“Prairie Mountains” was to be the title of my third book, after Catalogue Houses: Eatons’ and Others and Henry’s Handbook of Soil and Water. The objective was to expel the myth that the Prairie provinces are one flat plain from Winnipeg to Edmonton. It would also talk about the people and resources in the various upland, hilly areas.
Alas, it never happened. I could never clearly identify what the niche market was and how to access such a market. For the mass market, a self-published author must deal with huge national bookstore chains. That does not work well — I am too small and they are too big. So, this Grainews piece will tell the story.
The Winnipeg area of Manitoba is flat, the Regina and Rosetown Plains of Saskatchewan are flat, Edmonton and other areas of Alberta are flat. However, along the way there are many significant, hilly, upland areas that we will call mountains.
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What follows is more information about the mountains and others not identified on Figure 1.
The Hand Hills east of Drumheller, Alta., are so named because the hills are in the shape of a hand in air photos or detailed topographic maps. The annual Hand Hills rodeo is almost as old as the Calgary Stampede. The Cypress Hills straddle the Saskatchewan-Alberta border just north of the U.S. boundary and are obvious by the colour. The highest elevation in the Cypress Hills is as high as Banff, Alta. The Cypress Hills are the oasis of the dry, southwest area of Saskatchewan and the southeast area of Alberta.
So, there you have it. There is much flat land on the Canadian Prairies but there are many “Prairie mountains” to break the monotony as you drive through them. And they all have a story to tell.
