Tribes

Fort MacLeod is famous for it's historical main street, and the old Northwest Mounted Police Fort in the town. Unfortunately, the main street is preparing for tourist season and you can't get there easily.....it's all dug up and not yet a sight to see. After a quick tour by car, we continued north and west to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a UNESCO site which was extremely interesting. It presents the methods of the Blackfoot Tribe in hunting bison by funneling them over a cliff (the Buffalo Jump). We managed to spend several hours at the jump, before heading north toward Calgary. We stopped in the town of Nanton, to view a museum dedicated to the WWII Bomber Command, and specifically, the Lancaster Bomber. As we both had relatives involved in such (Dad was shot down in a Blenheim bomber, Linda's cousin was shot down and killed in a Lancaster). This museum also had an interesting presentation, including memorials with Linda's cousin listed, and mostly restored aircraft. Hard to imagine spending 10 hours flying inside one of these, cold, in wartime conditions!















Lancaster and a Blenheim Bomber





Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump







From Nanton, we continued north into Calgary, to visit with the rest of the Jarrell Tribe of the west. Cousins David, Kathy, Kenny and Jenise welcomed us, and we had a great visit, a soccer game (Jenise's team tied the score) and bbq, followed by a REAL bed!.Then in the morning, off to the various cemeteries of Calgary to find more members of the tribe. We managed to find a cousin who had pretty much collected the basis of our family information......Myrtle Stringer (Hunter). Although we walked many kilometres of rows of headstones, we were unable to discover any other tribe members. Then back to our cousins, where we had a continuation of our visit, with another bbq, and another bed. Tomorrow, we will head south again, to visit some friends in Lethbridge, who hail from our overseas sailing days.


Jenise in action playing soccer: