Where to Go in Calgary
The Dorian photo courtesy of The Dorian. Skyline photo from Unsplash. All other photos by Garrett Martin.
When you think of Calgary you probably think of wide open prairies, of the annual Stampede rodeo and festival, of cows and their boys. Maybe you think of the famous Hart family from pro wrestling, or the Calgary Flames of the NHL. Maybe you even think about how the entire province of Alberta supposedly has no rats—a fact popularized among otherwise ignorant Americans by Adult Swim’s Joe Pera Talks to You.
It’s okay to think of all those things. Indeed, you should think about them—they’re all an indelible part of Calgary’s culture and community. There’s also far more to the third largest city (and fifth largest metro area) in Canada, though, as I discovered during a couple of recent trips up north. It’s home to great restaurants, posh hotels, a fantastic music museum, and some of the best bars and breweries in Canada. Here’s where you need to go in Calgary—a city you need to go to.
Where to Go
Even if you aren’t a huge music fan you should stop by Studio Bell. Based in the East Village, the home of Canada’s National Music Centre is a museum, arts center, and working studio devoted to the performance and preservation of instruments and every genre of music. Its collection includes a wide range of acoustic, electric, and electronic instruments, many of which are on display and ready to be demonstrated by museum employees. (Definitely check out a performance of the room-sized Kimball Theatre Organ from 1924.) Special tours will also take you inside the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, which was used on some of the biggest records in the history of rock (and, yes, is the mobile mentioned in Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water”), and the amazing semi-circular lair of synthesizers known as TONTO. (You’ve heard it on Stevie Wonder’s biggest ’70s records and seen it in De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise.) It’s also home to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, which is a bit of a trip for Americans; for every huge global megastar, there’s a handful of local legends you probably aren’t aware of.
I wouldn’t normally hit up a local library on my international journeys, but the relatively new Calgary Central Library is an architectural marvel just a block or two from Studio Bell. Enjoy its surfeit of sunlight and the undulating waves of its central chambers, and make sure to learn about Alberta’s Indigenous cultures on the library’s fourth floor.
If you want to get some shopping done during your time in Calgary, the Inglewood neighborhood is full of cute boutiques, vintage stores, and more. Start off your trip with some coffee and snacks at Canela Vegan Bakery & Cafe, and then explore the rest of 9th Ave. The Western wear store Cody & Sioux pays tribute to Calgary’s cowboy heritage, while Recordland has an overwhelming amount of new and used vinyl in its sprawling store. And booklovers will flip over The Next Page, which doesn’t just deal in new and used books but also has a coffee shop and a small basement theater showing a steady stream of old movies.
If you want to get active you can explore nature at Prince’s Island Park. I personally saw about 50 baby geese while I was there in early June, and somehow baby Canadian geese are even cuter in Canada than in my stomping grounds of north Georgia. If you want to commune even closer with nature—or just have some fun relaxing on a river—take a raft down the (usually) tranquil Bow River through Lazy Day Raft Rentals.
Finally, don’t discount the classic Calgary tourism spots. If you don’t mind the crowds and increased hotel prices, a visit to the annual Calgary Stampede in July sounds like a total blast. It’s no longer the city-straddling colossus it once was, but the Calgary Tower still offers a great vantage point overlooking much of the city. You can’t tour the Hart House, the longtime home of Stu Hart’s family of wrestlers, and where countless future pros were brutally trained in the basement known as the Dungeon, but if you’re as huge of a pro wrestling nerd as I am it might be worth the drive outside of town to get a selfie in front of the mansion. And if you visit during the NHL season, and are remotely interested in hockey or live sports in general, a Calgary Flames game at the Saddledome might be just what you need. For my wife and I, catching a Flames game was like paying tribute to a forgotten part of our home city Atlanta’s past. (Yes, the Flames were originally in Atlanta. Atlanta has lost two NHL teams to Canada over the last 40 years. Say a little prayer for the Atlanta hockey fan.)
Where to Eat