western canada

Oh don't make me choose!

I've only been to fourteen of these places, though. I might not be best qualified to judge.

by name alone: Medicine Hat or High Level

What, is Moose Jaw too played for you? Biggar doesn't make the cut?

Swift Current might have the best name if you realize that that's what Saskatchewan means. Swift Current, Saskatchewan: The OTHER city so nice they named it twice.

I'm a little sad Qu'appelle and Uranium City didn't make the cut.

What a strange, random list. Where'd it come from? What happened to Vancouver and Victoria? Where's Torrington, home of the gopher museum, which is really just a bunch of well-preserved prairie dog road kill stuffed and dressed in dolls' clothes and showcased in a trailer off Highway 2? Where's St Paul, home of the world's first alien landing pad, which is laughably tiny for something that promises to be so epic? And Vulcan! There's no Vulcan, either: the city still desperate for Leonard Nimoy to pay a visit despite his constant refusals! And Black Diamond/Turner Valley, with its ill-fated Creation Science Museum (another museum stuffed into a single room) attempting to undermine the Tyrell Museum half an hour down the highway?

I'm going to have to give this poll a good think-over.

No Vegreville no peace!

http://www.theminorthirds.com/pix-cp-with-vegreville-egg.jpg

i was just looking at my little western canadian road map making the list, mostly including places i've been or want to go. vancouver and victoria were cut off the map and off my list, because they don't belong.

xpost Vegreville's egg? Andrew's duck? Edmonton's ridiculously wasteful giant spinning baseball bat? Calgary's network of +15s? Drumheller's giant T-Rex? Beaverlodge's beaver? There's that giant sausage somewhere, too. And a giant mushroom in Vilna. Oh and Medicine Hat has a tipi.

there should be a poll for Alberta's campiest 'world's biggest' landmark

actually that's a pretty impressive list if it's places you've been/want to go. I wouldn't want to go to most of them, well done

I bought a Loren MazzaCane Connors CD in Lloydminster for $6.

Because it was there.

I guess it's no surprise which I had to vote for.

http://www.theminorthirds.com/pix-moose-jaw-cp-and-mac.jpg

founded by poorly prepared british anglicans, who were against drunkenness and non-white immigration to the new world, lloydminster later became the nastiest city in western canada after fort mcmurray.

Isn't half of Lloydminster in another time zone? It's a bit of a tourist mecca.

Well, it's in both AB and SK. I could dig up the pic of me at the border if necessary.

I think the AB side is the good side, but the SK has most of the fertilizer storage.

Banff, easily

You hate Jasper.

I voted for Swift Current but only because I was born there.

I like Kamloops a lot but mostly because it's called "Kamloops".

I'm in Brandon right now, and you should all count yourselves lucky that you're not.

People laughed when I said I had been through Brandon.

It's really not a very good place. I'm going to have to try and make it out to Steinbach for vereneki and schmauntfat before I move.

oh this is non-coastal western canada
then i vote kamploops
which i can never not typo so that's just how it goes

wow. every non canuck is going to choose either Dawson Creek or Prince Albert.

because i'm sure the topic of western canada will interest them all a lot.

I've been to nearly every one of those places. Grew up in Prince Albert, but gotta vote for Saskatoon.

Lloydminster's not a tourist mecca, it's just a place tourists pass through on their way to places far, far more interesting.

Just north of there, though, is the real tourist mecca:

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/images/xc/XABGLEpyrogy_newlon.jpg

It's more of a tourist Medina.

lol medina

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

voted "flin flon" because that's where my dad is from and i used to visit there a lot as a kid. followed closely by minnedosa (grandparents lived there, and there was one of those awesome 50s "the town of tomorrow...today!" billboards outside town), and "the pas", just for the name alone...

does manitoba count as "western canada" though? central, surely.

The sign that indicates the longitudinal centre of Canada is a bit east of Winnipeg, so most of MB is western Canada.

I love that sign in Minnedosa, Rob! The family of one of my best friends has a cabin at Brandosa and we spent a lot of time there growing up. It's a beautiful town.

I haven't been to Minnedosa since I was a kid, but I have fond memories of it: hiking up a big hill (Indian Hill?) looking for fossils and arrowheads, the dam, riding my bike through town... it was a far cry from Scarborough!

i only know minnedosa from the classic rock festival. camping, lots of drunk dudes with generators, an ac/dc cover band, nazareth, and kim mitchell.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The town's name is taken from the lead character in a paperback novel, The Sunless City by J. E. Preston Muddock. A prospector named Tom Creighton found the book in the wilderness. The story is about a man named Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin, who piloted a submarine through a bottomless lake. Upon passing through a hole lined with gold, he found a strange underground world.

When Tom Creighton discovered a rich vein of almost pure copper, he thought of the book and called it Flin Flon's mine, mercifully shortening the name. The town that sprung up around the mine adopted the name. Flin Flon shares with Tarzana, California, the distinction of being named after a character in a science fiction novel.

The character of "Flinty" is of such importance to the identity of the city that the local Chamber of Commerce commissioned the minting of a $3.00 coin, which was considered legal tender within the city during the year following its issue. A statue representing Flinty was designed by €cartoonist Al Capp and is one of the points of interest of the city.

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/uncyclopedia/images/thumb/b/b8/Flinty_Statue_2.jpg/300px-Flinty_Statue_2.jpg

NO VOTES FOR CHURCHILL. POLAR BEARS R CRYING

i vote Lake Louise

fuck, no one told me about this!

Road Trip 2 Flin Flon

impressed by north battleford getting a vote. hometown of wade belak, alistair macleod, and joni mitchell.

I'm from Saskatoon originally, so I can say this: Is there a town in ALL OF CANADA that hasn't at one point claimed to be Joni Mitchell's hometown?

Also, N/B was the capital of the Northwest Territories for a while, back when NWT was MASSIVE. I love it there.

I didn't even realize you were still on here! Which mostly just goes to show that I don't check that other board much at all anymore. Sigh.

North Battleford: Slightly more charm than Yorkton.

I'm not, really. I peruse infrequently.

This thread feels like a reunion now.

2003/04 feels like a lifetime ago

Yes, though it's also hard to believe it's been five years since I was in Moose Jaw.

I'm thinking I will go back next summer, if I can convince someone to go with. And assuming I get into the PhD program.

Flin Flon takes it! I have a picture of me on that statue sitting in Flinty's hand. My cousin also briefly had his thumb. My late uncle was the 'sheriff' of the town. I know a lot about Flin Flon.