Alberta turns 115 today! Here are 20 facts about the province to celebrate

Well, Happy Birthday, Wild Rose Country! Today, September 1st, 2020, the prairie province celebrates 115 years of “sorry’s,” white hats, an unchallenged enthusiasm for oversized foods, oil, gas, and chinooks. As our gift to you guys and the 661,848 km² of land, lake, and sky we call home, here are 20 interesting facts about Alberta!

Some of these may actually surprise you…

1. Alberta has 5 national parks and 76 provincial parks.
2. Alberta’s Banff National Park established in 1885, is the oldest and most visited in all of North America
3. Alberta (as well as Alberta’s Lake Louise) was named after the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Louise Caroline Alberta.                                                                                                                                                              

4. Edmonton opened the world’s first Boston Pizza
5. At 2,790 feet in size, the world’s largest beaver dam calls Alberta home.
6. Alberta women actually lead the fight in Canada for the right of women to vote, succeeding to do so in 1914
7. Canada’s very first wildlife sanctuary was established in Alberta’s Elk Island, just east of Edmonton
8. As of April 1, 2020, Alberta had a population of 4,428,247
9. Emily Murphy, an Alberta woman, was the first very first female judge in the British Commonwealth in 1916
10. Canada’s purest oil discovery was made in Alberta’s Turner Valley. It was so pure, in fact, that they pumped right out of the ground and into a vehicle.
11. The phrase “Trick or Treat” actually originated here in Alberta                                                                                               

12. Alberta is home to the world’s largest collection of ‘oversized items’ (world’s largest egg, sausage, skunk, pumpkin etc.)
13. We also built the world’s first and only officially UFO landing pad
14. The Caesar (the worlds most delicious cocktail) was invented by Walter Chell in Calgary, Alberta
15. Alberta is the only province to have successfully prevented the spread of rats- you’re not even legally allowed to keep them as a pet.
16. In 1959, the Government of Alberta devised and approved a plan to nuke Fort McMurray so they could drill deeper for oil. They obviously didn’t go through with this…

17. At 20,000 stalls, the West Edmonton Mall is home to the largest parking lot in the world
18. More than 80% of Albertans do some kind of volunteer work
19. Marvel Superhero, Wolverine, was born in Cold Lake, Alberta
20. Every year, the Calgary Stampede, makes and distributes over 200,000 pancakes

Well, there you have it, folks! 20 interesting facts about Alberta! Did you learn anything? Yay? Nay? What major ones did we miss?! Let us know.

Now, go have a big slice for the big slab. After all, we’re what makes the province so great in the first place, right? Happy Birthday, AB. Here’s to another 115!