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Alberta's national parks and cities grab most of the headlines, leaving the expansive south largely forgotten. This is true cowboy land, where the ghosts of herders like John Ware and the Sundance Kid are woven through the history of endless ranch land. It's often interrupted by deep, dramatic canyons carved in the last ice age, as well as towering hoodoos – funky, Dr Seuss–like rock sculptures. History abounds at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, and Writing-on-Stone and Dinosaur Provincial Parks, Unesco World Heritage areas that preserve the region's fascinating past.
Picture-perfect landscapes are plentiful here. The dusty badlands around Drumheller open up into wide open prairies that stretch east all the way to the Cyprus Hills of western Saskatchewan. To the west lies Waterton Lakes National Park, with some of the most spectacular scenery in the Rockies – utterly different from Banff and Jasper yet still under the radar of most visitors.
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Southern Alberta.
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This fantastic museum is one of the pre-eminent dinosaur museums on the planet, made even better by a $5.9 million expansion project completed in 2019. Even if you have no interest in dinos, you'll come out feeling like you missed your calling as a paleontologist. The exhibits are nothing short of mind-blowing. Unlike some other dinosaur exhibits, there's nothing dusty or musty about this super-modern place. Children will love the interactive displays.
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Here flat prairies collide dramatically with the Rockies, with a sparkling lake and a hilltop castle that may make you wonder if you've fallen into a fairy tale. Sadly, Waterton Lakes National Park is rarely known to outside visitors and is slowly recovering from a devastating wildfire in 2017 which damaged large swaths of the park (many hikes were accessible by hiking or cycling to the trailheads in the summer of 2019). While Banff and Jasper, its siblings to the north, hemorrhage with tourists and weekend warriors, Waterton is a pocket of sublime tranquility.
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The story behind this Unesco World Heritage site with the strangest name of any attraction in Alberta is one of ingenuity and resourcefulness – and is key to the First Nations' cultural heritage (and Canada's, too!). The Blackfoot people used the cliffs near the town of Fort Macleod to hunt buffalo when conditions were right. The well-presented displays and films at the interpretive center built cleverly into the hillside are definitely worth the excursion from Calgary or Lethbridge.
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Founded in 1882, Bar U was once one of the largest commercial ranches in the world, covering 160,000 acres. You can wander back in time through its two dozen buildings – including a cookhouse, post office, corral, smithy and slaughterhouse – which have been preserved in their Sundance Kid–era glory. Costumed interpreters demonstrate ranch skills while telling stories of the past.
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Backed by the sheer-sided slopes of Mt Custer, placid Cameron Lake is tucked tantalizingly beneath the Continental Divide at the three-way meeting point of Montana, Alberta and British Columbia. Poised at the end of the 16km Akamina Pkwy (currently closed due to fire damage), this is where day-trippers stop to picnic, hike and rent boats. From foam flowers to fireweed, copious wildflower species thrive here, while grizzly bears are known to frequent the lake’s isolated southern shores.
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This excellent museum overlooks the Crowsnest Valley and helps put a human face on the tragedy of the Frank landslide. Displays bring mining, the railroad and the early days of this area to life; kids will enjoy having things to pull, push and jump on, as well as puzzles and other interactive activities. There's also a fantastic film dramatizing the tragic events of 1903. Trails from the museum take you out over the slide site itself.
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Visible from all over town, this is the deepest lake in the Canadian Rockies, sinking to a murky 120m. One of the best vantage points is from the Prince of Wales Hotel, where a classic view is framed by an ethereal collection of Gothic mountains, including Mt Cleveland, Glacier National Park’s highest peak. A more placid spot is Emerald Bay, famous for its turquoise waters and ever-popular with scuba divers.
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This is a working rescue sanctuary that takes in raptors, owls and other birds of prey and – ideally – releases them promptly back into the wild. However, some animals that are non-releasable are used for trained demos, and the center allows kids and adults to get very close to birds they'd only see glimpses of otherwise. Owl on your shoulder, anyone?
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At the west end of Cameron Falls Dr (a short hop from the center of town) is this dramatically poised torrent of foaming water, notable among geologists for harboring the oldest exposed Precambrian rocks in the Canadian Rockies. Estimates suggest they are 1.5 billion years old, give or take the odd millennium. The lookout here is paved for wheelchair access and the falls are lit up at night.