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Position: 53°31’10.7″N 113°29’44.8″W
Returning to the northern rockies after 12 years away, I went back to my journal from my earlier trip and looked up my thoughts about Liard Hot Springs. Having sold Carol on the idea of a soak in the woods, I was curious to read what I thought about my first visit.
This is what I wrote then: “Liard Hot Springs is one of those monuments to all things positive about governments and society. Here is a well-cared-for public good that in a private setting would cost hundreds of dollars to enjoy. Located as it is in a remote part of the backwoods; it was neither overcrowded nor dirty. There is a long boardwalk over a swamp that leads out to a small amphitheatre built up on one side of the springs.
The slightly sulphurous waters ranged from really very hot at the point it enters the long wading pool, to pleasantly cool once it passes over the weir and joins a natural stream. Relaxing in the mineral rich waters I felt like one of those Japanese monkeys. Life was really pretty good at that moment. As I floated on my back looking up at the dwindling light, I imagined that this kind of bathing was a worthy form of exercise. Which it is.”
Electric Fencing
From then until now, little has changed. Since my first visit, the campground has become a little more cautious about bears. BC Parks installed its first campground-wide electric fence at Liard. On my 2014 visit, the rangers were busy looking out for a bear that had been hanging around and foraging for food. As one of BC Regional Parks’ most popular sites, Liard Hot Springs is booked almost continuously through the summer season. I suspect it also makes plenty of money: enough to afford a few miles of electrified fencing.
On our initial dip in the hot springs, I channelled my inner Finn(lander) and soaked for twice as long as Carol. There are few things better in life than lounging around in warm water. Just ask any of the critters that make their way to the hot springs in the dead of winter. When the bears are hibernating, moose are particularly grateful for the opportunity to warm themselves unthreatened. Or so we were told.
We stayed two nights, chowing our way through what was left of our food. The small motel and RV park across the highway had a barren convenience store. But with gin, tonic, and fresh water we had all we needed for drinks and to reconstitute our remaining Mountain House freeze-dried meals.
Lodge Life
Pointing south, we drove only as far as the Northern Rockies Lodge for a night. Located 56kms away on Muncho Lake, the lodge has been in business for decades. Sledge and I had stopped there for breakfast and I described it as “…a hunting lodge for rich wierdos.” Having now slept there, my earlier opinion was, perhaps, a little unfair. The service was friendly and our room with its exposed wood logs comfortable. If you have the cash, you can charter a plane and flightsee the surrounding area. Their photos made the area’s glaciers and waterfalls look particularly appealing. If you fish, this looks like a great place for it.
The Northern Rocky Mountains have their own vibe and singular beauty. Not as tall as the Rockies further south, the mountains maintain a rugged appeal with lots of accessible hiking trails. If you’re unsure which road to take south out of Watson Lake, stick with BC Route 97. This road takes you through the heart of the mountains with plenty of camping in the nearby provincial parks.
A third of a mile south of the lodge is the Red Rock Canyon trail. The trail follows a small stream uphill along the wash through rocky outcroppings and clutches of pine trees. Despite the running water and dry sunny weather, mosquitoes were out in force. Naturally, Carol took the full brunt of their onslaught. By the time we were a mile and a half in, she’d gotten a dozen bites around her neck and enough was enough. We turned back. Besides, the trail was winding back and forth across the river. Slick river rocks and a lack of gaiters had already dampened our enthusiasm for the hike.
Jasper (or Not)
For a couple of weeks, we had been monitoring the forest fires and overall air quality in southern BC, Alberta, Washington and Idaho. Things weren’t looking good. The Icefields Parkway through Jasper National Park was socked in with choking woodsmoke. That meant both poor visibility and throat-scratching air.
If you haven’t driven past Mount Robson down to Banff on Route 93, you have missed one of the most beautiful drives on the planet. I can especially recommend it on a motorcycle. Or at least in a convertible. Both of which will give you an expansive view of the mountains that they demand. But you’ll want clear air and, on busy weekends, a little patience with the crowds. This year, the air quality maps were all glowing a furious red (a bad sign).
At Fort Nelson, we paused for a coffee and discussed our options. We could ignore the dire warnings and head for Lake Louise anyway. Or we could head towards Edmonton, a city neither of us had been to. With a few keystrokes we discovered the Edmonton Fringe Festival was in full swing on its last weekend. That sealed it. Damn nature, we agreed! Let’s go and get entertained!
Black Gold
Northern Alberta is Canada’s breadbasket and oil well. As soon as we crossed into Alberta, the roads ran dead straight west to east. Turns came only at right angles. None of the meandering demanded by the mountains and rivers found in BC. The landscape quickly flattened out into wide glacially scarred prairies. Low hills rolled across the horizon in slow brush strokes of gold wheat and green grass. Seemingly, every farm worth its salt had its own oil donkey pump. Most of them nodding slowly in the fallow areas along the roadside.
I have no idea if these pumps extracted any oil. Or how the farmers stored and transported the oil if they found any. But I have no doubt they contribute to Alberta’s GDP. Alberta is Canada’s wealthiest province, thanks in no small part to its sitting on the fourth largest oil reserves in the world. Those resources also fuel an independence movement. One that wistful MAGA apparatchiks would like to co-op. A referendum on independence is scheduled for October 19, this year. The leave campaign is unlikely to succeed. Even if the referendum were successful, challenges from indigenous peoples (who are, broadly, against secession) would make establishing a new country or merging with the United States highly unlikely.
Edmonton
Before our visit, I could have written everything I knew about Edmonton in a sentence or two. At my Canadian boarding school I roomed with a couple of lads from Edmonton and learned that their NHL team was called the Oilers. That’s it. One sentence’s worth. I didn’t know, for example, that it straddles the North Saskatchewan River. The financial district sits north of the river and the cool, Bohemian parts of town, sit south of it. We found an AirBnb on the north side before we discovered the Edmonton Fringe Festival is centred around Old Strathcona’s Farmer’s Market on the south side. No matter. The 3km walk down then up the escarpments gave us a chance to admire the green spaces lining the river.
Roughly a million people live in the City of Edmonton and another half million in the surrounding metropolitan area. About 10% of the population are students attending one of five universities. The young folks keep things both hip and high energy. The Farmer’s Market offers a wide variety of crunchy granolas, meats and vegetables from surrounding farms. Started in 1983 in a parking lot, it has since expanded from 40 to 140 vendors and now operates out of a large brick building that used to be a ‘bus barn’. Theses days it is open every weekend throughout the year.
Fringe
The annual Fringe Festival takes place over two weeks starting in the middle of August. Edmonton’s Fringe is the oldest and largest festival of its type in North America. The Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals (CAFF) currently sponsors 30 festivals, 22 in Canada and 8 in the United States. CAFF’s mission ‘…is to unite, support, empower and strengthen Member Festivals in order to cultivate and foster independent artistic exploration for artists and audiences across North America.’
The original Fringe Festival began in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1947 when uninvited theatre companies performed on the ‘fringes’ of the Edinburgh International Festival. In 1982 North America’s first Fringe Festival took shape in Edmonton during its established Summerfest. It has grown to become one of the largest annual arts events in Canada. Participants affiliated with CAFF apply by lottery and may perform in several festivals across the continent during the summer season.
Shows
Most shows are cheap, around $20CDN, and all proceeds go to the artists (who must bear expenses for mounting their shows). In 2026 there were 200 shows over 11 days and we took in six of them. Given all that, you might expect a great deal of variety and quality in the line-up. And you would be right. Our choices were guided by sites like troypavlek.ca and What the Fringe?
Troy and Lauren promised us they had seen all the shows and were amply qualified to point us in the right direction. Given the sheer number of performances, we took them at their (cost-free) word. Our biggest constraint was getting from one venue to the next in time for curtain-up. Fortunately, creative use of gathering spaces and formal theatres around Old Strathcona meant nothing was more than a 30-minute walk away. Here, in chronological order, are the shows we saw rated on our scale of 1 – 3 sheets to the wind:
| ‘Mae West’: The Comeback Tour: The brainchild of Wendi Wynazz, improv theatre artist and drag king, this show explores the history and impact of Mae West. By championing women, gay men, and fighting ageism, Mae West was so controversial that the Hays Code was invented to try and rein her and her movies in. Blending historical facts and improvisation with audience engagement made for a slightly uneven show. Nevertheless, we dived in with both lips. – CK/MN [2] |  |
| The First Vampire: Written and directed by Ryan Gladstone (aka Grant Canyon – see below), this short play discusses the first modern vampire story written in 1816 by Lord Byron’s physician John William Polidori. Written over a weekend at a party on Lake Geneva. A weekend attended by Mary Shelley, who wrote the first draft of Frankenstein while there. The story was an immediate success on publication, in part because the publishers attributed the story to Byron to cash in on his fame. Having written about Byron in this blog, we felt a kinship for the material. – CK/MN [3] |  |
| 110% Wizard: Keith Brown blends magic and storytelling in his one man show that promised to be at least 10% better than his previous show, 100% Wizard. With lots of audience participation, Keith performed tricks large and small that fooled even the most cynical audience members. – CK/MN [3] |  |
| BeerProv Reunion: Six mates who practiced improv for years reunited for a festival run. Their schtick is a beer pong game modified for generating improv prompts. Most of the improv centred around traditional improv games. An exception was a blindfold game with live mousetraps snapping at the performer’s toes. That skit is probably funnier after a few beers. Nonetheless, the guys were having such fun it was hard not to love them. – CK/MN [3] |  |
| RIGHT PLACE, WRONG MAN: Another Grant Canyon Mystery: Ryan Gladstone does his take on 1970s spy movies with cheesy nods to film noir, Get Smart and Starsky & Hutch. His character Grant Canyon is an insurance investigator who enjoys a pint, or several. The plot involves a painting, the KGB, the CIA, the FBI and killer sharks. Gladstone’s energy and facility with voices elevates this play from the sublime to the ridiculous. – CK/MN [3] |  |
| Colonial Circus: Two Toronto-based clowns, Shreya Parashar and Sachin Sharma, have received many accolades for their examination of colonialism. As two ‘brown clowns’ they satirise British colonial history and provoke the audience while they’re at it. A blend of script and improvisation, their show successfully navigated the difficult line between humour and discomfort. It was our favourite show of all. – CK/MN [3] |  |
Street Work
In addition to indoor events, the area around the farmer’s market hosts a non-stop array of street performers. This is street theatre of a traditional kind with high calibre acts working for handouts.
If you go…
Next year’s Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival runs from August 12 – 27, 2027. I’m sure that people plan their visit a year in advance, but we simply pitched up and found an AirBnb and bought our tickets à la carte. Coming on the second weekend meant that many of the most popular shows sold out. I’d suggest arriving early and securing a Frequent Fringer Pass. Besides the entertainment, Edmonton has a lively foodie scene with something for everyone. We found fruity cocktails and finger food at Tiki Tiki on Whyte, ate an excellent brunch at Pip, and some of the best Indian food ever at the Virsa Mahal. A vegetarian (and teetotal) Punjabi restaurant north of the river.
