Discover Red Deer

Red Deer combines extensive park trails with natural history, art and experiences for a range of interests. Nature and recreation take centre stage at Gaetz Lakes Sanctuary and in the Waskasoo Park system; museums and heritage walking tours explore the stories of the city and Central Alberta. When planning your trip, it’s worth first considering whether you’d like to spend more time outdoors, enjoying culture or taking part in a variety of activities.

Parks and trails

Gaetz Lakes Sanctuary is a 118-hectare municipal park and a federal migratory bird sanctuary. It is next to the Kerry Wood Nature Centre, which offers an extensive natural history education program. This lets you consider the natural environment and natural history as different areas of focus for your trip. If you’re especially interested in nature, you can include both in your plans without having to follow a fixed itinerary.

More than 110 kilometres of paved and unpaved trails wind through Red Deer’s Waskasoo Park system. The different trail surfaces give you a practical guide for planning your day, though the total distance alone doesn’t indicate how long a visit might take. Maskepetoon Park also has trails and paths through forest and wetlands. These landscapes offer a different focus from the longer trails in the park system and a perspective on nature you can take into account when choosing where to go.

Discover culture and history

In the city centre, the Ghost Collection Heritage Walking Tour takes you to ten life-size bronze ghosts scattered throughout the area. Red Deer’s heritage walking tours also take you through the city centre. If you enjoy exploring a city on foot and learning about its stories, these tours offer a cultural focus of their own. At the Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery, visitors can learn more about the people, history and culture of Central Alberta.

Other museums each focus on different topics: Sunnybrook Farm Museum presents the history of early agriculture in Alberta. Norwegian Laft Hus Museum houses artefacts and a small butikk. Fort Normandeau Interpretive Centre is west of Red Deer and tells the story of the city’s three founding cultures: the Cree and Blackfoot, Métis buffalo hunters, and early European settlers. The centre does so through programs, hands-on activities, theatre and special events. These places and offerings provide different ways to explore history and culture, rather than assuming a single museum topic will appeal to everyone.

Active days and experiences for different age groups

The Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum offers a family-friendly interactive experience. Red Deer also has cycling experiences for BMX riders, mountain bikers and recreational cyclists. If you’re planning a trip with children, you can choose among these different activities based on the kind of shared experience you’re looking for; this doesn’t mean there are suitable offerings for every age group in general.

There’s also a specific offering in the colder months: Red Deer has more than 30 kilometres of groomed cross-country ski trails within the city limits. This is a useful guide for planning your trip if cross-country skiing is one of your interests. In other seasons, water and horseback riding experiences are further options to consider: Discovery Canyon offers tubing on the water. Bower Ponds rents pedal boats, kayaks and canoes during the warm summer months. Heritage Ranch offers horseback riding, including trail rides and wagon rides. The activities are quite different, so choose based on whether you’d rather be on the water, on a bike or on horseback.

Choose the right focus for your trip

The variety of places makes it worth choosing accommodation based on your itinerary. Gaetz Lakes Sanctuary, Kerry Wood Nature Centre and the Waskasoo Park system may suit your interests in natural history and trails. For city history, the downtown tours and museums, each with their own themes, are the main attractions. If you’re travelling with children or planning several kinds of activities, you can also weigh up the Sports Hall’s offerings, cycling experiences or seasonal water activities. What matters is which of these perspectives you want to give the most weight on your trip; this can help you look for a vacation rental that suits the kind of holiday you have in mind.

More destinations to explore: Innisfail, Sylvan Lake, Blackfalds, Lacombe, Alix, Rimbey and Ponoka.

Return to the main travel overview: Division No. 8.