home work for Calgary trip
 

Well as it gets nearer to us going to Calgary for are fact finding trip
(7 Oct :D )

I have been trying to sort out some home work for myself. Now I have come up with some neighborhoods we want to look at and was wondering what you calgarians think.

We are looking for 3-4 bed house fenced property local to good schools and shops, parks and poss c-train or other local transport.

Woodbine, Woodlands, Shaughnessy, Somerset, Millrise, Sandance.

Things to check out to do and see socially: Heritage Park, Calgary Zoo, Millerville Race Track Farmers Market Saturdays, Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump (can some tell me what this is all about) Drumheller Dinosaurs?

Kananaski's Country = Bill Allen Pond, Maclean Creek, Elbow Falls, Bragg Creek, Frank Lake, Glenbow Museum, Chinook Centre, Southcentre shopping mall, Banff & Lake Louise

basically we are going to try and fit in as much as we can :eek:

cheers

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

How long are you going for?

If you have time the icefield parkway...further on than banff / lake louise is worth a look, on a touristy level rather than as a potential place to move to! Also the "badlands" around Drumheller..in the other direction.

Dont know about calgary neigbourhoods, so I'll butt out now:)

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

:) Only 9 days but hope to back out next year for longer. So much to see and not enough time :(

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Hawkeye,
if you get time to go to Banff stop off at place called Canmore, lovely little place not as big as Banff but worth a look, and if you have time go for horsetrek along the bow river, that's if you like horseriding. Have a great time, i lived in Calgary in 87/88 and loved it, sister lived in Canmore for 15 years.

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Spelling first -you mean Shawnessy and Sundance.
Shawnessy has a two elementary schools now and a middle school at the top of the capital plan - so hopefully there will be one within the next few years. Sundance has three(?) elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. Millrise does not have a public school - only separate - so if you need public school then your children will be bussed. It all depends on how you feel about this - I hated the idea of bussing at the elementary grades. Somerset only has a K-4 public school so for grades 5&6 they go elsewhere (a lack of joined up government as these children were supposed to go to Shawnessy middle school but...).

The C train runs through Shawnessy and Somerset - this is the end of the line right now.

I dont know anything about Woodlands and Woodbine.

You need to decide if a lake is important to you as Sundance is the only community you mentioned that has one. Bear in mind that the lake may not be useful all year. I have heard suggestion that 22X is to be widened - hence why so many houses in south Sundance are on the market - someone else may know better.

Check out mls.ca for house prices in your selected areas - $300K will give you pretty much free choice in Shawnessy or Somerset. Over in Sundance you will pay a premium for having a house in a lake community.

Be very careful if you look at the new communities as the dates given by the developers for the opening of the new schools can be imagination! These children do not go to the next nearest school either!

School league tables are also deceptive - you need to know school policy. Janet Johnstone in Shawnessy is inclusive (children with mild disabilities are accepted) and the gifted are identified for possible transfer to the GATE program - this impacts on the school league table position. Other schools exclude these children from achievement testing and hence have better apparent results. Visit some schools if you have time - ask for a tour. Ask the school to identify the catchment zone on your map - do not rely on anyone but the school to tell you whether you would get a place at a particular school. Try to get an mls map.

Be aware that living in a community does not guarantee you a place at the local school - some are over-subscribed and operate a lottery system to allocate places.

Just about all of the shops you could need are available in Shawnessy in the deep south (Shawnessy, Somerset, Sundance areas) - I dont need to leave the area for shopping (Safeway, Co-op, Superstore, Walmart, Canadian Tire plus others).

Heritage Park is great - but its only open weekends now and closes for the winter on Oct 11th so do it early in your trip. If you get there before 10am you get a pancake breakfast included (2pancakes 2 sausages, coffee or orange juice). Our boys think its great. I think its cheaper to pay for the rides at the gate than one by one. We get an annual pass each year.

Mrs G

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Cheers for that we are going to try and squeeze as much in as we can :D

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

The ancient native americans used to drive buffalo over cliff edges ... hence the term buffalo jump.

Head smahed in??

Aparantly one of the ancient native americans had the bright idea one day of looking over the edge of the cliff as the buffalo went over ... hence "head smashed in".

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Whose head? The buffalo's or the native's?

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Do you really have to ask??

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Well, he DID look over the edge of the cliff, didn't he?

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Yep ... I think the normal result of driving a herd of buffalo over a cliff is probably severely dented buffalo skulls anyway.

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Not to mention the remains of the b&g left all over the rocks...... :D

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Head Smashed in Buffalo jump is rubbish; don't go. It takes hours to get there, is in the middle of nowhere, and is a 30 foot "cliff" - about which there is nothing visually interesting - with a quite-good visitors center. Nearby Fort McLeod is also rubbish. You've got 9 days so I'm going to be blunt about it!

Instead follow Iaink's advice and go to Drumheller, which has some badlands and a Dinosaur museum, which is neat. For proper badlands you would need to go to Dinosaur Provincial Park, which is near Brooks. But I think it will be too chilly in October to make much of it, so I wouldn't bother with that.

Icefields parkway/Jasper is nice but the Athabasca glacier will be closed for the season now and it's a long way to Jasper. Do Canmore, Banff and Lake Louise and you'll have your fill of mountains. Consider an overnight in Banff because Banff and Lake Louise is a long day without having to drive all the way back to Calgary again. Plus, Banff is fun in the evenings. Not sure if Lake Louise will be like it is in the photographs in October; potentially frozen over and snow. You'll be able to check out the conditions at Lake Louise online or in Calgary before you drive up there.

Recommend reserving a table for sunset at the Calgary Tower revolving restaurant. Cheesy? Yes, and quite pricey, but it is without doubt the best restaurant view in town with sunset over the skyscrapers and mountains.

Glenbow Museum is ok; I enjoyed it more than I thought I would and it's pretty small. You can zip through it in a couple of hours. Also worth a look is Canada Olympic Park where they did the '88 winter olympics. They may even have started up the snow machines if its a cold October, so you could do some night-time skiing - again, you can check this out online. In any event, COP is a good outing. I don't like zoos, but the Calgary zoo is good and on the c-train line. Kids will like it.

You've got the good malls listed: South Centre and Chinook. That should cover your shopping requirements.

Fancy shooting some machine guns or whatever else you want - I can recommend a place in Calgary. Always on the itinerary for my British visitors. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea...

Unless you are set on the south side of Calgary, might recommend a trip to look at North West neighbourhoods, since there are lots of new developments up there which are reasonably priced and come with nice features - lakes, nature trails, hilltop ruins (yes, they built a fake ruin in one of the developments), etcetera. The north west is hilly, which I think is more interesting than a lot of Calgary which is just dead flat, and traffic in the NW is still not completely awful. Kincora is one of the new developments that I remember, and around Kincora there are about half a dozen others you'll see signposted: the whole area is one big new development zone. There is also the Tuscay/Silver Springs areas up there which are new. Might be worth checking out for a couple of hours one afternoon unless you're dead set on the south.

Don't bother going to the North East. There is nothing of interest there.

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Thanks very much Mrs G

I think the hardest thing to sort out is going to the schools for the girls :confused:

I think I will have to have a good look at Sundance with all those schools.

Re: home work for Calgary trip
 

Thanks very much CalgaryAMC I need to try and sort out the best and the worst to do while we are out their. Just not enough time :rolleyes: