It’s our second in our series of videos about our stay in the badlands of Drumheller. This time, we explore sites along the Red Deer River valley, starting in the ghost town of Dorothy with its iconic abandoned grain elevator.

From there we visit the Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site. The Drumheller area was home to 139 coal mines. The Atlas has the last remaining wooden tipple in Canada. We don’t do the underground tour on this visit but instead opt for the surface train tour conducted while riding along in a 100-year-old coal car.

And, we wrap our day at the East Coulee School Museum, a wonderful small town museum. The school building opened in 1930. While most rural schools at that time were simple one room affairs, the East Coulee School opened with four classrooms. This shows how much of a boomtown East Coulee was in its day. It’s population peaked near 4000 in the 1940s, comprised mainly of coal miners and their families. The mines closed as home heating moved to natural gas and the railroads moved to diesel and the town dwindled. Today it is home to about 160 people.

As always, thanks for coming along for the ride!

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If you missed the first video in this series: https://youtu.be/Dbm6rN5OibE

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