A Week in Calgary Through The Eyes of a Polish Mom.

I thought I was being purely narcissistic with my Alberta pride when I tell people that Alberta is the Dinosaur Capitol of the World, but it turns out the Smithsonian thinks so too! So there.

Here we are, where the dinosaurs once roamed, in Drumheller, Ab. Ever since I was a child I loved dinosaurs, I mean who doesn’t? There’s something so captivating about these creatures that lived so long ago and covered our earth for millions of years before Homo sapiens even made a speck on the timeline of things that existed.

I remember as a child visiting Drumheller and wondering what it would be like to live amongst them. Twenty some odd years later, that had not changed. I think that’s part of the reason why I love being outside so much, why I love rocks and nature. It’s because there is so much to learn and there so much history beneath each layer of rock and earth, each ring of a tree and even in the evolution of living things that surround us.
The age old saying “if trees could talk.” I ask myself all the time “what would they say?” And I tell myself “the things they have seen…”

Adam and I have visited some of the oldest rock formations in the world and every time we go somewhere we always ask each other “I wonder how that got there?” Maybe we should have been geologists. That’s actually on my ticklist to go back to university to study rocks. That’s also why I probably have so many rock friends. I’m subconsciously trying to steal their rock knowledge.

One of the things about going on adventures with me is that I’m always on the look out for wild edibles. Freud would have a hay day trying to analyze my oral fixations.  I on the other hand believe that engaging the palate is essential to understanding culture, yourself and in this case the land.

We stopped at Horseshoe Canyon first and at first glance, from the highway, all you see is endless flat farmland. For kilometers upon kilometers. Cows, barns,  tractors and blue skies. Which I find very comforting, being a home grown Alberta girl myself.

Then as we pull into the park lot, you can see that the horizon seems a little off. We walk a short distance and before your eyes the earth opens up into this crazy pit of sedementary rock, in the form of domes and crevasses and funky eroded shapes.