We ventured out of Edmonton one day to explore. We visited the town of Vegreville and were pleasantly surprised to learn that this area is one of the largest and oldest Ukrainian settlements in Canada. The Ukrainian immigration to the prairies began in the 1890s. We visited this beautiful giant sculpture of a Ukrainian-style Easter Egg.
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| Vegreville Pysanka |
Per a local recommendation, we drove to Baba's Bistro in Mundare, Alberta for a Ukrainian lunch. We had a delicious homemade meal featuring the stars of the menu: authentic pierogi paired with a side of savory sausage!
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| Ukrainian lunch |
Speaking of sausage, we drove a block from the restaurant for a quick pic of the "World's Largest Sausage". The Mundare Sausage is a 42 foot tall statue that stands as a tribute to Stawnichy's Meat Processing, a Mundare sausage factory famous for its kobasa.
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| Mundare Sausage |
Our afternoon was spent driving through Elk Island National Park. This park is key in North American bison conservation and home to both plains and wood bison. I think most of the wildlife was taking an afternoon nap; however, we did spot one bison snacking and some ducks "skinny dipping".
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| Bison having a snack! |
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| Ducks taking a dip! |
Another day we went to the Art Gallery of Alberta and then drove around town looking at quirky public art!
Art Gallery of Alberta:
The Art Gallery of Alberta building was designed by the architect Randall Stout. Stout juxtaposed angular windows against a winding steel ribbon that references the forms of the North Saskatchewan River and Aurora Borealis.
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| Art Gallery of Alberta |
The Art Gallery has a collection of over 6,000 works, with a focus on Canadian abstract painting and sculpture. My favorite exhibit was this one:
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| Temporal: Catherine Burgess & Alison Rossiter |
This work by Catherine Burgess is fascinating in how the various angles offer difference in perception and the interaction between absence and presence. Which are the actual lines and which are illusions?
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| Temporal: work by Catherine Burgess |
While we were in Downtown Edmonton we saw some noteworthy murals.
The SunRise is a 12-story residential building in Edmonton. It has been awarded a Guinness World Record for featuring the world's largest solar panel artwork.
The vibrant mural, called The Land We Share, was created by Indigenous artist Lance Cardinal and depicts animals from both Cree and Chinese cultures.
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| The SunRise: The Land We Share by Lance Cardinal |
Magpies are considered an iconic and native species in Edmonton, Alberta, and were named the city's official bird in May 2025.
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| Magpie |
This mural beautifully depicts the city’s official bird:
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| City Slickers by Ian Mulder |
In search of MORE public art....
At a local park we found this colorful sculpture:
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| Vaulted Willow by Marc Fornes & THEVERYMANY |
The artist, Marc Fornes, describes his sculpture Vaulted Willow as an “architectural folly,” evoking the decorative, but often non-practical structures that adorned the great estates of Europe in the 18th & 19th centuries. The colors and shape invite one to stop, explore and play within.
On the side of a busy road, near a bridge, we found these metal mounds. 🤔
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| Talus Dome by Ball Nogues Studio |
Before the bridge was constructed, "talus forms" of earth existed. These mounds of broken rock debris found at the base of rocky slopes were altered by the bridge construction.
Talus Dome is composed of nearly 1,000 hand-crafted polished stainless steel spheres. They assume the shape of an abstracted mound that reflects the sky, the weather and the river of cars that pass by it. Talus Dome is both a sculpture in the landscape and a mirror to the landscape.
Speaking of landscapes, our journey continues to Banff, home to picturesque glacial lakes and majestic soaring peaks.
