Life in the Heartland

On a recent Alberta back road adventure I had a happy accident. On my way to visit Vulcan, a slightly geeky item on my Alberta Bucket List, I got a bit lost. I know! It doesn’t happen often, with my handy Back Roads of Southern Alberta map book I will typically plot out a route that takes me on undiscovered roads on my way to my destination. You might guess that for me, it is about the journey. Well, on this sunny, hot Alberta day I got my bearings all wrong and wound up on an unintended road leading to who know’s where. Not far along this road I encountered a sign that revealed a film crew on location. I drove slowly through the shoot and saw a familiar old blue GMC parked on the side of the road in between a long stretch of film trailers. I stopped long enough to ask the crew if it was what I thought. Are you filming Heartland? Indeed, yes! I passed on through and managed to take a snap of the filming sign on that day. An unexpected happy accident while getting hopelessly lost! It IS about the journey!

As most of my regular readers know, I grew up on a farm back in Southwestern Ontario. It was a 150 acres of bliss for this farm girl! Although nothing like the acres and acres of ranch land out here in Alberta, it instilled in me the love of fresh air, warm, gentle animals, endless horizons, and infinite possibilities for adventure. This is what has attracted me to my new home here in Cochrane, and it is what draws me to one of the CBC’s longest running series, Heartland. That and a shared love of old, blue GMC’s! We had a 70’s version of the classic you see above, captured yesterday on another Alberta back road adventure. Last week my curiosity was piqued, and so I did some digging on the interwebz wondering where my gentle gem of a show is filmed. I knew that it could not be far from my new home as all of my travels have revealed the stunning, rolling foothills capped by the Kananaskis Range so often featured in Heartland. I did find the location of the ranch that reminds me of home and you can see my resulting photos above (the ranch owner takes down the Heartland sign and Bartlett mailbox in between filming). If you have not watched Heartland but appreciate the stunning Alberta landscape coupled with heartwarming stories of family life on the farm/ranch, do tune in on Sunday nights. Pardon the pun, but Heartland is a gem in the CBC stables that eschews the values that many feel might be lost in our daily grind such as family, responsibility, affection and hard work. You can learn more about the show here. And if you are already a fan of the show, you may want to follow the engaging CBC “Blog Whisperer” who shares photos and details from the production of the show each week. In typical CBC fashion, they have done a wonderful job using social media to engage fans in the show. Now, if they only needed an intrepid “Instagram-er” to follow their daily adventures… Hmmmm……

If you would like to see a few more snaps of the Heartland set, and of my recent back road adventures, please visit my “serious camera” website here, or follow along on my “in-the-moment” Instagram adventures here. Giddy up!