Prairie Provinces

Alberta is one of the three Prairie Provinces in south-western Canada. Its capital, Edmonton, home to the West Edmonton Mall shopping paradise, has 900,000 inhabitants. Alberta’s largest city, however, is Calgary (around 950,000 inhabitants). Those who would rather not stay in town are drawn to Lake Louise in magnificent Banff National Park, a landscape shaped by the majestic peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

East of Alberta lies the rural province of Saskatchewan. Besides the river of the same name, some 100,000 lakes are scattered across the region. One of them is Lake Athabasca: its sand dunes (huge shifting dunes along the shore) are a spectacular sight, as are the Great Sand Hills in the south. In Grasslands National Park you will discover fascinating landscapes of barren, dry land, home to prairie dogs, pronghorns, eagles and a wide variety of lizards.

The third Canadian Prairie Province is Manitoba, which borders Hudson Bay to the north-east. Wide prairies alternate with dense, hilly tundra forests. The town of Churchill has made a name for itself as Canada’s polar bear capital – the white giants really do roam right up to the edge of town, and on rare occasions even through it. From Churchill it is only a short way into Canada’s wild, untouched nature.