A long weekend visit to Edmonton

This weekend I went to Edmonton.  It was an easy four hour drive each way (well, other than the drivers who decided to drive about 113 in the passing lane when the speed limit was 110!).  On the way there, I stopped in Vegreville to see the world’s largest Ukrainian Easter egg.

The world’s largest Ukrainian Easter Egg

I first visited West Edmonton Mall.  It is undoubtedly large but I didn’t find it overwhelming; perhaps because I visited Dubai Mall so much?  The mall certainly had a lot of non-shopping activities (eg. a waterpark) but I only went shopping.  I really liked Simons, a store I’d never even heard on before.  I also walked around downtown for a bit in the evening.

West Edmonton Mall

A view of downtown from my hotel room

Yesterday I visited the Royal Alberta Museum which was pretty interesting and half price in the morning!  Afterwards, I went on a free tour of Government House which is located next door; it wasn’t all that interesting.  I also went on the High Level Bridge Streetcar, which is a restored 1912 streetcar and travels on the aforementioned bridge over the North Saskatchewan River and I walked around Old Strathcona which was once a separate city.

The streetcar entering the “station”

Inside the streetcar

Old Strathcona

Today I went to South Edmonton Common because I wanted to go to Ikea but I also spent a couple of hours afterwards looking at some other stores.  It is apparently Canada’s largest retail power centre which seems to mean a bunch of adjacent plazas containing smaller stores (including some outlets) plus standalone big box stores.  I think I would prefer a large mall so I’d only have to park once instead of ten times!

A visit to Saskatchewan’s only lighthouse

The weather here is summer-like but as there is still quite a lot of snow that has yet to melt outside of town I decided that attempting to hike still wasn’t a great idea. There are some fields that are very dry, some that are quite flooded, and some that are still covered in snow. It is definitely strange to see snow on the ground when the temperature is in the mid-twenties!

Instead, I opted to visit the lighthouse in Cochin which is about 40 kilometres north of here; it is the only lighthouse in Saskatchewan. This proved to be an good idea as the stairs up to the lighthouse were very dry; it was rather windy there though. The lighthouse definitely looks a lot better from afar than it does up close; it looks rundown and is covered in graffiti. The view from the lighthouse is very nice though!

Spring!!!

It has actually felt like spring here the last few days which, of course, I’m very happy about!

I attempted to go on a hike this morning on Finlayson Island, which is located in the North Saskatchewan River between North Battleford and Battleford. I knew I was probably being too optimistic and that was definitely the case as the trails were either covered in snow still or even worse, they were covered in water with a bit of ice and snow on top. I think it will be quite a while yet until they are suitable for hiking but I’m glad I took a look anyway. Moreover, I did do a bit of walking on the paved bridges and roads there. Here a few pictures:

Just when I thought winter could be over …

This is what is happening outside here:

Needless to say, I am really hoping that the +10 forecast for later in the week will actually happen!

Shopping on Good Friday

I just returned from shopping.  It looks like the stores are all open normal hours today and even on Easter Sunday will be open close to normal hours.  I guess the laws in Saskatchewan must be different than in other provinces as I’m certainly not living in a tourist destination!  While the stores weren’t that busy this morning they weren’t dead either.  Other than the fact that it is Friday and I’m not at work and that I saw a man carrying a big wooden cross down a street followed by about a dozen people, you really wouldn’t know it was a holiday weekend here.