of the exhibits and finds are original…from both land and sea –

The wayfarers

We had planned to go south after the Icefields but decided instead to go north for a couple of days. This proved to be a stroke of luck – southeren Alberta experienced an unusually early snowstorm in the days where we were heading north. The snow was still there as we drove south again through the vast plains of Alberta, but not in any way detrimental to our journey.

Alberta is a rich province. Rich in oil and gas, rich in farmlands and rich in natural beauty. The Rocky Mountains and its valleys to the west create a beautiful tourist and outdoor recreational environment as well as water supplies from the mountains. Driving down and further east we experienced what for us is something that we will drive a long way to see – the vast plains, the straight and long roads, an almost overpowering sense of the rounding of the earth making you feel that both the sky and the road in front of you are unending. The horizons of Alberta seem infinite.

I will take you through some of the landscapes driving through from Dawson Creek in the north and to Lethbridge in the south. But first a last look at the top end of the Rockies in British Columbia on our way to Prince George.

And would you believe it, we saw our first bear on this stretch. There it was, laying comfortably in a tree trying to sleep. It only lifted its head slightly as the tourists drove by with their camera –

The last part of the Rockies – or so we thought, we saw them later again in southeren Alberta –

Waterfall through the trees…

… …. …..bluejays against the sun….

…. before driving out into the open – the beginning of the plains where the sky slowly took over from the mountains as the predominant feature –

Oil pump jacks started popping up….

…as did the old grain elevators..

…and the newer ones –

We spotted a hawk – and also a wolf, but no picture of that. The wolf was standing on the road as we turned a corner, a young and strong one, but before we could stop the car and get the camera out, it was gone –

Canada geese resting on their way south –

The vast fields and their harvest…

…and domestic animals, all constantly eating – cows…

…sheep and goats…

…and even bison –

Then came the snow – some places the harvest was not even in yet, but these fields were lucky

Covered hills….

…and weather worn shacks…

….and in the middle of nowhere – once a welcome wash!

The wayfarers