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Most of Calgary is very safe....I would not worry about it. Hotel alley has absolutely no safety issues.

Deer can be seen every day everywhere. If you look hard, you will also see coyotes in the fields. Good chance for elk and bighorn as well near Jasper and Banff.

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A budget option for Stampede that visitors often miss is the Hotel Alma Summer Residence. Hotel Alma is a year-round hotel on the University of Calgary campus (roughly 500 meters from the University C-Train (tram) station). In the summer, the lower floors - which are international student residences during the school year - are also available as budget accommodations. As a Calgary resident, I haven't tried this myself, but it doesn't seem to be too well-known yet because they've only been in operation for 2-3 years. B&Bs are another great option. English Bed Breakfast & Day Spa, and Blackmore's B&B are both fairly close to the Dalhousie C-Train station. The first one gets great reviews on TripAdvisor, for what that's worth. But they only have two rooms, so book soon! I haven't seen any reviews for Blackmore's Calgary Westways B&B has a big surcharge during Stampede Week, because they have an excellent view of the nightly fireworks on the Stampede Grounds. And if you look at the Calgary B&B Association's website (www.bbcalgary.com) and the bbcanada.com, you'll find a bunch of other B&Bs in CAlgary. The Calgary B&B website is nice because they have a map showing all the locations of their members.

twc wrote: "I am predominantly interested in anything relating to the culture and heritage of Western Canada."
I'm an amateur historian with a strong interest in Western Canada, Alberta, and Calgary. You've gotten some good suggestions already (Head-Smashed-In and the Glenbow Museum), but there is lots more:

• Heritage Park living history museum in Calgary: www.heritagepark.ca

Original and replicated historic buildings with costumed interpreters cover everything from the fur trade era (c. 1870) to the early 1920's. There is a steam train, rail roundhouse & railway displays, paddlewheel boat cruise (on Glenmore Reservoir next to Heritage Park), antique midway, and tons more. There is also the Gasoline Alley automotive museum, which is included with your admission to the park.

• Bar U Ranch National Historic Site: http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ab/baru/index.aspx

This famous ranch is now operated as a historic site by Parks Canada. It's most notorious for its association with the Sundance Kid, but now they focus on interpreting ranching history. Best visited on the weekends, when they have more staff onsite.

• Stephen Avenue National Historic Site: http://historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/place-lieu.aspx?id=7774&pid=17959&h=Stephen,Avenue,Calgary

A four-block section of downtown Calgary is a designated historic district because of the large number of historic buildings preserved there. The City of Calgary has a downloadable self-guided walking tour; it's the last .pdf file linked on this page:
http://www.calgary.ca/PDA/DBA/Pages/Planning-policy-information/Printed-documents/Heritage-Reports---Walking-Tours.aspx
You'll also notice that there are a lot of other brochures for walking tours of other historic areas linked on that page.

• Fort Calgary: www.fortcalgary.com

The site of the original (1875) Fort Calgary is now home to a small museum about the history of Calgary. There are lots of free things to see just outside the museum, too; check out the information panels in the sunken area to the left (west) of the museum, the information about Col. Macleod and the NWMP and RCMP next to Col. Macleod's statue, and the replica of the original fort buildings. There is also a walking path that has more information about the history of Fort Calgary on plaques along the way. If you go across the Elbow River bridge just east of Fort Calgary, you can visit the exterior of the Deane House (former home of an RCMP superintendent) and the sad little Hunt House, which looks like a garden shed but is actually Calgary's oldest building on its original location.

If you do end up in Edmonton, you should definitely check out Fort Edmonton Park, another living history museum like Heritage Park but in some ways it is much better than Heritage Park. But I would recommend skipping Edmonton so that you can drive the Icefields Parkway between Lake Louise and Jasper both northbound and southbound. That way, you double your chances of seeing the gorgeous scenery, in case there is poor weather the first day. And if you do get nice weather on both trips along the Icefields Parkway, you'll find that the views are different in each direction but still awesome. It's also an excellent place to see wildlife, particularly bears.

I wouldn't say that wild bison are found "everywhere" in Alberta. They're only found in Elk Island National Park and in Waterton Lakes National Park. Although there are long-range plans to re-introduce free-roaming bison, that hasn't happened yet. Any bison you see outside of those two national parks are ranched bison, not wild bison.

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country_wife: Thanks for your very detailed reply. Wonderful!

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I have one more question: how long does it take to drive from Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump to Calgary? Google says 2 hours. Is that reasonable?

I'm thinking of starting off early in the day driving from Banff to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump (Google: 3 hours 12 min), sightseeing there, and then drive to Calgary at the end of the day (2 hours). Is this a reasonable plan?

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Country wife...when I said everywhere, It was in reference to her asking if she will see bison in elk park....yes you will with a bit of driving, and there are a dozen or so ranches in the area as well. There are a few elk farms too!

#18...thats a lot of driving to see one attraction. Your time table is reasonable, but I "personally" dont think its worth the drive JUST for the one stop....just imo.

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There are no buffalo in Jasper or anywhere on the way to Jasper.
The only two wild herds are in Elk Island and Wood Buffalo National Parks, and Wood Buffalo is much too far north for you to get to. Lots of them at Elk Island though, which is 30 minutes east of Edmonton.
The only two wild herds I know of in Canada outside the parks are on the Liard River in northeast BC and way back in the bush near the White River in Yukon. Both are doing very well. The Liard hers is very often seen from the highway.