Alberta............

Fort Macleod, Alberta to Waterton Lakes NP, Alberta (sightseeing)

September 1 - September 3, 2016

As we drove to Waterton Lakes National Park we stopped in Cardston, Alberta to see the Remington Carriage Museum.  It's another fabulous museum, dedicated to the period before automobiles, when horse drawn transportation was the name of the game.  I've always loved horses and my grandfather had several wonderful "carriages" of his own including a sleigh and a beautiful wagon so this museum really interested me.  I'm sure my grandfather would have also love it.

The number of "carriages" they have in this museum is phenomenal.  I say carriages but that would include sleighs, sleds, wagons, buckboards, sulkys, handsom cabs, hearses, covered wagons, chuck wagons, stages and many other types of "carriages" I've never heard of.  Like automobiles today, there were many makes and models.  Besides the carriages on display, the museum shows virtually every aspect of the horse drawn vehicle era including a blacksmith shop, livery stable, wheelwright's shop, carriage factory and carriage dealership.  The whole place is very well done and incredibly interesting.  As the AAA book says - sounds, lighting and audiovisual presentations enhance the experience.



A homebuilt "caboose". 
It's on sleds for use in the snow and was probably used to take children back and forth to school.

Another form of transportation to and from school.  An Omnibus!

Part of the wheelwright's shop

Wheelwrights shop.

Various parts that make the carriage wheels.

This illustration really shows what it was like before traffic lights in a big city.
I don't know how people got around the city and let's not forget about all the horse poop!
E-gads!

A Hansom cab.

Horse drawn hearse.  Of course the British Royals wouldn't use anything else!

This little beauty is knows as a "Park Drag".
It does look like it might be a drag to park!  (Sorry!)

The original 5th wheel.
It's the turning circle that allows the front wheel of a carriage to turn!

Covered wagon of course.

Stage Coach.  I wonder where Laura is headed to?

Example of restoration work.
What a job it must be to restore something like this to mint condition.

There is a complete restoration shop in the museum.  Oddly they only restore carriages
brought to them by paying customers.  They don't restore anything from the collection itself. 

The restoration facility is large and well lit with every conceivable wood shop tool you can imagine.
Only two fellows work in the shop and the one we talked to really loved his job.

They also have a number of specialty tools from back in the day.
This one stretches the rubber around the rim of the tire.  Another drills the wheel hubs. 
These types of tools are still used to repair their buggies in areas where Amish people live.

 After closing down the carriage museum we headed on to Waterton Lakes National Park.  It's located directly above our own Glacier Nation Park and together they form Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.  The park itself has a enormous and beautiful lake which stretches from the town of Waterton across the US/Canada border into Glacier Park in Montana.  Unfortunately the two days we were there it was windy with and it rained off and on.  It hampered our sightseeing a bit we could still appreciate the incredible beauty of this park.

Waterton Lake from the beach in the town of Waterton.
Somewhere done there is Montana.

Another view of Waterton Lake

Most of the big National Parks in Canada and the US have big old
hotels built way back when.  This park is no different.  This is
the Prince of Wales Hotel.  It sits by itself on a high promontory
giving guests a beautiful view of the lake.

Here it is up close.

The lobby with floor to ceiling windows for an unobstructed view.

The view from the hotel. 
The town of Waterton is the treed area on the right side of the picture.
The town is quite charming, probably more so because most of the tourists were gone.