Crossfield Elks Demolition Derby — Warm Day, Busy Pit, Good Chaos

 

 

A couple of months back I headed up to the Crossfield Rodeo Grounds for the annual Crossfield Elks #416 Demolition Derby. It was a proper late-summer day — warm, dry, and clear — and the place was packed. Tents lined the edge of the pit, the crowd was thick along the barriers, and the cars were already looking thoroughly used before the heats even really got going.

The photo shows one of the full-size entries sitting in the dirt under the red-and-white tents, with the usual mix of spectators, high-vis volunteers, and the general dusty energy that comes with a local demo derby. Heats included the usual small-car and large-car action, plus the side events that make these things fun: lawnmower racing and the human mud race that closed things out. One car even ended up on its roof — the kind of moment that gets the whole crowd leaning in.

All proceeds go back into the Crossfield community (youth programs, scholarships, local causes), which is part of what keeps the event feeling like a proper small-town day rather than just a demolition show. It was busy, loud, and exactly the kind of unscripted local motorsport that makes the drive north of Calgary worthwhile.

I’ve got a short clip from trackside in this post, plus the full walkthrough video on the KassDays channel if you want the longer version of the hits, steam, and mud: https://youtu.be/PX5NcGl9LlY

If you’ve been to the Crossfield derby (or any of the other local ones), what’s the best hit or side event you’ve seen? Drop it in the comments.

Make a Simple Banana Bread with those Overripe Bananas

Simple Banana Bread from Overripe Bananas

Those bananas sitting on the counter with freckles and soft spots? Don’t toss them. They’re perfect for banana bread. The longer they ripen, the sweeter and more flavourful the loaf becomes. This is a straightforward version that uses what you already have and turns it into a moist, tender quick bread that works as breakfast, snack, or dessert.

Ingredients
- 3 medium overripe bananas (the softer and darker the better)  
- ⅓ cup melted butter (or neutral oil)  
- ½ cup sugar (or up to ¾ cup if you like it sweeter)  
- 1 large egg  
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract  
- 1 teaspoon baking soda  
- Pinch of salt  
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour  
- Optional: ½ cup chopped walnuts, chocolate chips, or a light sprinkle of cinnamon

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan or line it with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork until mostly smooth. A few small lumps are fine.

3. Stir in the melted butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla until well combined.

4. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and stir gently. Add the flour and mix just until no dry streaks remain. Over-mixing makes the bread tough. Fold in any add-ins now.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake for 50–60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs.

6. Let the bread cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a rack. Cool completely before slicing for the cleanest cuts. It slices more easily and tastes even better the next day.

Tips
Overripe bananas freeze well. Peel them, place in a freezer bag, and thaw when you’re ready to bake—they mash even more easily. The loaf keeps covered at room temperature for 2–3 days or freezes nicely for later.

This is the kind of baking that rewards a little patience and a willingness to use what might otherwise go to waste. One loaf, a few overripe bananas, and you’ve got something warm and satisfying on the counter. Enjoy.

Pumpkins After Dark at Canada Olympic Park – KassDays Walk-Through

KassDays went out to Pumpkins After Dark at WinSport’s Canada Olympic Park to film the Calgary show. What we found was a self-paced outdoor walk lined with thousands of hand-carved pumpkins, lit from inside and set into themed displays along roughly a one-kilometre route.

The displays mix classic Halloween figures with larger scenes—dinosaurs, dragons, pop-culture pieces, and a few oversized photo spots, including a pumpkin throne that saw plenty of people stopping for pictures. Lighting and sound run along the path, but the event stays deliberately family-friendly: no jump scares, no actors waiting in the dark. Live pumpkin-carving demos happen near the entrance, and food trucks are on site if you want something seasonal while you walk.

Most people take one to two hours to move through at their own speed. Parking is free, and tickets are sold by timed entry, so booking ahead is the safer play on busier nights. The show runs on select evenings from late September through October 31.

It made for a straightforward, photogenic night out—creative enough to hold attention, calm enough for mixed groups, and easy to recommend if you want something festive without the haunted-house volume. The full walk-through is up on the KassDays YouTube channel.

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/ntSrhH1RBlA  

More details and tickets: calgary.pumpkinsafterdark.com

Fridge leaking water on the floor? Water Valve Issues?

Fridge leaking water on the floor?

Quick DIY fix video just went live. In it I replace a failing water inlet valve on a Frigidaire (same basic steps work on most brands — Whirlpool, GE, Kenmore, LG, Samsung, etc.).

A bad valve or cracked housing is a common reason fridges leak. Swapping it yourself can save you a service call and a few hundred dollars.

What you’ll see:
- Shut off water + unplug
- Access the valve at the back
- Note the connections (photos help)
- Install the new one
- Leak test before pushing the fridge back

Full video here:  Fix the Water Valve on your Fridge

Always unplug the fridge and turn the water off first. Use at your own risk.

Thanks so much if you’ve tipped or supported on Ko-fi — it really helps keep these practical repair videos coming. Got a fridge leak story of your own? Drop a comment, I’d love to hear it.

Kass  
KassDays

 

All Through the House in Okotoks — A Packed Antique Stop

This Video will not go Live until October 28th, I pegged the wrong video, sorry for the confusion.

Drive around behind the Okotoks Cinemas (enter off North Railway Street) and you reach All Through the House. From the outside it already looks the part: weathered wood, string lights, flower barrels, and the big antiques sign. Inside is a tightly packed warehouse of vendors and shelves that take real time to work through.

Narrow aisles hold unique vintage items, old advertising, rare collectibles, glowing uranium glassware, classic jukeboxes, and an unusual vintage taxi phone. Outside you’ll find old AGT and Telus pay phones mixed in with the salvage. It’s the kind of place where one aisle leads to another and you keep finding things you didn’t know you were looking for.

The shop runs with over fifty in-house vendors offering antiques, vintage, rustic, retro, and up-cycled pieces. There’s a large hardware section, Fusion Mineral Paint, barnwood, and a yard full of doors, windows, wagons, and rusty treasures. Workshops and seasonal markets are part of the regular calendar.

Full walkthrough is on the KassDays channel: https://youtu.be/5M4A_xTzjVY

Address is Bldg 185, 100 Stockton Avenue, Okotoks. Hours are generally 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily — check ahead for holidays. Easy stop if you’re anywhere near Okotoks and in the mood for a dig.

See you on the road.  

Kass  

KassDays

Forgetmenot Pond, Before the Crowd

A quiet morning in Kananaskis, and a photo I am keeping my name on

The name on this photo is Magdelene, the editor of this page and the photograper. That may look odd on this page. It is still my picture. I took it yesterday at Forgetmenot Pond, and I put the text there because I am tired of pretty places being lifted and reposted as if the camera belonged to someone else. The file has been through a few saves, so it is a little softer than the original. The pond does not mind.

Forgetmenot sits at the end of Highway 66, in the Little Elbow day-use area of Kananaskis Country. On a still morning the mountains come down into the water in one piece. Grey rock, a dark band of spruce, then the reflection, clean enough that you can pick out the same peak twice. A spruce frames the left side. Two stones break the surface on the right. The near shore is gravel and dry grass, and that is where I was standing.

It is not a hard walk. The path around the pond is short, partly paved, and busy on a fine weekend. The trick is not distance. It is timing, and not stopping at the first gap in the trees. Go when the lot is thin. Walk past the first picnic table. Stand long enough for the wind to drop. The reflection only holds when the water is left alone, and the water is only left alone when most people are still on the road.

I like these places best then. Not empty, exactly. Just unclaimed for an hour. The peaks across the Elbow Valley do the same thing whether anyone is there to see them. Being there early, and walking the extra few minutes to the open shore, is the whole method. Laziness gets you the parking-lot view. The parking-lot view does not get you this.

Kananaskis rewards that small effort over and over. A side path, a weekday, a camera kept in the bag until the frame is right. Yesterday the pond paid it back in full: blue sky, a doubled mountain, and enough quiet to hear the gravel underfoot.

The caption stays. The morning was mine.

Night Glow in High River | Roaring Burners on the Field

The Friday night Balloon Glow at the Heritage Inn International Balloon Festival does not launch. The balloons stay on the ground at the Wallaceville site in High River, tethered, and the burners do the work.

Crews start with cold-air fans, walk the envelopes open, then fire the burners until the baskets tip upright. The field stays closed while that happens. Once the lines are clear, the barriers come down and you walk in among them. On a cool September night the heat off the baskets is real, and when several burners hit at once the sound is closer to a dragon than a propane torch.

Pilots come from across Canada, the northern U.S., and further. The Glow itself is free, no ticket, usually Friday evening. Flight days around it are weather-dependent. Check heritageinninternationalballoonfestival.com before you drive.

The walk-through, from the fan start to the raw burner audio once the crowd is on the field, is up on the KassDays channel:

Balloon Glow High River

High River is a short run south of Calgary. Get there before the barriers drop if you want to watch the uprighting.

See you on the road.  
Kass

 

Sunday Best on Four Wheels: A Horse Buggy at Pioneer Acres

This one sat inside at Pioneer Acres Museum, north of Irricana, among the other horse-drawn pieces. It is a buggy, yes — but not the kind you took to the field. Look at the button-tufted green velvet, the fringe on the canopy, the side lamp, the black paint and the fine wheels. That was town clothes. Somebody paid for this.

On the prairie around 1890 to 1915, most families had a work wagon. Straight seats, no top worth mentioning, built to haul grain, kids, and cream cans. A rig like this lived in a different category. Carriage shops sold canopy-top buggies and light phaetons to doctors, merchants, and farm families who wanted to arrive at church looking like they meant it. Velvet upholstery, a fringe top, and lamps were extras. A plain buggy might run seventy-five to a hundred and fifty dollars. Dress it up like this and you were looking at two hundred and fifty to five hundred — more if it came from a better maker. That was serious money when a good farmhand made a dollar a day.

The layout is the giveaway. Smaller wheels in front for turning, big wheels in back for the road. A driver’s place up front. A deep, sprung passenger seat under the canopy. The top kept the sun and a light rain off. The lamp was for coming home after dark. This was not a threshing-crew wagon. This was the vehicle you polished on Saturday night.

Pioneer Acres keeps a lot of that world in one place: steam engines, trucks, the blacksmith and wheelwright shops, the Red Barn with horse-drawn gear, and buildings full of the smaller stuff people actually lived with. The annual show puts some of it back to work. This buggy stays indoors, which is the right call. Velvet and fringe do not last long in an Alberta August.

You can still get a wagon ride around the grounds when they have the horses out. That ride is the working cousin of this one. This one is the cousin that stayed home and got the good seat.

If you like the treasures from before the car took over the yard, Pioneer Acres is worth the drive. Walk the buildings. Read the plaques. This buggy is one of the quiet ones — and one of the expensive ones.

A different buggy to check out: Yes — this one is the workaday cousin of the green velvet carriage.

It is a single-horse canopy-top buggy, the kind most prairie families actually owned if they owned anything nicer than a farm wagon. Black body, black tufted seat, red-spoke wheels, shafts out front for one horse, and a simple canopy with a green underside. No fringe, no fancy lamps, no deep Sunday-best velvet. That is the point.

Shops sold these by the tens of thousands around 1890–1915. A plain open buggy might be $50 to $100. Add a canopy and you were often in the $100 to $175 range — still a stretch for some farms, but nowhere near the cost of that other rig. Doctors, preachers, and town people liked them because they were light, turned easy, and kept the weather off without looking like a parade float.

Same building at Pioneer Acres. Same era. Different budget. The little red tricycle in front of it is a nice accident in the photo — the next generation of “something to ride.”
 

Inside the Arena at Fort Macleod | Musical Ride and the Stables After

New video live now on the KassDays YouTube channel:
Up Close at the Musical Ride & Behind the Scenes in the Stables! | Fort MacLeod
https://youtu.be/OQuN5CI5cwo <-- Video will go live October 7th, 2026. There was a change in schedule. 

We were already at the Fort Museum for the compound walk-through — goats at the gate, wooden towers, chapel, blacksmith shop. That video went up earlier this month. This one is the part that was still sitting on the card: the Musical Ride itself, and then the horses once the show is over and they are back in the barn.

The first public Musical Ride happened in Fort Macleod in 1876. Off-duty North-West Mounted Police started putting their riding drills to music to break up the work. Turns, charges, precision on horseback. What began as something they did for each other became a tradition the rest of the country still recognizes.

What you see at the museum today is not the official RCMP Musical Ride. That troop tours with black Hanoverians and a full 32-rider drill. This is the Fort’s own Mounted Patrol. Replica 1870s red serge. White helmets. Lances. Working horses in a dirt arena inside the palisade. The museum has been running this re-enactment since 1973. It is the only daily on-site Musical Ride of its kind in Canada, and it happens in the same town where the idea started.

The new video is 9 minutes and 36 seconds.

You get the full live performance first. Riders coming through the arena with the watchtowers and log buildings behind them. Formations on packed dirt. Lances up. It is close enough that you can see the work — the timing, the horses listening, the small corrections that keep the line together.

Then the camera goes into the stables.

That is the part I wanted on the channel. After the ride, the horses are unsaddled and cooling out. No music. No drill. Just the barn, the animals, and the quiet that follows a show. If you like horses, that stretch is the reason to watch the whole clip. If you are planning a visit, it is also a good look at what the site feels like once the arena empties.

The earlier walk-through of the fort itself is here if you have not seen it yet:  
https://youtu.be/hmdIEmojHj8

The two videos belong together. One is the buildings and the ground. One is the horses. 

If you are heading down

Fort Macleod is about two hours south of Calgary on Highway 2. The Fort Museum of the North-West Mounted Police and First Nations Interpretive Centre sits at 219 Jerry Potts Blvd.

The Musical Ride runs through the summer season, weather permitting, usually more than once a day. Museum admission covers the ride. In season they also offer a Saddle Up / groom-a-horse program if you want to help prep a horse and watch inspection before the performance.

Hours and ride times change. Check nwmpmuseum.com before you leave.

While you are in town, walk the Provincial Historic Main Street. 

Southern Alberta does this well. A wooden fort, a dirt arena, and a tradition that never really left the place it started.

Long videos go up on Wednesdays. Shorts on Sundays.

See you on the road.

Kass  
KassDays 

Sign Post Forest in Watson Lake Yukon Territory

Sign Post Forest, Watson Lake, Yukon

If you are heading up the Alaska Highway, this is one of those stops that looks small on the map and then swallows an hour of your day in the best way.

The Sign Post Forest sits right in Watson Lake, Yukon, at the junction of the Alaska Highway and the Robert Campbell Highway. What started as one homesick soldier’s extra sign is now a whole grove of posts covered in license plates, street signs, handmade boards, and messages from just about everywhere.

In 1942, while the Alaska Highway was being punched through, U.S. Army Private Carl K. Lindley of Company D, 341st Engineers was laid up in Watson Lake after an injury. His commanding officer asked him to repair the camp mileage post. Lindley added his own hometown: Danville, Illinois. Other soldiers followed. Travelers never stopped. Today there are tens of thousands of signs — some counts put it well over 80,000 — and the town keeps adding posts as they fill up.

I stood under that wooden “WATSON LAKE YUKON — THE WORLD FAMOUS SIGN POST FOREST” arch and just looked up. You can spend a long time reading plates from Florida, Germany, Kentucky, Alaska, little towns you have never heard of. It is part roadside attraction, part guest book for the whole north.

Last time through we were on the go-go-go Alaska run. Watson Lake and Dawson City were two of my favourite stretches of that trip, and we still did not give them enough time. I want to get back. I want a slower morning here, time to walk the rows properly, maybe nail up a sign of our own, then keep going north toward Dawson without watching the clock the whole way.

If you stop:

• It is free and right in town. Easy pull-off for trucks and RVs.
• Bring a sign if you have one, or make something at the Visitor Information Centre next door.
• The Alaska Highway Interpretive Centre is close if you want the construction story behind the first post.
• Give it more than ten minutes. The forest only works if you wander.

A very short clip from this stop is below. Blogger’s upload limit is tight these days, so it is just a taste. The longer look will live on the KassDays YouTube channel.

Watson Lake is not a place you tick off. It is a place that keeps collecting people. Next time I want to be one of the ones who stayed long enough to read more than the first row of signs.

See you on the road.

Kass
KassDays

5 Incredible Stops in Alberta Along Highway 3 (All Within 20 Minutes)

 

 

Looking for a fast Crowsnest Pass road trip that actually delivers? This stretch of Highway 3 in southwest Alberta packs a waterfall, a famous dead tree, coal-mine ruins, Canada’s worst mining disaster, and the Frank Slide into one short drive.

That is the new KassDays video:

5 Incredible Stops in Alberta (All Within 20 Minutes!)
https://youtu.be/h8feqfWtB6Q

The five stops

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lundbreck Falls

Easy pull-off just off Highway 3. Twin drops on the Crowsnest River, viewing platforms, stairs to the canyon if you want the mist. Picnic tables, fishing, campground nearby. One of the best quick waterfall stops in southern Alberta.

The Heritage Burmis Tree
A limber pine that lived 600–750 years, died in the late 1970s, blew over, got repaired, and still stands beside the highway. Locals braced it and made the road go around it. Most photographed tree in the Pass. Pull over, read the panel, take the shot.

Leitch Collieries Provincial Historic Site
Stone ruins of a fully Canadian-owned coal operation that lasted less than a decade. Powerhouse, manager’s house with empty arched windows, coke ovens that barely ran. Self-guided paths, donation in summer, picnic tables, dogs welcome. Looks like nothing from the road until you walk in.

Hillcrest Mine Disaster Memorial
June 19, 1914. Methane and coal dust. 189 men killed. Worst coal-mining disaster in Canadian history. Cemetery, mass graves, later memorial. Quiet stop. Worth the short detour.

Frank Slide
April 29, 1903, 4:10 a.m. Turtle Mountain let go. Tens of millions of tonnes of limestone in under two minutes. Part of the town of Frank buried. Seventy to ninety people gone. The boulder field and the scar on the mountain are still there. Walk the debris. The landscape never recovered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why this route works

You can hit all five in a tight window. No long hikes required for the main viewpoints. Westbound or eastbound, it works as a break between Pincher Creek, the rest of the Pass, and Fernie.

Pair it with the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre if you want the full museum version. Or keep it as a roadside loop and keep driving.

Watch the 4K walk-through with timestamps here:
https://youtu.be/h8feqfWtB6Q

See you on the road.

Kass
KassDays

Leitch Collieries Ruins: Alberta Ghost Town History on the Crowsnest Highway

 

 

If you are searching for Alberta ghost towns, abandoned coal mines, or an easy Crowsnest Pass road trip stop, Leitch Collieries Provincial Historic Site is one of the best pulls off Highway 3.

The ruins sit at the east entrance to the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass, between Burmis and Bellevue, just a few minutes from Frank Slide. From the highway you see the stone shell of the mine manager’s house first. Thick sandstone walls. Empty arched windows. Concrete piers holding up a building that lost its roof more than a century ago.

This was not a small prospect hole. Leitch Collieries Coal and Coke Company opened in 1907 as the only fully Canadian-owned and operated coal mine in the Pass. The plan was simple and huge: mine the seams north of Police Flats, wash and sort the coal, load it onto the Canadian Pacific Railway, and turn part of it into coke. They built a powerhouse, a tall washery, a tipple, and a row of 101 coke ovens. Passburg grew beside the works with a post office, school, hotel, and a few hundred people.

The fortune never arrived. The coal did not coke well. A long strike in 1911 cost them customers. World War I cut markets and money. The banks closed in. A last sale fell apart when the buyer died. Production stopped around 1915. Houses from Passburg were moved to Bellevue. Scrap metal left during the Second World War. The stone stayed.

Today the site is a self-guided walk through Alberta coal mining history. Paths lead past the powerhouse ruins, the coke-oven line, the old washery foundations, and that manager’s house. Interpretive plaques tell the story. Listening posts play recorded voices from miners and managers who lived it. A full loop takes about an hour.

 How to visit Leitch Collieries

• Location: north side of Highway 3, Municipality of Crowsnest Pass, Alberta
• Pair it with Frank Slide Interpretive Centre, Bellevue, Blairmore, Coleman, or Lundbreck Falls
• Parking lot is large enough for trucks and RVs
• Admission by donation in summer
• Washrooms and picnic tables mid-May to Labour Day
• Dogs welcome; off-leash area on site
• Gravel paths, mostly easy walking
• Check Crowsnest Pass weather before you go. It changes fast.

New KassDays video on this stop is Live:

I Thought I Had My Fortune Made | Exploring Leitch Collieries Ruins (Southern Alberta)
https://youtu.be/T-_8R5Wx0QI

If you are mapping Alberta abandoned places, Crowsnest Pass ghost towns, or Highway 3 history stops between Lethbridge and Fernie, put Leitch Collieries on the list. It is one of those roadside ruins that looks small from the truck and then holds you for an hour.

Kass
KassDays

Golden Eagle | Still Here Still Standing | What It Means

 

Still here. Still standing.

This golden eagle was at the Millarville Priddis Fair a month or so ago, brought by the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation. He sat on a perch a few feet from the crowd — dark feathers, gold at the nape, yellow feet wrapped around a wooden bar, a leather jess on one leg. People stopped. Kids stared. He watched them the way eagles do: calm, unblinking, already having survived worse than a fairground.

The Foundation takes in injured raptors. Some heal and go back to the sky. Others cannot. A wing that will never carry them far enough. An injury that would mean a slow death in the wild. Those birds stay. Not as trophies. As teachers. As proof that life does not end when the original plan does.

Captivity is not always a cage. Sometimes it is the only door left open. That is not failure. That is someone refusing to walk away.

The same is true for people. You lose a job, a partnership, a version of yourself you thought was permanent. You do not get the clean ending you wanted. You get what is left — and you either sit down in it or you keep moving with the tools you still have. Resilience is not pretending nothing broke. It is using what remains.

True compassion does not keep a ledger. The people who feed this eagle, check his weight, travel with him to fairs so a child can see a golden eagle up close — they do not get a thank-you from the bird. They do it anyway. That is the point.

 

Whether you are a bird that will never hunt over the foothills again, or a person who had to start over with less than you planned, the work is the same: do not give up on the life that is still in front of you.

Watch the clip. Then, if you can, look up the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation. They have been doing this work for decades, expecting nothing back except the chance to keep one more bird alive.

Kass
KassDays

 

The Band of the Welsh Guards at Spruce Meadows

Labour Day at Spruce Meadows, and the Band of the Welsh Guards took the outdoor stage.

Scarlet tunics, black trousers with the red stripe, white belts and pouches, peaked caps. Saxophones up. One man at the microphone in white gloves. Behind him, trees, a tent, and the usual Meadows clutter of speakers and cables. Formal dress on a Calgary long weekend. It should have felt out of place. It did not.

They were very nice to listen to. Not background. Not a recording leaked through a PA. A working Guards band, tight and bright, playing for people who had come for horses and a holiday and got a courtyard concert instead. The uniforms do some of the talking. The playing does the rest.

I shot a still and a short clip. That is enough. The back of a red tunic. Gold braid. A white pouch. A conductor at the mic. Labour Day is usually the last barbecue and the drive home. For a short set it felt like a ceremony that had wandered onto the show-jumping grounds and decided to stay.

The Welsh Guards came a long way for a September afternoon in Alberta. They sounded like they meant it. That is the post: scarlet, brass, and a band that was worth standing still for.

 

Inside the Wooden Fort at Fort Macleod

New Video Live Now on the KassDays YouTube channel - Video Goes Live Sept 9 11:30AM

We spent an afternoon at the Fort Museum in Fort Macleod, Alberta — the reconstructed NWMP compound with the watchtowers, boardwalks, chapel, blacksmith shop, and the goats that hang around the entrance.

The full walkthrough is here: https://youtu.be/hmdIEmojHj8

Fort Macleod started in 1874 when the North-West Mounted Police built their first permanent post in the far west. The original fort sat on an island in the Oldman River. Floods pushed them onto higher ground a few years later, and the town grew up around the barracks. What you walk through now is a living-history version of that early outpost: wooden towers, palisade, period rooms, and a lot of original artifacts.

In the video we climb the towers for a look across the grounds, then go inside the buildings. It is a short, straightforward tour — no filler, just the site as it sits today.

The drive from Calgary is about two hours south on Highway 2. Worth pairing with a walk down the historic Main Street while you are there.

If you like these southern Alberta stops, the long videos go up on Wednesdays and the short clips on Sundays.

Kass
KassDays

Location: Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada

Demolition Derby Crossfield Alberta | Watch the Cars Battle

 

 

It’s all fun and games until someone knocks a car over

That line pretty much sums up our afternoon at the Crossfield Elks Demolition Derby, about half an hour north of Calgary. Heavy hits, steaming radiators, lawnmower racing, a human mud race, and one car that didn’t stay on its wheels.

A new YouTube Short with the best of that chaos is live on the KassDays channel now. The full video is already up if you want the whole story now.

Watch the complete video here:
https://youtu.be/PX5NcGl9LlY

 The Short (live Sunday morning):
https://youtube.com/shorts/508fh7QP1sc

Give the Short a like and a share when it lands, then jump into the long video for the rest of the afternoon trackside.

Thanks for following along.

Kass

Location: Crossfield, Alberta

It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Knocks a Car Over

 

 

Hey KassDays Fam!

Crossfield’s Elks derby is one of those Alberta afternoons that still looks like the town put it on itself. Rodeo grounds, dirt in the air, painted beaters lined up, and a crowd that came to watch cars get used up for a good cause.

This year’s video is trackside through the mess. Big hits. Radiators cooking off steam. Then the moment the title promised — somebody actually knocks a car over. After the main heats you get the rest of a Crossfield card: lawnmower racing, and a human mud race that sends people home looking like they lost a fight with the infield.

No scripted drama. Just local drivers, metal folding, and the kind of chaos you only get when the event is also a community fundraiser.

Full episode is on the KassDays YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/PX5NcGl9LlY

If you like the real small-town motorsport days — the ones with mud on the lens and a car on its roof — this one’s worth the watch.

 

Draft Horses Pulling Timber at Pioneer Acres, Irricana

 

 

At Pioneer Acres during Alberta’s Pioneer Steam Power Festival, the steam engines get most of the noise. The horses still do some of the oldest work on the grounds.

A team of black draft horses, harnessed with red-trimmed collars and traces, leaned into a heavy timber and walked it across the dry yard. One handler walked behind with the lines. No engine, no whistle—just weight, footing, and the sound of hooves on packed grass. This is the other half of the show: before traction engines broke sod and ran threshers, this is how timber, stone, and implements moved.

The log is the point. It is not a pretty wagon. It is a dead weight on a chain, the kind of pull that used to happen every day on a farm or in a woodlot. The horses stay in step. The driver stays quiet. The crowd watches because you can see the work in their shoulders.

Pioneer Acres puts steam and horsepower on the same weekend on purpose. One did not instantly replace the other. For a long time both were on the same farms. Watching a team walk a timber past a metal-clad shed and a horse trailer is a clean reminder of that overlap.

If you are there for the Case engines and the Parade of Power, stay for this. The horses do not need a boiler. They still move the load.

Walking the Debris: A Hike Through Canada’s Deadliest Rockslide

 

 

On April 29, 1903, Turtle Mountain—long known by Indigenous people as “The Mountain That Moves”—unleashed one of the most catastrophic natural disasters in Canadian history. In roughly 100 seconds, approximately 82 million tonnes of limestone tore free and roared down into the Crowsnest Pass, permanently reshaping the landscape and burying part of the town of Frank, Alberta.

More than a century later, that vast boulder field remains. The Frank Slide Interpretive Centre sits at the edge of it, and just outside the doors begins a 1.5-kilometre self-guided interpretive trail that winds directly through the debris.

In our latest video we follow that trail with the official brochure in hand. We pause at the historical markers, look closely at the geology that made Turtle Mountain so unstable, and notice how nature is slowly, steadily reclaiming the rugged terrain. House-sized blocks of limestone still dominate the scene, yet patches of grass, wildflowers, and determined trees are pushing through the cracks.

A secondary camera mounted on a backpack offers a different perspective—one that shows just how small a person feels while picking a path between those massive rocks. It is equal parts humbling and fascinating.

This is the second video in our exploration of the Frank Slide. Where the first focused on the broader story of the disaster, this one puts boots on the ground and lets the landscape speak for itself.

If you enjoy authentic regional history, dramatic Canadian scenery, and the chance to walk through a place where geology and human history collided with devastating force, the trail is well worth the visit—and the video is a solid preview of what awaits.

Watch “Walking the Debris: Hiking Through Canada’s Deadliest Landslide” on the KassDays YouTube channel.

Antique Open Trucks at Pioneer Acres: A Glimpse of Prairie Pioneer Power

Pioneer Acres Trucks 

Hey KassDays Fam!

A couple of weeks back I headed out to Irricana for the annual Pioneer Acres Show (this year’s big Steam Power Festival edition, August 7–9). If you’ve never been, it’s pure Alberta heritage heaven—steam engines hissing, antique tractors pulling, horse teams working the fields, and a whole lot of early motor vehicles that look like they just rolled out of a 1910s farmyard.

One of the stands-outs for me was this beautifully restored early 20th-century open truck sitting in the display barn. Bright green body with red accents, tall vertical radiator, black bench seats, wooden cargo box piled with period sacks, and those classic red spoke wheels wearing diamond-tread tires. The overall brass-era proportions and the badge on the radiator scream Peerless (or a very close period commercial cousin).

Peerless, out of Cleveland, Ohio, is better remembered today for its luxury cars—one of the famous “Three Ps” alongside Packard and Pierce-Arrow. But from about 1911 to 1918 they also built solid commercial trucks in the 3- to 6-ton range. Survivors are scarce, especially on the Canadian prairies, so seeing one this well-restored and complete felt special. The chain-drive-era chassis, wooden bed, and open cab are exactly the kind of workhorse that would have been hauling grain, supplies, or harvest crews around Alberta a century ago.

Parked nearby were a couple of other period open trucks/commercials—one with a wooden cab in brown tones and another partial chassis with yellow wheels—making a nice little cluster of early motorized freight history. These machines sit right at the transition point between horse-drawn wagons and the modern truck, and Pioneer Acres does a fantastic job of showing them in context with the steam traction engines and threshing demos that were the weekend’s big feature.

If you’re into cars, trucks, steam, or just prairie history, mark your calendar for next year’s Pioneer Acres Annual Show. It’s an easy drive from Calgary, the grounds are packed with living history, and you never know what rare iron you’ll find sitting quietly in a corner.

Did you make it out to Irricana this year? Spot any other cool antique trucks or steamers? Drop your stories (or photos) in the comments—I’d love to hear them!

Safe travels and keep exploring Alberta’s hidden corners,
Kass
#PioneerAcres #Irricana #AntiqueTrucks #Peerless #SteamShow #AlbertaHeritage #KassDays