New 4K video now live on the KassDays channel:
Stepping Into History at Fort Macleod: Historic NWMP Outpost (Canada)
In October 1874, after a long march across the prairies, a column of North-West Mounted Police under Assistant Commissioner James F. Macleod reached the Oldman River and began building the first permanent police post in what is now southern Alberta. Their job was to end the whiskey trade, establish Canadian authority, and keep the peace. The town that grew around that post is still here. The wooden watchtowers, palisades, and reconstructed buildings that visitors walk through today bring that moment back into view.
This week’s video is a full walkthrough of the Fort Museum of the North-West Mounted Police and First Nations Interpretive Centre in Fort Macleod. We start at the entrance with the fort’s resident goats, climb the wooden boardwalks and watchtowers for a look across the compound and prairie, then go inside the historic buildings — the replica chapel, the blacksmith shop, and rooms filled with artifacts from the 1800s.
What you’ll see in the video
The tour follows a natural path through the site:

• A first look at the goats that live near the entrance
• The climb up the boardwalks and into the wooden watchtowers
• Views over the palisade and grounds
• The replica chapel
• The blacksmith shop
• Preserved artifacts and period rooms that show everyday life at an early NWMP post

The video is 11 minutes and 23 seconds and is shot to give you a sense of walking the site yourself — the creak of the boards, the height of the towers, and the small details inside the buildings.
A short history of the place
Fort Macleod was the first permanent NWMP post in the far west. The original 1874 fort sat on an island in the Oldman River. Spring floods made that location impractical, so in 1883–84 the force moved the barracks to higher ground on the south bank. A town grew up around both sites and became a service centre for the ranching country.
The museum you visit today is not an exact replica of either original fort. It is a living-history compound built by the Fort Macleod Historical Association, with eight buildings, more than 11,000 artifacts, two of the oldest structures in the area still on their original sites, and an outdoor compound of watchtowers, boardwalks, and period shops. It also includes a Blackfoot gallery and interpretive work that places the NWMP story alongside the history of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) on Treaty 7 territory.
The site is easy to combine with two other strong stops: Fort Macleod’s Provincial Historic Area (Alberta’s first designated historic downtown, with sandstone and brick buildings from the pre-World War I boom) and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a UNESCO World Heritage Site a short drive away.
If you want to visit in person
Fort Macleod is roughly a 1-hour-50-minute to 2-hour drive south of Calgary on Highway 2. The museum address is 219 Jerry Potts Blvd.
Hours change with the season. In summer the grounds and galleries are generally open daily; shoulder and winter seasons have reduced days and hours. Check nwmpmuseum.com before you go for current times, admission, and any special events (the NWMP Musical Ride typically runs in summer, and the chapel is sometimes used for weddings and gatherings).
Allow at least an hour or two if you want to climb the towers, walk the compound, and look at the indoor exhibits. The goats are usually near the entrance. The site is compact and family-friendly.
Watch the video
The full walk-through is on YouTube now:
Stepping Into History at Fort Macleod: Historic NWMP Outpost (Canada)
Whether you are planning a drive along southern Alberta’s historic routes or just want to see the place from home, this is a straightforward look at one of the province’s most important early outposts.
New long-form videos land on Wednesdays. Shorts that link to the main stories go up on Sundays. If you enjoy these trips through western Canada, subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss the next one.
See you on the road.
Kass
KassDays
#FortMacleod #AlbertaHistory #KassDays #NWMP

A Short History of the Demolition Derby | How Canada Fits In

The Demolition Derby did not start in Canada. It started in the United States, then jumped the border and found a permanent home at small-town fairs, ag society grounds, and local tracks from British Columbia to Quebec.
The exact first American event is still argued. Promoter Don Basile staged a “full-contact” race at Carrell Speedway in Gardena, California, in 1946–47. Stock-car promoter Larry Mendelsohn is more often credited with turning the idea into the modern last-car-running format at Islip Speedway on Long Island in the late 1950s. By then the phrase “demolition derby” was already in common use — Merriam-Webster dates the term to about 1953 — and similar smash-ups had been appearing at county fairs even earlier.

The idea crossed into Canada in the 1960s. One of the earliest well-documented big Canadian shows happened in Vancouver in July 1966. Members of the Satellites Motorsport Club — Bruce Smith, Doug Harder, Wayne Webb and Ernie Pederson — needed a fundraiser after a custom-car show lost money. Smith had seen a derby while honeymooning in San Diego. Harder suggested Callister Park, the outdoor stadium across from the Pacific National Exhibition. They scoured used-car lots, signed up about 100 drivers, and drew nearly 4,000 spectators. Last car moving won $50. A month later 110 cars and 6,000 people showed up. By August 1967 they had 134 cars — then billed as the biggest derby in Western Canada. Those Callister Park events ran through 1970. The PNE later built a derby bowl and kept the tradition going into the 1980s.

Vancouver was not the only early stop. Toronto-area tracks such as Pinecrest Speedway were already running “Wreck-Um Races” as special events in the 1950s. In Hope, B.C., Brigade Days began in 1968 and the demolition derby became part of that weekend. Organizers have called it the longest continuously running derby in B.C., and possibly in Canada. From there the format spread the same way it had in the States: Lions clubs, agricultural societies, and volunteer committees putting old cars in a dirt ring outlined with straw bales. Parkside, Saskatchewan started in 1981. Vauxhall, Alberta added combine demolition in 1995. Small towns across the Prairies and Ontario still treat derby night as the highlight of fair weekend.

The sport’s Canadian character is local. Clubs and ag societies run it. Prize money is modest. The cars are whatever still has a frame. The crowd is neighbours, kids, and people who drove in from the next town. That is the same spirit you see at the Crossfield Elks Demolition Derby — heavy hits, steaming radiators, lawnmower races, a human mud race, and the moment someone actually knocks a car over.

Watch the full KassDays video from Crossfield here: https://youtu.be/PX5NcGl9LlY  
#DemoltionDerby #SmashupDerby #CanadianDemolitionDerby #KassDays 

It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone Knocks a Car Over
Crossfield Demolition Derby | New KassDays Video
New video is live on the KassDays YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/PX5NcGl9LlY

We headed to the Crossfield Rodeo Grounds for one of Southern Alberta’s loudest, messiest, most unscripted local events — the Crossfield Elks demolition derby. No polished TV package. No scripted drama. Just real drivers, real metal, and a dirt pit that does not care about paint jobs.
The title says it all. It’s all fun and games until someone knocks a car over.  That is exactly what happened.

Heavy American iron piled into each other until radiators steamed, fenders folded, and one car ended up on its roof. Between the main heats you get the extras that make this event feel like a small-town fair that never quite grew up: lawnmower racing tearing around the same dirt, and a wild human mud race that sends people sliding through the same muck the cars just tore up.

The pink-and-blue mash-up in the thumbnail is the kind of hit you feel from the stands. Cars built for one purpose only — keep moving after everyone else is dead in the water. Best-dressed entries roll in looking proud, then spend the next few minutes trying to survive the next hit. Last car still moving wins. Everything else is scrap and steam.
This is the Crossfield Elks’ big annual fundraiser. Proceeds go back into the community. The crowd is local. The action is local. The chaos is honest.  If you like authentic Alberta track-side footage — the kind where you can hear the engines, smell the dirt, and watch a car actually roll — this one delivers.

Watch the full 10-minute cut here:
https://youtu.be/PX5NcGl9LlY
Subscribe if you want more of these regional shows, car events, and unscripted Southern Alberta days. Next stop is already in the works.
#DemolitionDerby #Crossfield #Alberta #KassDays #SmashAndSurvive #LocalMotorsport #DemoDerby #CalgaryVlogger

Just north of Irricana, Pioneer Acres Museum brings early prairie farming back to life. Their big summer event—Alberta’s Pioneer Steam Power Festival (the Annual Show)—puts working steam traction engines and horse-drawn equipment side by side in the same fields where that work actually happened a century ago.

First up is one of the steam tractors. These big Case and other early-1900s traction engines were the machines that broke sod and powered threshing rings across Alberta. Watching one roll under its own steam—whistle, smoke, massive steel wheels—is a reminder of how suddenly farm work changed when portable boilers arrived. Several operating engines usually appear at the show, including local-history pieces such as a 1915 Case 65 HP that once worked nearby.

Right after that comes the other half of the story: the draft horses. Teams of black horses still pull binders, plows, and other “yesteryear” implements through standing crop, the same way it was done before steam and gasoline took over. The contrast is the point—steam gave raw power and speed; horses gave control and the community harvest crews that followed the machine from farm to farm.
Both clips come from a visit to Pioneer Acres during the steam-and-horse demonstrations. If you like seeing how the West was actually farmed, this little museum north of Irricana is worth the stop. More details at pioneeracres.ab.ca.
#steampower #horsepower #Irricana #Alberta #KassDays 

That red car is a second-generation Pontiac Firebird Trans Am — the one with the giant hood bird that Pontiac officially called a Firebird decal and everyone else called the screaming chicken. The graphic became an option in 1973. After that, you could spot a Trans Am from a block away.

Who actually bought them
It was never just one crowd.

Early Trans Ams were not cheap toys. In 1970 Pontiac built only about 3,200 of them. A new one cost real money, so the first owners were often men who already had a job: late twenties, thirties, the guy who wanted something flashier than a Chevy and could swing the payment. Families bought them too. More than one Trans Am spent its first decade as a daily driver with a four-speed and a kid in the back seat.
Then the car escaped the dealership.

By the mid-1970s the bird was everywhere. High school parking lots filled with used Formulas and Trans Ams. Insurance was brutal, gas was climbing, and none of that mattered. Hemmings later put it plainly: about thirty years ago, almost every car-crazy kid wanted one with that chicken on the hood. Smokey and the Bandit in 1977 poured gasoline on it. Sales jumped from roughly 47,000 Trans Ams in 1976 to more than 117,000 in 1979. Burt Reynolds did more for Pontiac that year than any brochure.

So the buyers were mixed from the start: the original owner who ordered it new, the teenager who inherited it or scraped together a used one, the middle-aged guy who finally bought the car he wanted in 1973.
Later chapters
Used Trans Ams kept circulating. In some cities in the 1980s and 1990s, younger buyers — including a lot of Asian American kids who were already deep in car culture — gravitated toward big American coupes because they stood out. Imports were getting fast and clean; a Firebird was loud, cheap on the secondhand market, and impossible to miss. Same car, different decade, different reasons.
Today the pattern has flipped again. Hagerty’s quote data on second-gen Firebirds shows Gen X leading, Boomers right behind them, then Millennials and a slice of Gen Z. The kids who wanted one in 1978 are the ones restoring them now. The kids who wanted one in 1995 are starting to show up at the same shows.
A car like the one in the photo was never only a young guy’s car or only a middle-aged guy’s car. It was the car that kept getting passed to whoever still wanted to be seen coming.
Grok AI, crafted the article for me on the car. This particular car was at the Okotoks Show and Shine 2026, nice car, always loved them. 
#firebird #OkotoksShowAndShine #CarShow #TransAm 

On April 29, 1903, Turtle Mountain—known as “The Mountain That Moves”—unleashed 82 million tonnes of limestone across the Crowsnest Pass in a matter of minutes. The Frank Slide remains Canada’s deadliest landslide, permanently reshaping the landscape and burying parts of the town of Frank.
In this second full exploration of the disaster, we follow the official 1.5-kilometre interpretive trail outside the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre. Armed with the trail guide brochure, the video stops at historical markers, explains the dramatic geology of Turtle Mountain, and shows how nature is slowly reclaiming the vast boulder field of house-sized rocks.
Secondary GoPro footage mounted on a backpack captures the true scale of navigating the rugged debris field, offering a ground-level perspective that still photographs cannot fully convey.
Whether you’re drawn to authentic regional history, dramatic Canadian landscapes, or simply want to walk through one of the most striking natural disaster sites in the country, this trail delivers an unforgettable experience. The mountain may have moved more than a century ago, but its story continues underfoot.

#FrankSlide #TurtleMountain #CrowsnestPass #AlbertaHistory #CanadianRockies #HikingAlberta #Rockslide 

August 15th and 16th at the Priddis & Millarville Fair, one of the absolute highlights was the educational display from the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation. These dedicated folks brought a selection of their ambassador birds so fairgoers could get a rare, close-up look at some of Alberta’s most impressive raptors.
Front and centre was a stunning Golden Eagle, perched calmly on a wooden stand with that intense, focused gaze that only an eagle can deliver. Dark brown plumage with subtle golden highlights on the head and neck, powerful yellow talons, and a sharp, hooked beak — it was impossible not to feel a sense of awe standing just a few feet away. The banner behind it proudly announced the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation, a reminder of the important conservation work happening behind the scenes.

But the Golden Eagle wasn’t the only star. The display featured several beautiful owls of different species and sizes. From the classic, ear-tufted Great Horned Owl look-alikes to smaller, wide-eyed species with intricate mottled feathers, each one had its own personality. Some sat quietly on perches, others turned their heads nearly all the way around to keep an eye on the curious visitors. There were also smaller falcons and hawks — including what looked like an American Kestrel — showing off the incredible variety of birds of prey that call Alberta home.

The Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation, based at their Centre in Coaldale (just east of Lethbridge), has been rescuing, rehabilitating, and releasing injured hawks, falcons, eagles, and owls for over four decades. Many of the birds that travel to events like the Priddis & Millarville Fair are permanent educational ambassadors — birds that, for various reasons, can no longer survive in the wild but now help teach the public about these incredible animals and the threats they face.

Seeing them in person really drives home how special these raptors are. The sheer power of the eagle, the silent wisdom of the owls, the sharp intelligence in every eye — it was a privilege to spend time with them. If you ever get the chance to visit the Alberta Birds of Prey Centre itself, or catch one of their displays at a local fair or event, don’t miss it. You’ll walk away with a whole new appreciation for the wild skies above Alberta.

Huge thanks to the Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation for bringing these magnificent birds to the fair and for the vital work they do every day.
#BirdsOfPrey #GoldenEagle #Owls #birds