Most people cross the Prairies as fast as the Trans-Canada allows, eyes on the Rockies, and that is the reason so few of them ever see the Prairies at all. The country between Calgary and the Saskatchewan grasslands holds some of the strangest and most beautiful landscapes in Canada, but almost none of it is visible from a divided highway at 110 km/h. You have to leave the main road, slow down, and let the land unfold at its own pace.
The loop we describe here runs roughly 1,100 kilometres from Drumheller in Alberta east and south through the badlands to the Cypress Hills, on to Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan, and back. It is best done in five or six days, and in shoulder season if you can manage it.
Drumheller and the Red Deer River badlands
Drumheller sits about 140 kilometres northeast of Calgary, an hour and a half on good roads. The Red Deer River has cut a valley through the plains here, exposing layers of sandstone, mudstone and coal that have produced some of the richest dinosaur fossil beds in the world. The town has built itself around this, with the provincial palaeontology museum on its outskirts drawing visitors year round.
The landscape is the real attraction. A short loop south of town on the Dinosaur Trail and the Hoodoo Trail takes in Horseshoe Canyon, a sudden gash in the wheat fields with a trail down into it, and the hoodoos, capped pillars of soft rock that stand a few metres high beside the road. The valley traps heat; on a July afternoon the badlands can reach 35 degrees while the wind blows dust off the slopes. Early morning and evening are cooler, quieter and better for the light.
Dinosaur Provincial Park
About 170 kilometres southeast of Drumheller, most of it on quiet secondary highways, the prairie drops away again into Dinosaur Provincial Park. This is the more remarkable of the two badlands, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979 and the source of more than 40 dinosaur species. Much of the park is a natural preserve that can only be entered on guided hikes and bus tours run by the park itself, which book up weeks in advance in summer. The public loop road and five short self-guided trails still give a full day of walking among the cliffs and coulees, and a handful of fossil display houses along the trails show bones exactly where they were found.
The campground in the cottonwoods by the river is the best base for kilometres in any direction. Bring water, a hat and sun protection: shade is scarce, the ground reflects heat, and the nearest town, Brooks, is 48 kilometres away.
The Cypress Hills
From the badlands the road runs south and east for about 230 kilometres to the Cypress Hills, an island of forest rising 600 metres above the surrounding plains on the Alberta and Saskatchewan border. The hills were never covered by ice in the last glaciation, and their lodgepole pines, cool lakes and steady breeze feel closer to the foothills than to the wheat country below. Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park is Canada’s only park shared by two provinces; the Alberta side is centred on Elkwater, the Saskatchewan Centre Block on a lake and resort area near Maple Creek, with a rough gravel road linking them through the West Block.
The Saskatchewan section reaches about 1,390 metres, the highest ground in the province, and the whole park is a dark sky preserve. On a clear night, which is most nights here, the Milky Way is bright enough to cast shadows. Bring a warm layer even in August; nights in the hills drop to single digits.
Grasslands National Park
The last leg is the longest. From the Cypress Hills to Val Marie, the small village that serves as the gateway to the West Block of Grasslands National Park, is roughly 300 kilometres by way of Highway 18 and a series of straight, lightly travelled two-lane roads. Grasslands protects one of the last large stretches of native mixed-grass prairie in North America, land that was never broken by the plough, and it is the quietest national park we have visited anywhere in the country.
The Ecotour scenic road, an 80 kilometre gravel loop through the West Block, is the easiest way in. Plains bison, reintroduced in 2005 after more than a century of absence, roam freely and are usually seen within the first few kilometres. Black-tailed prairie dogs, pronghorn, burrowing owls and rattlesnakes share the ground. The 70 Mile Butte trail, about 5 kilometres return, climbs to one of the highest points in the park for a view that runs to the Montana line. The East Block, some 130 kilometres away by road, holds the badlands of the Killdeer valley and a second campground.
Grasslands is also a certified dark sky preserve, and with no towns for dozens of kilometres, the stars here rival anything in the country. A national park pass is required; the West Block visitor centre in Val Marie sells them and has the only reliable water and washrooms for a wide radius.
Heat, wind and gravel: driving the loop well
These are not roads that punish you for being unprepared in the way a mountain highway does, but they have their own rules:
- Fuel is available in Drumheller, Brooks, Medicine Hat, Maple Creek and Val Marie, and not reliably between them. Fill up whenever you can.
- Gravel park roads turn to gumbo mud after rain and can become impassable for a day. Ask at the visitor centre before heading out and never rely on a phone map for road conditions.
- Summer temperatures regularly exceed 30 degrees with steady wind; carry several litres of water per person in the car and more on the trails.
- Prairie thunderstorms build fast on hot afternoons. Get off exposed buttes when the sky darkens to the west.
- Cell coverage is thin in all three parks. Tell someone your route.
When to go
Late May and June bring green grass, wildflowers and nesting birds, with cool nights and the risk of mosquitoes near water. July and August are hot and bright, with the longest days and the fullest program of guided walks. September is our favourite: the grass turns gold, the days are warm and the nights are cold and clear for stargazing, and the crowds, such as they ever are here, have gone. Winter is severe, with wind chill well below minus 30, and most services close.
Whatever month you choose, the lesson of this loop is the same one the land teaches everywhere out here. The sky is the main event, and it only performs for people who stop the car.