Alberta Bound

We continued out of Lanigan at about 10:30, still on the Yellowhead Trail. North Battleford had an ancestor who'd died in an industrial accident in 1920, so we had to pop in.


"Don't Fence Me In" Sculpture of a Bison,
created from barbed wire.









At the city library, we met a very bubbly librarian who was extremely eager to help us in our search. We found the report of the accident and the ceremony commemorating his death (he ended up back in Tiverton for his final rest) in the archives of the local newspaper, and Wendy, our librarian, looked up his old address and directed us to it, as it still exists. In fact, the house is for sale, so we stopped and took some photos of it. Then it was onward to the west, eventually crossing another time zone into the Mountain Zone, and entering the town of Lloydminster, which straddles the Saskatchewan/Alberta border. We found a grocery store for some dinner staples, and then continued on into Alberta for about 50 Km, stopping at a campground in Vermilion. The campground was basically shut down from Labour Day on, but still had sites available, and washrooms - so we set up under an ominously overcast sky, putting out Linda's new tarp for extra cover, and cooked our supper. We went to bed shortly after dark, just as the rain started to patter down on us. It was a showery night, but by early morning the rain had stopped, and in spite of the cold (we could see our breath - I'm guessing about 5C) it was a pleasant morning.



Southbound Vee's Like This keep us
Westbound.






In spite of the rainshowers overnight, it was quite dry all around us. We got the camp all packed up again, and were underway again around 0930. Just in time, too - by 1000 it was spitting rain again.


A distant rainbow over a hayfield....typical
scenery in central AB.





We stopped at the town of Vegreville, to view the giant Pysanka (Easter Egg) - we hadn't stopped at anything "biggest" in quite a while! I'd been hoping to get to the world's largest beaver, but that would have meant a very large detour to the north reaches of Alberta. Instead, I settled for an overdue oil change (for the car).



This is a Pysanka....an Easter Egg, this one very large indeed!








Then it was onwards to Edmonton. We found the Alberta Archives by 1400, and had very little success in finding our ancestors. We did find a few newspaper articles on fiche, but the reference system for birth/marriage/death is not totally user-friendly, and they will not allow any photocopies of the information....only handwritten notes (in pencil) of whatever is found. We spent a bit over 2 hours there, and decided to give it up and find a camp for the night. At the Southwest side of Edmonton is a park/skihill which also has campgrounds - so we set up there for the night. Compared to last night, it was much busier with numerous campers in the park. We plan to spend the night, then we have to go and see one of the world's largest malls - West Edmonton Mall. It is unlikely we will need to return to the archives, so we will spend a few hours at the mall, and then head out of town for the night. We've reserved a KOA Kamping Kabin near Jasper for the weekend, before we return to BC.