The morning started with bright sunshine and was a little warmer at Cranbrook/St. Eugene KOA. After a relaxing morning enjoying the nice washrooms one last time, we moved on to our next campsite in Fort MacLeod, Alberta.
We had noticed that resort and casino associated with the campground had a church, and a field of white crosses behind a nearby building. A sanitized version of the history is on the resort’s website . Less sanitized stories can be read here and here – apparently there are scores of unmarked graves behind it.
One of the towns on the way was the resort town of Fernie, BC – where we saw our first flashing green traffic light (there were also the traditional amber and red lights on the fixture.) Googling this we discover it is a phenomenon found only in Canada – for pedestrian crossings
As we moved to the next campsite, we went through Sparwood, BC – and saw a sign for the world’s largest truck . We had to stop for that. Turns out there is a small museum next door, where we figured we would stop and get some background. Turns out is was the first museum we were thrown out of after only 5 minutes or so.
The extremely nice docent was very apologetic, but she said she had a large school group coming in 5 minutes, and the museum was restricted to 15 visitors at a time. She rapidly explained a bit of the history – turns out there were originally three towns in the area – Michel, Natal, and Middletown. They were thriving but poor mining towns, and the provincial government decided to remove all of the people and buildings in the name of urban renewal – another horrific story of government overreach – at least according to the signs and docent. The museum had an antique clock and a pump organ, so that involved much of Tom’s time talking to the docent who reluctantly ejected us when the school students arrived.
We enjoyed the truck and the interpretive signs. Turns out GM made a grand total of one of these 330 tonne trucks and sold it to the local mine who used it until the turbo blew in 1990. It is a diesel electric, and Scott presumed that much of the technology came from railroad locomotives.
Soon after we left Sparwood we crossed from BC into Alberta, and saw a familiar looking sight. Our readers will recall our post on Earthquake Lake in Montana from September 13, 2024 . We did not expect on just the next trip to find another – more deadly – slide from April 29, 1903. This one killed 70 people – and closed the mouth of the mine while several miners were underground. The miners dug themselves out, but the story told by the roadside sign was pretty horrific. We stopped Khan, read the sign, took a few pictures of the huge rock field, and moved on without visiting the interpretive center.
We then headed to our overnight stop, the Rivers Edge RV Park in Fort MacLeod. Nice enough place that had “soft opened” because, apparently, there was little chance of freezing weather. Nice washrooms but you had to feed “tooneys” (two dollar coins) to a meter to take a shower. The name is apropos as the campsite borders on the Oldman River (One word is correct, at least according to the local signs if not Google Maps).
Dinner was a mediocre meal in a restaurant in Fort MacLeod with a young and enthusiastic waitress. Then back to the campground to blog and bed.