Southern Alberta--Who Knew?!?

Damanta headed south from Edmonton for Canmore and Lethbridge, Alberta from July 25th to 27th

The ride to Canmore from Edmonton was uneventful in that we had no mechanicals and we got there in a reasonable amount of time. We did miss the Trans-Canada in Calgary and had to backtrack up the MacCleod Trail. When we got to Canmore it was dark and rainy so our dreams of an outdoor show at the campground were dashed.
James, the Wapiti Campground manager, suggested we go to a Wednesday night open stage jam in town. So we headed in Zoma’s Bistro with a quick stop at the Canmore Hotel to drop off some posters to promote our show at the end of August for the Highland Games.

At the open stage both Elegwen and I played some of our songs. In honour of all the Quebecois performers and campground residents, I played “Un p'tit tour” by my favourite Quebecois group, Les Cowboys Fringants. The sound guy told me I should sing louder next time. Uh.., maybe you should just turn up the gain on the mic…

The Canmore Hotel gave us rooms for the night and I awoke the next morning to brilliant sunshine and went for a run along the river. Wow, is Canmore ever a beautiful place. The sun shining on rocky peaks and the trees along the riverside trail gave me so much energy that I didn’t even mind when I lost the shortcut trail I was following and had to bushwhack out to the river.
We mailed some posters to PEI, and Ontario and headed out of town to make our way to Lethbridge for three shows in three nights at O’Reilly’s Pub. The ride down was cool because we only skirted Calgary and thus only got passed-on-the-right-and-cut-off twice (while in the middle lane) as opposed to the usual seven or eight times when we are there (in Calgary, that is).
We got to Lethbridge in plenty of time to set up for our set. There were some pilots cooling off after doing their preliminary test flights with the Tora Tora Tora Air Show that was in town. I was a bit nervous as it was our first pub show with the new amps that we'd rented but the sound check went OK so we were ready to rock.

O’Reilly’s has a solid group of regulars and a really cool staff and our three nights there were really fun. We met a lot of new friends, I got to do some nice runs in the mornings, there was a good coffee shop nearby and I got my new membership card for my new BCAA membership at the AMA (Canadian Automobile Association, Alberta branch) office along with a road atlas and tons of campground guides. Lethbridge also has really neat rail bridge and the coulees which are the little ravines that feed into the river that flows by the town. All in all it was a pleasant and surprisingly fun (And yes, I was surprised—what do you want? Calgary was my old standard for Southern Alberta).

We headed back up towards Canmore to play the Sunday night show that Elegwen had snagged when we were at the open stage on Wednesday. The sun was brilliant and I was really enjoying life on the road VW van style. You just do your 60mph in the slow lane and there is little to no stress. Who knew? The foothills of the Rockies were beautiful (with the exception where they are smeared with little boxes on the hillside near the Trans-Canada) and were really cool to look at while cruising along.

It was a small crowd at Zoma’s but they were enthusiastic about the music and the manager, Brian was very accommodating. As were loading in our gear with French-speakers wandering by, Jon decided that Canmore, was now, “Montreal West,” and based on the number of conversations en francais that I had while I was there, I might have to agree.

We stayed at the campground and in the morning James bought us breakfast at the Canmore Café telling us of his future plans for hiking and business. We wished him luck and were on our way. The plan was to stop in at Lethbridge to pick up our money from the three shows we played there and continue to our show Monday night in Great Falls, Montana. Plans change sometimes though…