Stanford Inn Red Deer

Bumpy snow-covered streets

by Bwana_Brown

Having lived in eastern Canada whenever I was actually in the country, this was my first extended winter trip to western Canada (normally I go for Palm trees at that time of the year!). I had heard from people living in Winnipeg, Manitoba that often their subdivision streets are not plowed following a snowstorm but this was the first time that I had actually experienced it! The first two or three streets leading out of the subdivision into the more travelled areas were quite rutted with tire tracks in the now-solid ice base of the street, with the view here being on one of the smoother sections. While walking Carolyn and Ryan's dog in another nearby area, I came across a street that had been gouged down to pavement level by major heavy machinery, leaving a pile of iced chunks about 3-feet high on one side of the street. Those with driveways on that side had to make their own way through the barrier!

While holding the fort for Carolyn and Ryan, I cleared their driveway of any snowfalls and also the sidewalk leading to their neighbours. In eastern Canada, the sidewalk bit is normally done by city-operated snowblowers after each winter snow storm. Again, it is probably due to the rapid pace of growth in the west!

The Royal Tyrrell Museum of...

by Carmanah

The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta is quite possibly the most impressive museum of its type in the world. The surrounding eroded landscapes that you see in this photo are known as the badlands. Many dinosaur fossils have been found here, and palaeontologists continue to discover ancient fossils in these regions to this day. For more information, see my Calgary page.

The Beauty of Red Deer

by Dueck

"Maybe I'm biased"

Okay, so I read this girl's blurb on my home town and rather than email her with a rebuttal on her bland explanation on Red Deer, I thought I'd create my own HOME page on Red Deer. It's the greatest little city in Alberta and don't be fooled by it's size or proximity to the bigger centres of Edmonton and Calgary. Those are definate bonuses of course! But Red Deer has many feathers of its own to show as well.

Many of my friends have commented on the green spaces around the city. It's a huge park space and has miles and miles of paved pathways to explore on foot, a bike, rollerblades, with friends or alone. It's the active person's dream!

We've got movie theatres, shopping malls, bowling alleys, a skateboard park, swimming pools, paint ball, pottery studios, horse trails, climbing walls, pubs and bars, ball diamonds, hockey rinks, coffee shops, book stores, golf courses, and restaurants galore! Enough to keep almost all of our 70 000 residents busy and out of trouble.

So, don't be distracted by the big city lights and miss out on this gem of a city in the middle of Alberta, where the sun almost always shines and the people are friendly. We're a "delight to discover"!

Red Deer, Alberta

by Carmanah

I can honestly say I can't do justice making a page for Red Deer, Alberta. Red Deer is a medium-sized city located directly between rivalling cities Calgary and Edmonton.

The only time I have ever been to Red Deer was in 1993 while we were, surprise, surprise, driving from Calgary to Edmonton. We only stopped off at the Smitty's restaurant for dinner.

Generally, Red Deer is not considered a large tourist destination, but it is conveniently located within a few hours to the Rockies, to Drumheller (dinosaur badlands), to Calgary and to Edmonton. It seems like a good place to raise a family, and they always seem to produce NHL hockey stars from this city.

I originally decided to build a page on Red Deer because back in the days when Virtual Tourist had a dozen or so Canadian cities in their database, Red Deer was one of them. But people would always use Red Deer as a place to put up their Banff or Canadian Rockies photos... which wasn't really fair to Red Deer, because Red Deer is located way out in the flat farmland part of Alberta, and not in the midst of the Rockies. So I put up information on Red Deer to show what it was really like.

But now I realise I don't really need to put up a Red Deer page, because I really haven't explored it enough to have an opinion one way or another.

Hopefully the other pages can help instead!