15 Things You Might Not Know About the Foothills

You've driven the Cowboy Trail. You know the towns. But the Foothills has a habit of hiding its best stories in plain sight, under a glacial boulder, inside a decommissioned bomber, at the bottom of a 1914 oil well. Here are some of the facts that surprise even the locals.

1. Big Rock is one of the largest glacial erratics on Earth

The Okotoks Erratic, better known as Big Rock, weighs roughly 16,500 tonnes, about the size of a three storey building. It was carried here by a landslide and then a glacier from the Jasper area, arriving somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 years ago. It's the largest known rock in the entire Foothills Erratics Train, a scattered chain of boulders that stretches across the province.

2. High River used to be bigger than Calgary

It's hard to picture now, but in High River's early boom years, the town briefly outpaced Calgary in size. It didn't last, but it's the kind of fact that changes how you look at Main Street.

3. High River is the town that shaped a Canadian literary classic

Author W.O. Mitchell moved to High River in 1945 and wrote much of Who Has Seen the Wind there, a novel still taught in Canadian schools today. The foothills landscape he lived in shows up all over the book.

4. Heartland is the longest-running one-hour drama in Canadian TV history

Filmed largely in and around High River and the Millarville Racetrack, Heartland has been running for close to two decades, longer than any other one-hour scripted series ever produced in Canada.

5. Diamond Valley was the birthplace of Alberta's first oil boom

On May 14, 1914, the Dingman No. 1 well struck oil and gas in what was then Turner Valley, kicking off Alberta's first major energy boom decades before Leduc made headlines. The discovery reshaped the province's economy, and it all started in the Foothills.

6. Nanton is home to one of only 17 Lancaster bombers left in the world

The Bomber Command Museum of Canada's Avro Lancaster is one of just 17 still in existence anywhere, and only two of those can still fly. Getting it to Nanton wasn't easy either, the plane was hauled roughly 50 kilometres overland from near Vulcan before the museum was built around it.

7. The Millarville Races are Alberta's oldest race meet

Started in 1905 by local settlers, the Millarville Races have been running continuously for well over a century, making them the oldest race meet in the province.

8. A ranch near Longview has hosted Hollywood for 30 years

John Scott's 5,000 acre working ranch near Longview, home to a meticulously built frontier movie set known as the Old Town, was named Location of the Year at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023. Over three decades, the ranch has hosted major productions including Unforgiven, Brokeback Mountain, The Revenant, Fargo, Interstellar, The Last of Us, and Heartland, several of them Academy Award winners. It's one of the most filmed pieces of land in the country, and it's right here in the Foothills.

9. The Foothills can swing 40 degrees in a single hour

Chinook winds are a defining feature of life in the Foothills, and nearby Pincher Creek holds the record for it. On January 10, 1962, a chinook pushed the temperature there from minus 19 to plus 22 degrees Celsius in about an hour, still recognized as one of the most dramatic temperature swings ever recorded in Canada. The whole Foothills corridor feels these swings every winter, just usually not quite that extreme.

10. Bar U Ranch once ran 30,000 head of cattle

Founded in 1882, Bar U Ranch was one of Canada's largest and most influential ranching operations for 70 years, at its peak spanning 160,000 acres with 30,000 cattle and 1,000 horses. It became a National Historic Site in 1989 and today holds one of the largest collections of original ranching buildings anywhere in Canada.

11. Spruce Meadows started as an old cattle feedlot

Before it became the world's top show jumping venue, the land Spruce Meadows sits on was just an old feedlot south of Calgary. Ron and Marg Southern bought it in 1971 and opened Spruce Meadows in 1975, originally so their daughters, both competitive riders, would have somewhere to train. Fifty years later, it's hosting Olympic level competition and a $5 million Grand Prix.

12. Okotoks is named after the rock itself

Big Rock isn't just a landmark, it gave the town its name. Okotoks comes from the Blackfoot word okotok, meaning rock, a direct nod to the massive erratic sitting just west of town. It's one of the few places in Alberta where the town's entire identity comes from a single boulder.

13. The Foothills is home to a bighorn sheep sanctuary

Sheep River Provincial Park, just outside Turner Valley, serves as a dedicated sanctuary for bighorn sheep, Alberta's official provincial mammal. A large ram can weigh over 300 pounds, and this stretch of the Foothills is one of the most reliable places in the province to see them up close.

14. Diamond Valley is one of Alberta's newest towns

Diamond Valley didn't exist before 2023. It was formed on January 1 of that year when the towns of Black Diamond and Turner Valley officially amalgamated, an idea that had actually been discussed as far back as 1988 before finally being approved decades later.

15. The Cowboy Trail made it into the New York Times

Highway 22, better known as the Cowboy Trail, stretches 584 kilometres through the heart of ranching country and has been called one of the most scenic drives in Canada. It's been featured everywhere from Travel Alberta itineraries to a full feature in the New York Times, and most of it runs straight through the Foothills.

Know a Foothills fact we missed? This list is just getting started, send us your favourites and we might feature them in a future update.

Looking for more ways to Explore Foothills? Browse our town guides, event listings, and local favourites at explorefoothills.com/blog, and keep the Foothills Events Calendar bookmarked all season long.

Have an event or local story to share? Send it to us at events@explorefoothills.com, we love hearing from the communities that make this region so special.