Today we got to see the mountains in all their beauty, and all their ugliness. We stopped in Frank, Alberta at the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre http://www.frankslide.com/interpret.html. This would be the "all their ugliness" part. On April 29th, 1903, at 4:10 am, the side of Turtle Mountain collapsed, burying a part of the town of Frank and trapping 17 miners alive inside the mountain - miraculously, all the miners survived. Actually, the Crowsnest Pass, which includes the communities of Blairmore, Bellevue and Coleman, was a dangerous place to be just after the turn of the last century. On the heels of the Frank Slide, where between 70 and 90 people died, 30 miners and 1 rescuer perished in an explosion in the Bellevue mine. Then, in 1914, the Hillcrest Mine Disaster occurred. With 189 dead, it remains the worst mine disaster in Canadian history.
From there, we traveled through the mountains to Grand Forks, B. C. This would be the "all their beauty" part. Around every curve there was another photo opportunity, and the kids were snapping away like mad photographers. I am going to have to get an external hard drive to store all these photos!
Oh, I almost forgot - amongst the world's most beautiful mountains is nestled the world's largest truck, the Titan, in Sparwood, B.C. http://www.sparwood.bc.ca/visitors/terex-titan
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