DRUMHELLER

To explore the areas outside of the limited Urban/Surburban Alberta, one must take to the wide lane of the highway, travelling for many hours with enormous, gridded fields and farmland on either side of the road. It seems endless, and compared to road travel in Great Britain, Alberta feels like unchartered territory. The scenic route is a long route, but when you pass the muted colours, prairies and canyons on the way to small town Drumheller, you are no longer in a Canadian province, but you really are in Smallville, Kansas, 1946.

The descriptions of Superman The Movie's have become common cliche and largely similar in their comparisons to great oil work or a fine wine, so let us take a look at other great geographical marvels surrounding the town of Drumheller.

Drumheller is dinosaur town; it has it's own state-of-the-art dinosaur museum, it has been the site of dinosaur bone discovery and it has it's talest landmark is a concrete moulded T-rex dwarfing it's tiny skyline. And it's a visitors attraction.

Although not captured in the movie, the Hoo-Doos of the Drumheller and East Coulee area are an amazing feat of natural art. Erosion based rock sculptures much like those seen in the Roadrunner cartoons, the Hoo-Doos have stood for hundreds of years, photogenically accomapanied by knock-out blue skies.
Equally impressive is the incredible HorseThief Canyon. An experience that cannot exist through written words.

And then there is the Coulees themselves, which can be seen during the pan around shot at Jonathan Kent's funeral; eroded hills leading to huge valleys and canyons. Unfortunately, the Kent farm as seen in the film nolonger exists, and the land surrounding it has physically changed due to land privatisation and erosion, and additionally, the unrecognisable land cannot be accessed by path anymore. Times change, and while the sight has changed, the same feel, the same farm and the same prairie land remain, preserving the lush atmosphere of Smallville.

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