In token of the love which thou hast shown
For this wide land of freedom, I have named
A province vast, and for its beauty famed,
By thy dear name to be hereafter known.
Alberta shall it be! Her fountains thrown
From alps unto three oceans, to all men
Shall vaunt her loveliness e’en now; and when,
Each little hamlet to a city grown,
And numberless as blades of prairie grass,
Or the thick leaves in distant forest bower,
Great peoples hear the giant currents pass,
Still shall the waters, bringing wealth and power,
Speak the loved name, — the land of silver springs —
Worthy the daughter of our English kings.
— John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, “On The New Province, ‘Alberta.’”
The Province of Alberta received its name from Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848–1939), fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and wife of John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, Governor General of Canada (1878–83) and author of the above lines. His Lordship was understandably proud of the new province’s name.
In our last outing, I spoke of the unique history and governance of the Province. Except for a train ride through the Canadian West from Toronto to Vancouver in 2015 (and a brief stay at Jasper Park Lodge, which allowed me to see the Royal Retreat there, Lake Maligne, and the town itself), I had not spent any time in Alberta. But in the Summer of 2025, my friends the Goudmans wanted to show me their home. This resulted in (thanks to Jasper Lodge’s igniting an interest in Alberta’s grand country lodge hotels) trips to Chateau Lake Louise, the Banff Springs Hotel, and the Prince of Wales Hotel at Waterton Lakes National Park, as well as such provincial curiosities as the World’s Largest Kielbasa and the Star Trek-themed town of Vulcan. They also brought to me more down-to-earth attractions like the Northwest Mounted Police Museum at Fort Macleod and the Dinosaur Museum at Drumheller. It was a memorable trip in every way.
But this August, my friends were determined to try to outdo the classic beauty we had seen the previous year with a tour of northern Alberta, with its pioneer history and its astonishing combination of countryside — forest, mountains, and subarctic. The distances in the north country are enormous, as we shall see. My hosts picked me up at Calgary International Airport on August 18. The next day we drove about 8 hours up to the Peace River Country.
Peace River is quite an amazing place. It is the furthest northern area of farming in North America; although the region was opened for settlement by the Dominion government in 1910, settlers only began to arrive in great numbers six years later with the coming of the railroad. Most of these were impoverished French Canadians from the Province of Quebec. Although there were only 100 growing days a year, thanks to the northern latitude, those days featured nearly 24 hours of sunlight in which to work — and for the crops to grow. Aware of my own Francophone heritage, my friends were keen on my seeing the place.
Having left early, we arrived in the late afternoon. Checking into our hotel, we then went to a late afternoon Mass at Our Lady of Peace. There were in that congregation a great many Filipinos, and the Mass was in English — just as with so many non-Hispanic parishes in Los Angeles. They sang Nicola Montani’s hymn, Mother of Christ. One of the things that has always caught my attention is when, in 1898, the Americans conquered the Philippines, they arranged with the Vatican (as the price for all of the Church’s property being returned) for the rapid de-Hispanicisation of the Church in the country, complete with the appointment of Irish-American bishops. One result of this is that many pre-Vatican II hymns popular in Irish American parishes before the 1950s are still heard in Filipino communities — so it proves in Peace River.
The Peace River Museum is housed in the old Northern Alberta Railway Station, through which so many of the early settlers made their arrival in the area. As is so often the case with such institutions, seeing World historical events through local eyes is endlessly fascinating — as is seeing what they saw in times you remember. Downtown Peace River itself is an interesting and typical small Alberta town. But the views of the river itself are amazing — not least the Sagitawa Lookout, strategically placed outside town on Highway 744.
We took a quick run out to Grimshaw’s Lac Cardinal Regional Pioneer Village Museum, which gives a very good picture of how the early settlers lived between the Two Wars. It was actually quite inspiring to see how they made do with necessities in a difficult area — and yet managed to have what appears to have been a full social life. Seeing them so self-reliant, devout, and patriotic in this remote outpost, one could imagine how ethnic tradition, love of country, loyalty to the King-Emperor, and pride in being part of what was then touted as “the greatest Empire on earth” could all co-exist in their hearts.
Driving south through McLennan, we stopped at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, seat of the Archdiocese of Grouard-McLennan. As the Cathedral’s patron—that of French Canadians—and the first half of the Archdiocesan name imply, this area too was settled by Francophones from Quebec. Grouard was named after pioneer bishop Émile Jean-Baptiste Marie Grouard, O.M.I. (1840–1931), who evangelised Indians, served the Métis, and encouraged — as did so many other priests — French-Canadians from Quebec to come to the Canadian West rather than New England. In terms of numbers, this was a failure: for every single Québécois who came West, eighteen emigrated to the mills of the American Northeast: roughly 50,000 vs. 900,000 (including four of my own great grandparents). Sitting in the cathedral, I mused about what might have been had those numbers been reversed.
Driving down to High Prairie, we stopped by the High Prairie and Area Museum — and once again were thrilled by how well the collection was organised, and what it revealed about local history. I engaged the gentleman at the desk in conversation, and all went well, until we discussed the supposed mass graves at the residential schools run by the Church. After the supposed scandals were announced in May of 2021, at least 33 churches across Canada were completely destroyed and dozens more vandalised in a wave of fires. Then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attacked the Church for it, and Pope Francis apologised. But as I pointed out to the fellow, subsequent investigations had indeed turned up a great deal of organic material at the supposed grave sites — which turned out to be former latrines. “I still wouldn’t discount all those memories,” he coolly replied. “Even if they all are true, how does it justify burning churches today? How oppressed do I have to be before you think it’s okay for me to burn your house?” I asked. There was no answer to that, but the temperature dropped severely. Afterwards, our spirits were restored at the nearby Boondocks Grill.
We put up next at the very modern Pomeroy Hotel and Conference Centre in Grande Prairie. It was a good anchor in the present for the visits to the past we would make the following day. At the Grande Prairie Museum and Heritage Village, as we had been at Lac Cardinal, we were transported back to a time when pioneer Albertans were absolutely sure that under God they lived in the greatest town in the greatest province in the greatest dominion of the greatest Empire in the World. Their churches, school, and library all repeated that message in different ways — in a manner analogous to those of our own republic in the same era. One can only contrast that with the recent referendum, in which 25% of Albertans registered their desire to leave the Dominion. We then drove to the further past in Wembley, where the Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum has a huge number of exhibits on the great thunder lizards and paleontology and prehistory in general. As it happens, my host is something of an expert on creationism, and provided an interesting and useful counterpoint to the various explanations given by the museum descriptions.
We resumed our trek southward to Grande Cache. There we put up at the Grande Cache Hotel. Where the great Canadian and American Park Lodges have a stirring architecture all their own, the Grande Cache Hotel is a resort planted firmly in the 1970s. This is in no way a criticism; some of the resorts and restaurants of that era had a distinct charm, with interior stained glass and heavy wall hangings based upon local interests, and this is abundantly true of the Grande Cache. Their High Country Steak & Ale Lounge took me back to my teenagerhood in the best way imaginable, and their steaks were superb. The local Catholic Church, Holy Cross, was only built in 1979. Of log construction, its rustic charm reveals its history as an Indian mission.
From Grande Cache, we drove south via Mount Robson Provincial Park. We gazed at the cloudy mountain and crossed the frontier — just — into British Columbia. Then we drove on to Jasper, whose downtown was saved from the wildfires that consumed some of its suburbs a few years ago. I was saddened that the Whistlers Inn had closed the wildlife museum it used to have. We lunched at the Athabasca Inn, dating back to 1921, when Jasper was just coming into its own as a resort. O’Shea’s, as its restaurant is called, is at once elegant and comfortable. Once finished we drove off to Jasper Lodge, which was quite as impressive as I recalled from 2015.
Our last stop was Calgary. There we saw Calgary’s Military Museums, which are billed as a “Complex of 8 museums covering naval, army, and air force history, plus a gallery about human conflict.” It was quite inspiring, showing the many ways in which Canadians have served their Monarch and Country. But the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Museum was as much a Regimental Chapel as a museum. That sort of institution, common in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, is unknown in the United States, due to our lack of an established or quasi-established Church. But this one even boasted a beautiful stained-glass window of Christ the King. It was extremely moving, in its linking of the sacrifice of the soldier with that of Christ.
This theme was continued in a sense at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church. The local Ordinariate church, it was built in 1911 as an Anglo-Catholic parish in the Anglican Church of Canada. A century later its members voted to become Catholic, and in 2012 it became the first Ordinariate parish in the country. It offers the majestic Ordinariate Liturgy, and its heritage is everywhere. It has a moving war memorial to its parishioners who died for King and Country in the two world wars, flanked by the Union Jack and the old Canadian Red Ensign, the flags under which they fought and died. The Mass was a beautiful sacrifice in which both Pope and King were duly prayed for.
It was a fitting ending to this odyssey. Lovely as this trip was, it raised many questions of identity — Catholic, Anglican, French, British, Canadian, and American. It shows that events a ways south 250 years ago continue to echo through not only the United States, but all the Commonwealth Realms. The only true reconciliation of it all can be through Christ and His Church.
