Canada Day at Fort Calgary

Canada celebrated it's 147th birthday on Tuesday, and the family and I went down to Fort Calgary to celebrate. I didn't grow up in Calgary, but I am celebrating my 20th year here, so it's a little embarrassing to admit that there are tons of places I haven't visited or things that I haven't done yet. It's easy to take a lot of things for granted when you live in a place. Canada Day activities are a little tricky as Calgary is now a city of over 1 million people! That means it seems like half of Calgary is everywhere in one place, and Fort Calgary was no exception.

Along with a show and shine featuring over 100 classic cars, there were food trucks, Lord Strathcona's Horse Mounted Troop, a free pancake breakfast and half price admission to the museum. I will have to go to the museum again. It's small, but there's still so much to read. It's better than Heritage Park in some ways, as it is far more informative and historical, instead of just being a great place to stroll around with an ice cream cone :-) It's hard to believe that the Fort Calgary site used to have warehouses on it, until a new roadway threatened the site and steps were taken to save the site and recreate the barracks. Archeological digs took place too! Calgary loves to reinvent itself, and it's fortunately that forty, fifty years ago, someone could see the need to save it for the future.

Sadly, the only photos I took of the celebrations were with my cell phone. I had packed up my camera kit, remembering an SD card, but completely forgetting the battery on the charger. Ah well! Pam of Always Artistic gave me a great simple tip - buy a second battery :-D Here are a few snaps - the yellow shaggin' wagon was my favourite - it reminded me so much of our family van from the 80s :-)