Edmonton Festival

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION (Tentative): 

Wednesday August 19
Arrival at your hotel for a two-night stay. Your designated home hosts will there to meet you and help you settle in. The day is free to rest up for the adventures of the next several days or do some sight seeing on your own.

Thursday August 20
Also a free day. Might we suggest a trip to the World famous West Edmonton Mall – mini golf, submarine rides, world-water park, a casino and hundreds of stores and a variety of restaurants and food services are there for you to enjoy.

In the evening your designated home hosts as well as other members of the Friendship Force of Edmonton and Area will join you at West Edmonton Mall at the JUBILATIONS Dinner Theatre. It will be our Welcome Party for you, our guests from around the world. Home hosts will return you to your hotel for one final rest before the real fun begins tomorrow.

Friday August 21
(FOR THOSE WISHING TO ATTEND RELIGIOUS SERVICES OVER THE WEEKEND, MODIFICATIONS TO INDIVIDUAL SCHEDULES CAN EASILY BE ACCOMMODATED. Just let your home hosts know your wishes.) 

Friday you say good-bye to your hotel to spend the next 6 days and nights with your home hosts.

Your first stop this morning is Edmonton’s City Hall to meet the Mayor. Next Stop: Edmonton’s China Town. Enjoy a walking tour and lunch at a specially chosen Chinese restaurant. 

Chinatown meets downtown Edmonton at the Harbin Gate. This gate symbolizes the friendship between Edmonton and its sister city, Harbin, China.

From here, we leave you in the hands of your home hosts for the remainder of the afternoon and evening.

Saturday August 22
Start the day with a tour of one of our area Farmer’s Markets that may include the largest Outdoor Farmer’s Market in Alberta, located in the city center of St. Albert where many of you will be home hostsed. Later take in OLD STRATHCONA and the 28th annual FRINGE FESTIVAL. Edmonton is known as Canada’s Festival City.

Many Strathcona buildings date back to the 1891 along Whyte Avenue (82nd Avenue). You'll see a Farmer's Market, Edmonton's first movie house, the Princess Theatre, and several museums: a Railway Museum, the Old Strathcona Model & Toy Museum, and the Telephone Historical Centre etc. The neighbourhood comes alive for the summer including the Fringe in late August – thought to be one of the best in the world. 

Sunday August 23
Trips to the Royal Alberta Museum and Fort Edmonton are planned with guided tours of each. The evening is free.

The Museum given the “Royal” designation in 2005 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. The occasion was her visit to Alberta, as we celebrated the 100 year anniversary of becoming a province of Canada, The museum is where history comes alive with exhibits of Aboriginal culture, natural history and Alberta habitats. New exhibits are introduced regularly.

As a feature attraction, Fort Edmonton Park represents four distinct time periods, exploring Edmonton's development from a fur trade post in the vast Northwest, to a booming metropolitan centre after the First World War. The park features over 75 structures many of which are the originals. Costumed interpreters operate the site and live the way of the past. Exploring each building, each room, and talking to the 'inhabitants' makes for an extremely enjoyable visit.

Monday August 24
Ambassadors will be treated to a daylong trip to the Alberta Badlands. Visit Drumheller where the dinosaurs roamed. Enjoy the scenic bus ride with an experienced guide as you set out to enjoy some of Alberta’s countryside before landing in the ‘Badlands.’ Rolling fields suddenly give way to steep, dry coulees ridged with the strata of hundreds of years of erosion by time, wind and water.

Drumheller, the Dinosaur Capital of Canada, is in the Heart of the Canadian Badlands in Southern Alberta. The Drumheller Valley offers visitors a unique combination of spectacular scenery and interesting sights and will include a visit to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. You will be arriving back in Edmonton later in the evening. 

Tuesday August 25
Visit and tour of a nearby Hutterite Colony. Lunch will be served. We have several Hutterite Colonies in Alberta. They moved to the U.S.A. and Canada to escape religious persecution. The Hutterites originated in 1528 in Moravia as a branch of the Anabaptists. They were named for Jacob Hutter, who was their leader from 1533 until 1536 when he was burned at the stake. Since coming to North America from Eastern Europe in the late 1800's, the Hutterites have established more than 300 colonies in the United States and Canada. 

Wednesday August 26
For those of you who went to Drumheller on Monday, today you will be visiting the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. Edmonton has a population of over 300,000 people of Ukrainian ancestry. Today we will head east of Edmonton where many pioneering Ukrainians settled. The Village is a journey through their history from 1892-1930.