A Loop Drive in Photos: Calgary, Nanton & the Cowboy Highway

Last weekend my husband and I drove a loop that took us from Calgary to Nanton, a pleasant community about 75 kilometers south, then west on rolling back roads over the scenic northern section of the Porcupine Hills to the Cowboy Highway. After a short diversion to Chain Lakes Provincial Park we headed back to Calgary on the Cowboy Highway through a series of small resource and ranch based communities.

These are scenes from our January drive. I think we’ll do the same one in the spring when the fields are green.

Alberta’s grain elevators are a dying western icon. In 1934 there were 1755 grain elevators; the count in 2005 showed that only 180 remain. For more information about grain elevators you can visit the Alberta Grain Elevator Society. Their mission is to promote the history, preservation and development of prairie grain elevators and flour mills.

The grain elevators are as French architect Le Corbusier stated in 1922, the ultimate example in architecture of form following function with the elevator’s stark simplicity and unadorned geometric shape.

Also in Nanton you’ll find the Nanton Lancaster Society Air Museum. It opened in 1992 to honour those who served in the Bomber Command during World War II. Inside the museum, where admission is by donation, you can see all sorts of memorabilia but also full scale period airplanes including a Lancaster bomber – and if you don’t mind tight places you’re welcome to crawl inside it.

Planes continue to be lovingly reconstructed by volunteers – 46 showed up on a recent Tuesday evening, according to Dennis, one of the very knowledgeable volunteers.

Leaving Nanton, after a piece of delicious rhubarb pie at the Wild Thyme Cafe, located next to the grain elevators, we headed west across the Porcupine Hills.

You have the option once you reach the Cowboy Highway (at the intersection of Highway 533 from Nanton and Highway 22) to visit Chain Lakes Provincial Park, just minutes down a side road from the intersection. On Saturday we saw about 50 ice fisherman, and three for four Ice Cubes – the name given to the tent like warming structure.

The loop drive is about 230 kilometers in total. You could easily fill a whole day if you took the time to wander through all the small towns. It’s worth stopping to have lunch at one of the numerous cafes to get a dose of local flavour. I now have an invitation to pick up some rhubarb plants in Vulcan (another small community famous as the childhood town of the Sutter boys), come the spring, after a pleasant discussion with a Mrs. Shirley Brown at our lunchtime stop.

In summer there are more roads to discover that take you into the mountains off of the Cowboy Trail, something we’d also consider doing on our bikes.

This is one drive definitely worth doing.

The Route:

From the Highway 22X overpass drive 68 kilometers south on Highway 2 to Nanton. Turn right onto Highway 533 out of Nanton and follow it 38 kilometers to the intersection with the Cowboy Highway (Highway 22). Drive 25 kilometers north on Highway 22, 31 kilometers east on Highway 540 and then north on Highway 2A to meet Highway 2 near High River. Continue north to return to Calgary.

Leigh McAdam
HikeBikeTravel

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