Edmonton Discount Car Rentals

Edmonton Attractions and Things to See

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and its second biggest city situated on the North Saskatchewan River, the hub of the Edmonton Capital Region that is encompassed by the central region of the province. It is a governmental, educational and cultural center playing host to a year-round destination of world class festivals that have earned it the title of "the Festival City", and home to North America's biggest mall, West Edmonton Mall, which had been the world's biggest from 1981 until 2004; and Fort Edmonton Park, the country's biggest living history museum.

Anthony Henday, an explorer working for the Hudson's Bay Company, is believed to have been the first European to live here, in 1754, with his formidable expeditions extending across the Canadian Prairies in hopes of establishing a fur trade business with the numerous aboriginal people of the regions. Fort Edmonton would be constructed in 1795 along the northern banks of the river and become a major trading outpost for the company, that was in fierce competition with the North West Company. During the late 19th century, it would attract many farmers for its rich fertile soil, and make it a major regional agriculture and commercial center, that would become even more important and influential when folks on their way to the Klondike gold rush in 1897, even though, the majority of those people would be taking steam boats to the region, going from Vancouver to the Yukon.

The city's river valley would become the longest stretch of linked urban parkland in North America, with the highest per capita area of parkland for all of the country, and is 22 times bigger than Central Park in NYC. It offers and provides a special urban escape, with outstanding park styles that span from fully serviced urban parks to campsite facilities with very few amenities. The entire green space is supplemented by neighborhood parks interspersed throughout the city, with 27,400 acres of parklands. There are fourteen ravines, 22 significant parks, with splendid hiking and biking trails, as well as eleven lakes. The trails belong to the Waskahegan walking trail that runs 146 miles; and the streets and parklands have become home to one of the biggest remaining concentrations of healthy American elm trees in the world, jack pine, mayday tree, lodgepole pine, flowering crabapple, white spruce, blue spruce, Norway maple, white birch, Manitoba maple, aspen, amur maple, basswood, Russian olive, green ash quite plentiful as well, with other varieties including white ash, sugar maple, common horse-chestnut, bur oak, poplars, willows, red oak, McIntosh apple and Evans cherry trees; with three outstanding walnut varieties that include black walnut, butternut and Manchurian walnut.

There are numerous events held in the downtown arts district that is now centered around the recently rejuvenated Churchill Square, that is situated on the south side of the river, with theaters, live music venues and concert halls. The city has a few significant concentrations of nightlife, with the most popular being Whyte Avenue, with the highest concentration of heritage structures in the city. There are numerous museums of varying sizes and shapes, with the Royal Alberta Museum being the biggest, that had been the Provincial Museum of Alberta until it was renamed after the queen. The RAM contains a magnificent collection housing over 10 million objects which showcase the practices and culture of the aboriginal tribes of the area, that looks out over the river valley, west of the city's center in the Glenora neighborhood, that opened in 1967 and is in the midst of a big scale rejuvenation. The Telus World of Science with five permanent galleries, and one for temporary exhibits, an observatory, amateur radio station, planetarium and IMAX theater. The Edmonton Valley Zoo is southwest of the city, with the Alberta Aviation Museum situated at the airport in a large hangar, with both civilian and military aircraft and the biggest is a Boeing 737 and two CF-101 Voodoos, with a marvelous summer show each year that showcases modern fighter jets that fly in from Maple Flag for the special event, and one of only three BOMARC missiles in the country. The Alberta Railway Museum is another excellent museum with many distinctive locomotives and rail cars from various periods and houses a working steam locomotive. The Art Gallery of Alberta is the city's biggest single gallery that houses more than 5000 pieces of art.