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Where in Canada is Calgary located?
Calgary: the gateway to the Rocky Mountains
Calgary is located where the Canadian prairie ends and the forerunners of the Rocky Mountains begin. As such, the city is the eastern gateway to the Rocky Mountains and an important commercial and tourism center of the western prairie. The economic and cultural center of the province of Alberta is the ideal transit point to the Banff and Jasper National Parks. Both are also well-known ski resorts. Kananaskis Country and Canmore are other mountain resorts, which are only about an hour’s drive away.
With about 1,100,000 inhabitants, Calgary is the third largest city in Canada and at the same time the largest city between Vancouver in the west on the Pacific Ocean and Toronto in the east on the Great Lakes. The slightly hilly urban area is crossed by the Elbow River and bordered by the Bow River at the northern end of the city center. Before the first Europeans settled the area around today’s metropolis, this area was the home of the Blackfoot Indians. The first settlers settled here only around 1860, mostly for bison hunting. Climatically, the region is characterized by warm summers, very cold winters and the so-called “chinook”, a fan-like wind that blows down from the Rockies and causes sudden temperature fluctuations of over 20 ° C.
Our vacation started and ended in Calgary at Calgary International Airport. We had decided on this variant because we only wanted to go to the Rocky Mountains and did not go to Vancouver and drop off our camper there, as so many do. So we had also saved the expensive one-way rent right away. Unfortunately, we didn’t see much of the city of Calgary, because in the end we just drove through. We know the way to the Cruise Canada depot very well, as well as the Sobeys supermarket, where we stocked up for the coming days and weeks for the first bulk purchase. Unfortunately, we had to go back to Calgary after the accident to change our camper, but even then we did not make a sightseeing stop in the city center and drove straight on towards Drumheller.
On the first day we drove directly over the Trans-Canda Highway No. 1 towards Canmore, where we spent the first night in Bow Valley Provincial Park. The pictures on this page were taken from the plane, the car window or outside the city.
Calgary had received us very friendly, because already at the airport you get to know Canadian hospitality as a guest. Senior citizens work there voluntarily as a reception committee. Equipped with red shirts and white cowboy hats, as well as a broad grin, they greet the newly arrived passengers with a warm “Welcome to Calgary”. They drive frail people through the airport on golf buggies, show newcomers the taxi rank and provide information.
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