Monday, August 7, 2017

Heritage Day Festival, Hawrelak Park, Edmonton, Alberta, Monday August 7, 2017

On my early morning walk, I came across this store that celebrates products being made in Canada.




There was also a great sunrise, as there were enough clouds to make a colorful sky.  And the clouds did product rain, both a little on my walk and later when we were at the Heritage Day Festival.


The first Monday of August is a provincial holiday in some, but not all, provinces in Canada.  It is celebrated in Alberta, so after breakfast, Patty and I took a taxi to Hawrelak Park - it is one of a series of connected parks that line both sides of the North Saskatchewan River, and all of the parks include a total of 170 km of trails.  The park has beautiful gardens at the entrance and huge (three foot tall) flower pots and hanging plants at all the light poles.




There were more than 100 booths/pavilions representing nations from around the world - with products, art and food.  Food tickets were $1 CAD each and different samples of food were available, most for 2 - 6 tickets.  We had Japanese sesame noodles and chicken.  Patty had vegetarian pad Thai.  And I had Eritrian somosas, both vegetarian and meat.






We saw performers from many countries - but the rain caused many to be delayed or cancelled.  


After a couple of hours, we decided to hike the Forest Capital Trail - it parallels the river and completely circles the park and the adjacent golf course.  The route caused us to also go through Emily Murphy Park, named after a local women's rights activist.





This guy was not the least bothered by people as he sat there eating his lunch.


There were lots of trees and bushes with berries of many colors - red, yellow, orange, white, blue and black.


Just before circling back into Hawrelak Park, we passed the driving range for the golf course and noticed that the Canada Geese were not at all bothered by the flying golf balls.


Back in the park, we continued to explore the different nations' pavilions - one of interest was on Arab culture and history.  This is one of several panels outside the Arab history pavilion.


After five or so hours and more than six miles of walking (with rain much of the time), we called a day and headed back to our hotel - we knew that we would have an early morning wake up and departure to catch the train to Jasper.


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