Six Extra-Large Attractions to See in The Lakeland

07-Mar-2018

All the wide-open space in Alberta’s Lakeland region has inspired towns and hamlets to get creative with jumbo-sized statues, monuments and Alberta tourist attractions. If you’re looking for things to do in Canada’s Lakeland then pack a wide-angle lens and check them out:

1) UFO Landing Pad

This Alberta tourist attraction is the world’s first and only purpose-built landing pad for extraterrestrial visitors was built as part of the town’s centennial projects in 1967. A plaque on the striking concrete platform says that it was built as ‘a symbol of our faith that mankind will maintain the outer universe free from national wars and strife’. Hey, it was the sixties.

2) World’s Largest Ukranian Sausage

Towering over the town of Mundare is a Ukranian kubasa the size of a whale shark, erected to honour Stawnichy’s Meat Processing (their motto: ‘hard to say, hard to beat’), one of the town’s notable success stories. After you get your picture you’re a short walk from Stawnichy’s main location, so stop by to stock up on meats, perogies and cabbage rolls.

3) Glendon’s Giant Perogy

Not to be outdone in terms of their devotion to Ukrainian cuisine, the tiny village of Glendon honours the old country’s finest export with a 6,000-pound perogy. When it was first built tourists were a little confused about what they were seeing, so a fork was added by the town’s mayor/school bus driver, Johnny Demienko. If looking at it whets your appetite, it’s right by the town’s Perogy Cafe.

4) Vilna’s Giant Mushrooms

Three colossal fungi, weighing 18,000 pounds might have visitors asking whether this was made in the sixties too (nope- 1993), but they make sense when you know Vilna’s geography and history. The ground is perfect for mushrooms, so early settlers and their indigenous predecessors often used them in their traditional food. You’ll still find plenty of edible fungi in the area from Spring through Fall, but if you don’t want to take your chances then there’s the Roaring Thunder Saloon at the Vilna Hotel.

5) Giant Peter Fidler Statue

Fur trader and Hudson Bay surveyor Peter Fidler is commemorated in this unique statue. Rather than being a traditional stone carving, the ‘statue’ is a relief cut from a 32-foot high wooden stockade fence. The whole thing was carved by chainsaw. If you’re looking to eat after a day of finding Alberta tourist attractions in Canada’s Lakeland, Taste Buds restaurant is a surprising find: a high-quality Chinese restaurant in a tiny Albertan town.

6) CFB Jets

They may be full-sized as opposed to massively enlarged, but a CF-18 Hornet fighter-bomber that once took to the skies above Cold Lake is still a sight to see. If the jets on the ground aren’t providing an immediate thrill then look up and wait: there are real CF-18s above Cold Lake’s skies all the time.

If you photograph one of these behemoth Alberta Tourist Attractions then tag it with #AdventurefulAlberta and we’ll be sure to blow it up big on social media!