Drumheller, Alberta

A downbeat town in an extraordinary setting, DRUMHELLER is roughly ninety minutes' drive northeast of Calgary. As you approach it from the west, the town is hidden until you come to a virulent-red water tower and the road suddenly drops into a dark, hidden canyon. The otherworldliness of the gloomy, blasted landscape is heightened by its contrast to the vivid colours of the earlier wheat and grasslands. Drumheller sits at the base of the canyon, surrounded by the detritus and spoil heaps of its mining past, the Red Deer River having exposed not only dinosaur fossils but also (now exhausted) coal seams. These days Drumheller is sustained by agriculture, oil – there are some 3000 wells dotted around the surrounding farmland – and tourism, the Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology ranking as one of Alberta's biggest draws.