The trip we had planned to Medicine Hat was relatively simple. My wife was doing a workshop at a local high school and I would work remotely while she was presenting. Easy peasy. Well, not really. Our province’s teachers were on the verge of walking out on strike the following Monday so things were chaotic and her workshop time got shortened and then started even earlier than expected. Oh, and she’s one of the now striking teachers so her stress level was already high when we got there.
My wife knocked it out of the park as usual, receiving great feedback. We met with the principal of the school later that evening for supper and he and his wife had a beer while we nursed our sodas. My wife was offered several different roles in the division. The only way it could have been made plainer that she was wanted there would have involved throwing a hood over her head, trussing her with zip ties, and stuffing her into a white van. Crushing a tough presentation with a possibly hostile audience and then being told you’re the next best thing to unobtanium when it comes to hiring prospects is pretty damn fine as validation goes. My wife went to bed in a much better mood.
Medicine Hat is one of Alberta’s older cities and it’s chock-a-block full of heritage buildings that are fun to photograph. It has a beautiful river running through it. There are good services and health care. Good dining. It’s not a bad place to live if you don’t mind it being tucked in one remote corner of Alberta. Not the worst corner, but the wrong corner? Maybe. It’s farther away from the Rockies than where we live right now, but not THAT far. It’s manageable.
What both of us like is that Medicine Hat is about thirty minutes drive from Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park. We had been there once before, just over two decades back when my daughter was three, and now she’s twenty-four. So it’s been a while. I have to say the beauty of the park has not diminished in the least. It would be the sort of place I could hike and showshoe well enough with my heart condition (hills good, mountains bad). And there are three lakes to paddle. That’s outstanding.
Provincial Park, AB, 2025-10-04
Provincial Park, AB, 2025-10-04
It was a pretty hard, compelling pitch made to my wife and she’s thinking about it. I’m definitely thinking about it. There would be more for us to do there than where we live now in terms of outdoor activities, and it opens up exploring Saskatchewan for us as well. We haven’t done that and it could be fun.
We had intended to go straight home the following morning as the chores had piled up on us over the previous month with the various family emergencies, but her old friend the principal urged us to buzz out east to Cypress and look at the fall colours. We did, and I tried to do justice to them with my phone because it was the only camera I had with me. What I can tell you is that I’d love to go back next fall with my other cameras for more fall colours. And spring and summer and winter colours. This is a place that calls to you.
All images from Old Faithful, aka my Samsung Galaxy Ultra S23.