A Peace Country List Worth Arguing About

Somebody at the rink in January once told me the northern lights are overrated because you can watch them on your phone anyway. That's the kind of opinion that gets a person quietly moved to the far end of the bench. It also tells you something about how comfortable people get here, how easy it is to let the genuinely rare stuff sit unclaimed on a list you keep meaning to get to.

So here's the list. Argue with it.

Drive past Sexsmith on a clear night in February, kill the headlights somewhere the grid roads go dark, and wait. No app required. The aurora shows up here more than most Canadians ever see it in their lives, and most of us have stopped looking up. That's the actual scandal, not the weather.

Kleskun Hill gets called badlands, which oversells it slightly, but the coulees and hoodoos twenty minutes from the city are strange enough that you'll wonder briefly if you took a wrong turn into Alberta's south. The bison paddock next door does the rest of the work. Go in September when the grass has gone gold and the tour buses have gone home.

Dunvegan is the one people from here always mean to see and rarely do, which is backwards, because it's an hour and it's free and the suspension bridge over the Peace River valley is the kind of view that makes the drive feel earned rather than endured. The old mission buildings sit below the hill like they're still waiting for someone in a canoe. Bring a jacket even in July. The valley makes its own weather.

Pipestone Creek, out past Wembley, has one of the densest dinosaur bonebeds on the continent, which is a fact locals mention the way people mention a neighbour's minor celebrity — true, slightly unbelievable, rarely followed up on. Worth following up on.

Muskoseepi Park does not need an introduction from me, and that's precisely the danger — it becomes wallpaper. Walk the whole loop once a year on purpose, not as a shortcut to somewhere else, and you'll remember why the trail system is the actual spine of this city.

Saskatoon Island in July is colder water than the name implies and better than it has any right to be for a lake that far inland. The swans don't care that you're there, which is the correct attitude for a swan.

Winter tubing at Nitehawk is not subtle and does not pretend to be. Neither is a proper Storm game with a full house and somebody's kid banging the glass. Both are worth doing loud and unembarrassed, at least once a season, ideally with someone visiting from somewhere flatter and duller.

Kakwa, if you have the vehicle and the week, is where the foothills stop being scenery and start being an actual argument for staying another day. Most people don't make it that far. That's not a flaw in the plan. Some places are better attended by fewer people, and the Peace Country has always had more room than it has visitors, which some of us — quietly, selfishly — would prefer to keep that way.