When a wedding in Yvon's family took us to Alberta in July, 2025, I saw an opportunity to spend time in two of Canada's Census Metropolitan Areas that I had not previously visited. I was not in Red Deer long, really, we spent the night before our visit in Drumheller, and the night of our visit in Calgary, but we spent the better part of the day in town, walking the downtown and visiting a number of sites on the periphery. I found the city to be tidy and not unpleasant, though mostly unremarkable. This gallery includes photos of the city proper, of Drumheller, and just a few elsewhere in Alberta. The weather was not superb for our Central Alberta excursion.
Photo List (Total 179 Photos)
Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for quick tour
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Red Deer (86 photos) - This is all the photos of the actual city of Red Deer. The gallery starts with the tidy central city, and includes a visit to the MAG, the Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery, which was unexpectedly open on a Monday. It then covers things a bit away from the core, like the beautiful St. Mary's Church, Great Chief Park, and a charming "Red Deer" mosaic at a community centre.
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Drumheller (74 photos) - We went to Drumheller for the Royal Tyrrell Museum. When we arrived, around 11:30 on a Sunday in July, it was wildly busy in the parking lot, but I had noted on the way in that it was open until 9:00, so we turned around, explored the badlands, had some lunch, walked a suspension bridge, checked into our hotel and had a nap, and went to the museum closer to 5:00. At that point, it was not very busy at all. Though the day was dreary, the badlands were lovely. I had expected the museum to be kind of "dinos for kids" on a grand scale, but in fact it was about the history of life on earth and was well organized and informative. We read almost all of the information on offer and we were in there a long time with the well-presented displays.
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Other Central Alberta (19 photos) - A few photos of small towns or countryside. We stopped in two small towns on the drive between Edmonton and Drumheller. The first was Hay Lakes, which was not promising at all, though Yvon had a lively chat with the guy running the local gas station. Stettler was larger and more prosperous, but both were a bit on the dire side. The gallery also includes a few photos in the fog of the morning as we drove from Drumheller to Red Deer.
