National Trust Conference 2015 Heritage Bus Tour

Take a journey to one of ’s most beautiful and historic regions – the Crowsnest Pass.

Date: Sunday, October 25, 2015 (8:00am - 8:30pm) Departing From: Fairmont Palliser Hotel (, Alta.)

Cost: $95 for conference delegates

Schedule 8:00 a.m. - Departure from Palliser Hotel, Calgary Travel down the famous Cowboy Trail – with spectacular view of Cowboy Country. The ride will take you through 30 kilometers of the famous Waldron Ranch. Learn more about the historic Ranch and its ground-breaking conservation partnership with the Nature Conservancy of Canada

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 am – Frank Slide Interpretive Centre On April 29, 1903, 90 million tons of limestone cascaded from the eastern face of Turtle Mountain partially destroying the small mining town of Frank, NWT and burying the surrounding landscape for 3 square kilometers. Learn about this amazing event in the award winning documentary “On the Edge of Destruction,” and view the exhibits, including the new Hillcrest Mine Disaster exhibit. Spectacular views of an awe-inspiring landscape await you at the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre. The Frank Slide is a Provincial Historic Site.

11:45 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Catered Luncheon at the Coleman Senior’s Centre (originally the Coleman Mine Union Hospital) The historic Miner’s Union Hospital, a Provincial Historic Resource, is at 7805 – 18th Avenue in Coleman, next to the Crowsnest Museum. It is owned by the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass and has recently been restored for continued use as a drop-in centre by the Coleman Seniors. This project is a good example of the appropriate re-use of a heritage building which now satisfies a modern-day community need in a comfortable and stylish manner. Lunch provided by Country Encounters.

1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Walking Heritage Tour through Historic Downtown Coleman to Crowsnest Museum and Alberta Provincial Police Barracks The Crowsnest Museum is an integral part of the heritage of Crowsnest Pass. It is operated by the Crowsnest Historical Society, which reopened the 1936 former Coleman High School building as a museum in 1985. Extensive indoor and outdoor exhibits showcase the social, architectural and coal mining history of the Crowsnest Pass, and the museum also hosts the region’s historical archives. Next door to the Museum sits the Alberta Provincial Police (APP) Barracks, the site of one of the most notorious crimes committed in Alberta. After APP Corporal Stephen Lawson was shot and killed in front of this building on September 21, 1922, a bootlegger named Emilio Picariello and his accomplice Florence Lassandro were convicted of the murder and sentenced to death by hanging. Lassandro thus became the first woman to be executed in Canada since 1899 and the only woman to be hanged in Alberta.

2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. - Board bus for a guided bus tour through the historic communities of the Crowsnest Pass Travel east along the Crowsnest Heritage Driving Route, on a guided bus tour of the unique built heritage and history of the Crowsnest Pass communities. With stops at sites such as the Gushul Studio and Blairmore Courthouse, both Provincial Historic Resources – both excellent examples of adaptive reuse - and the Dunlop Guns in Frank, which serves as a memorial for the three sons of Daniel Dunlop Sr. lost during WW1. Continue on along the Old Frank Road at the base of Turtle Mountain, through the heart of the Frank Slide, to the small community of Hillcrest where you can view the National Monument at the Hillcrest Cemetery where the majority of the men killed in the worst underground mine disaster in Canadian history are laid to rest in two mass graves.

3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m. - Tour the Bellevue Underground Mine Don a miner’s helmet and experience what a real coal mine was like. Enthusiastic and knowledgeable guides at the Bellevue Underground Mine describe a miner’s life and the intricacies of the room-and-pillar method of coal mining on this one-of-a-kind experience.

4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. - Depart for Fort MacLeod on Bus Packaged supper provided by Country Encounters to enjoy on the bus ride.

5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. - Fort Macleod - presentation highlighting the legacy/on-going of this Main Street Demonstration project and the Provincial Historic Area.

6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. - Trip back to Calgary along Highway 2.