Even though we'd given ourselves two weeks for our road trip from Toronto to Yellowknife, it still felt like too much driving and not enough sightseeing, but, we had to be in Yellowknife by a certain date and the miles had to get done. Another week would have been good. However, we did manage to sightsee in a few places. One area that caught our attention was in northern Alberta where the Ukrainian connection is incredibly strong. We visited Ukraine in 2013 and met newly-found family there. This post is dedicated to them.
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| World's largest Ukrainian Easter Egg (Pysanka) - Vegreville, Alberta |
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| Vegreville Alberta |
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| Vegreville, Alberta |
Just outside Vegreville, we spent an interesting morning visiting the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, an open-air museum that uses costumed historical interpreters to recreate pioneer settlements in east central Alberta. We almost didn't go in when we learned it was the one day of the year when 2,000! schoolchildren and their minders would be visiting from Edmonton for their end-of-year jolly. Actually, it turned out for the best. Sure, there were kids all over the place, but, it meant that all buildings were open and each building had an activity demonstration: blacksmithing, threshing grain, free range chickens, horse harnessing etc....
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| Hands-on pierogi-making demonstration in the kitchen of an old hotel. |
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| The finished product, delicious cheese-filled pierogies! (these weren't the ones the kids made though) |
It was interesting to see the progression of the homes and buildings as the pioneers prospered.
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| Church on the far left is from the early settlement years 1904, the middle one from around 1920 and the far right is from 1932. |
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| Interior of the 1920's church, note the robin's-egg blue wooden ceiling with painted gold stars. |
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| Example of a railway station and grain elevator. It was fascinating to learn how grain elevators work. |
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