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.