Edmonton

Edmonton is a prairie city about 1,000km from the nearest ocean, so beach life plays almost no part in a stay. In high summer locals drive to lakes such as Pigeon Lake and Wabamun Lake, about an hour away, or to Sylvan Lake further south, where sandy strips and shallow water reach about 20°C in a warm July. The season is short, the lakes are small and blue-green algae can close them to swimming in late summer. A visitor who wants to swim does better at the indoor wave pool of the big mall or at the city's outdoor pools.

Eating here is solid and unpretentious rather than a reason to come. Alberta beef is the regional pride, served in steakhouses across the city, and a large Ukrainian community keeps perogies, cabbage rolls and kielbasa on menus and at church suppers. Waves of immigration have left good Vietnamese, Lebanese, Indian, Ethiopian and Filipino cooking, often in strip malls on the arterial roads rather than in the centre.

The most rewarding areas for a visitor are Whyte Avenue and Old Strathcona, 124 Street and the downtown core around the Ice District, with craft breweries, coffee roasters and a handful of ambitious kitchens working with prairie produce. The Old Strathcona Farmers' Market is the best place to see local growers. What is missing is a distinctive street-food culture or a deep fine-dining tier.

Edmonton is a young city, and its sights are regional rather than international. The Royal Alberta Museum, the largest museum in western Canada, covers natural history and the province's human story, including strong First Nations galleries. The Art Gallery of Alberta stands out downtown for its swirling steel-and-glass shell, and the domed Alberta Legislature, set above the river valley, is the city's most handsome historic building.

Fort Edmonton Park recreates the fur-trade post and later streetscapes in a living-history village, the four glass pyramids of the Muttart Conservatory are a local landmark, and Old Strathcona keeps a few blocks of early brick buildings. A visitor can cover the main sights in two days.

Going out centres on Whyte Avenue in Old Strathcona, a long strip of pubs, dive bars and small clubs fed by the nearby university, loud and busy at weekends and fairly quiet midweek. Downtown, the streets around the arena fill up before and after hockey games and concerts, with sports bars, cocktail lounges and a few larger clubs, while 124 Street leans towards wine bars and quieter evenings. Bars generally close at 2am. Winter, with nights well below freezing, keeps much of the year's going out indoors and car-based, and the city has no club scene of its own that visitors seek out.

The North Saskatchewan River Valley is the city's great outdoor asset: a continuous ribbon of forested ravines and parkland running through the middle of Edmonton, with well over 150km of trails for walking, running and cycling, river canoeing and, in winter, cross-country skiing and skating. It feels wilder than a city park, with deer, coyotes and beavers along the banks.

About 40 minutes east, Elk Island National Park protects herds of plains bison in aspen parkland, and the surrounding Beaver Hills form a dark-sky preserve good for stargazing and, in the darker months, the northern lights. Beyond that the landscape is flat farmland, and the Rocky Mountains at Jasper are about four hours away, a trip of several days rather than an outing.

The range of day trips is thin. The best is the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, about 45 minutes east, an open-air museum of relocated homesteads and onion-domed churches that tells the story of the settlers who shaped the region. The Reynolds-Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin, about an hour south, is a large collection of vintage cars, tractors and aircraft, and small towns such as St Albert and Lacombe have pleasant historic main streets.

The places most visitors to Alberta want to see, the dinosaur badlands at Drumheller and the mountain towns of Jasper and Banff, are three to four hours away and need an overnight stay. A car is needed for almost everything.

Edmonton works better for children than its profile suggests. West Edmonton Mall holds an indoor wave pool and waterpark, an indoor amusement park with roller coasters, an ice rink and a sea-lion show under one roof, which makes it a rare all-weather option through a long winter. Fort Edmonton Park has costumed interpreters, a steam train and a vintage midway, the TELUS World of Science has hands-on galleries and a planetarium, and the Valley Zoo is small and easy to manage.

The river valley's trails, playgrounds and summer festivals add plenty of free time outdoors. The drawbacks are winter cold that limits outdoor time for months, and distances that make a car the easiest way to move a family around.

Edmonton is a spread-out, car-oriented city. The LRT runs north-south through downtown, across the river to the University of Alberta and on to the southern suburbs, with a further line to the southeast, and buses fill in elsewhere. Downtown and Old Strathcona are walkable on their own, linked by the High Level Bridge and the funicular down to the river valley trails. Beyond them, attractions such as the big western mall and Fort Edmonton Park are far apart and slow to reach by bus, so most visitors hire a car or use ride-hailing. In winter, a network of pedways connects many downtown buildings, which helps on the coldest days.

Shopping here is about scale rather than style. West Edmonton Mall, one of the largest malls on the continent, holds hundreds of mainly North American chain stores alongside its rides and pools, and is a destination in its own right for many visitors. For something more individual, Whyte Avenue has record shops, vintage clothing and outdoor gear, while 124 Street gathers galleries, home-décor and small fashion boutiques. Indigenous art and crafts are worth seeking out in galleries and museum shops. Luxury fashion is thin, and there is no historic market district.

Edmonton is one of the more affordable larger cities in Canada for a visitor. Hotel rooms, including downtown, are moderately priced outside the big summer festival weeks and major hockey games, and parking and car hire are easier on the budget than in coastal cities. Eating out sits at typical North American levels once tax and tipping are added, and drinks in bars are not cheap. Many of the summer festivals and the river valley trails are free, which keeps a summer visit reasonable.

For its size, Edmonton has a busy stage life, and it peaks in summer. The Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival, the largest of its kind in North America, takes over Old Strathcona every August with hundreds of shows in small venues, and the Edmonton Folk Music Festival fills a hillside in Gallagher Park above the river. Other festivals follow through the warm months.

The rest of the year rests on established institutions: the Citadel Theatre complex downtown, the Winspear Centre, home of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, and the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium for opera, ballet and touring musicals. Small independent theatres and a few jazz and roots venues round it out, though arena tours supply most of the big-name music.

Wellness is not a reason to choose Edmonton, and the city has no bathing tradition of its own. What it does have is a small set of Nordic-style spas, in the city and on its northwestern edge, built around the hot-cold cycle of saunas, steam rooms, cold plunges and outdoor hot pools. They are at their best in winter, sitting in steaming water with snow on the ground and the air far below freezing. Beyond them the offer comes down to day spas, hotel spas and well-equipped public leisure centres with pools, saunas and hot tubs.

The city's pace is calm, and an unhurried walk in the river valley or an afternoon among the plants in the Muttart Conservatory's glass pyramids makes a quiet day. Most of the spas are reached by car.