This Sunday, the Atlas Coal Mine is marking its centennial and the 80th anniversary of its iconic tipple. 

The Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site is marking a couple of major milestones in its history this weekend, celebrating the centennial of the Atlas Coal Mine, and the 80th birthday of its iconic tipple.

The Atlas will be marking the day this Sunday, May 21. The day will have all kinds of activities, games “Mine Crafts,” a birthday cake, and more.

Executive Director of the Atlas, Sarah Newstead, is looking forward to having some ponies on site for the celebration.

“The main highlight for me, because I’m a horse person, and of course for Bob Moffatt who was a pony driver, is we have pit ponies coming,” said Newstead. “We will be doing wagon rides.”

Newstead explains while the Atlas has been around for a century, it was not always in the same place.

“The Atlas has several different mines in the valley and the first Atlas was founded on March 7, 1917,” she said. “We are also celebrating the 80th anniversary of our tipple. This is what makes us nationally important, and internationally important.”

She says the fact that the tipple has survived for 80 years is amazing as its wooden structure was seen as a more temporary build.

“I have done a lot visiting and interaction with mining sites and other industrial sites in the UK, and the scale of the site here is comparable to scale of sites in the UK and other parts of North America. What we have here is something special, Wooden structures are not preserved very often, it is rare to have a structure like this preserved because structures like this are seen sort of as temporary. For it to be in one place for 80 years and still available for the public to view is quite significant.”

She said in the next few years she hopes to do more research to understand the significance of the tipple in an international context.

This year will also mark the final phase of the planned restoration of the tipple. This will entail work on the roof deck and conservation work.

“People will be able to see some of the new restoration we have on the site,” said Newstead.

The celebration kicks off at 1 p.m.

The Atlas Coal Mine can be found straight east out of Drumheller for 20 minutes, along Highway 10 just past East Coulee.  

Keep an eye out for more Weekender action on page or online by following The Weekender on Instagram at @theweekender_dm or on the Drumheller Mail Tourist page. Use the hashtag #Ownthevalley for permission to share your own wild adventures.

Valley Bus Drumheller employees stand in front of their new unit, a 2017 Ram Promaster, that was purchased in mid-June of this year for $78,000. The cost was shared between the Provincial government and Valley Bus fundraisers and the new vehicle itself can seat nine people in total. Back Row (l-r) Dwaine Kipling, Bill Pratt. Front Row (l-r) David Carter, Janice Brereton, Barbara Drever, Karen Moore, Dan Ripper, and Gunnar Mortensen. Missing in the picture is Anita Adams. The valley bus system offers transportation to communities within Drumheller including East Coulee, Midland, Nacmine, Newcastle, and Rosedale. If anyone requires their service, they can call Valley Bus at 403-823-1319.

(Photo Credit to Bill Wulff)

A few classic car enthusiasts were cruising the valley in style June 22 weekend as the Alberta Packard Club enjoyed the valley’s roads.

   Members of the club began showing with their vintage ridesand they had a full weekend planned of sightseeing, camaraderie, and the open road.

Member of the Club Brian DeBoeck, says local Packard owner Dan McDermid was instrumental in bringing the cruise to the valley.

“We‘re here until Sunday, so we will visit some of the attractions. The Atlas Coal Mine, the Wayne Hotel and the Tyrrell Museum,” said DeBoeck.

The 28 strong club is on the road every season and tries to mix up their destination. They have been through the valley on a number of occasions before. That weekend they had at least a half a dozen cars on the road.

"1949 is the oldest one we have here, and, up to 1955,” said DeBoeck.

 For DeBoeck, his attraction to the car is simple.

“The Packard was the second car I ever bought and I thought it was a good car, so I bought another one, and another after that,” he said. “They are a very well built car.”

Packards are all about luxury. Their first rolled out the door in 1899. And while in 1950, they outsold Cadillac, the company purchased Studebaker in 1953, and the last true Packard was it's 1956,concept the Packard Predictor was built.

 While some cars still carried the Packard Marque, over the next couple of years the Studebaker-Packard Company pulled the nameplate in 1959.

The car still holds a place in the member’s heart and turns heads when they cruise down the road.

A strong final weekend for the Canadian Badlands Passion play helped to boost ticket sales, however over all, the heat in the previous weeks saw attendance wilt in the sun.

The Passion Play wrapped up its third and final weekend on Sunday in front of an appreciative audience. While they had a slow start, they finished strong.

“We were pretty deep in the weeds going into that final weekend,” said Executive Director Vance Neudorf. “We topped over 5,000 entrances in the final week, so that is really nice.”

“Overall attendance was down 5 per cent (compared to last season).”

Going into the final weekend of the Canadian Badlands Passion play, the show is receiving rave reviews but weather warnings are cutting into the attendance.

The sun shined for the first two weeks for this year’s Passion Play, but maybe a bit too bright. Neudorf says one of the deciding factors was not the weather, but rather the weather warnings.

Over the last couple of weeks, the valley has enjoyed beautiful, hot, sunny weather. However, these translated into heat warnings.

“This policy to put out heat wave warnings, what it does is paints a big red square over our area on the Environment Canada website,” said Neudorf, adding this may have scared off potential audience members.

Just as soon as the heat warning came down, the air quality warning sprang up due to the BC forest fires.

“We went from the entire map in Southern Alberta turning red; our seniors look at that, and they are probably going to stay home, and then it was all grey saying stay indoors.

He says the Passion Play is well equipped for the hot weather. It has shaded areas, misters, and even golf carts with frozen treats and refreshments.

“We take care of people, but unfortunately we can’t put all of that on the Weather Channel.”

The air quality warnings did dissipate before last weekend’s show, which may have helped the attendance.

The drop in attendance means a drop in revenues for the show. He explains that approximately 50 per cent of the play’s revenue comes from admissions. Because of this, they will have to make it up in other areas.

“We are looking at trying to find more monthly donors. We have a list of stuff to do and put back together before next season, the fall is the time to do it, so we need those people behind us through the fall,” he said.

The Prairie Land Regional School Division Board has voted to remove one of its trustees for missing three consecutive meetings.

Chair of the board Marsha Tkach toldThe Mail that at their meeting on May 25, Trustees have disqualified Ward 2, Subdivision 1 Trustee Jada Hill, however, there are conditions.

“The motion reads ‘that Jada Hill be disqualified as trustee due to being absent for three consecutive meetings, as per the School Act, Section 82 (1) unless a medical certificate certifying her absence is provided to the board chair prior to June 15, 2017,’” said Marsha Tkach.

She says the motion is based on the provision of the School Act.

She said that under the School Act, a trustee cannot absence them self without being authorized by a resolution of the board, to do so from three consecutive regular meetings with the board.

The Act does allow for the absence due to an illness if the person provides evidence of that illness in the form of a medical certificate.

Tkach says that she understands that two of Hill’s absences were because she was not able to get away from work.

   The Mailreached out to Ms. Hill for comment however as of press time, she did not respond.

   Tkach said there were six trustees present at the meeting however at the time of the vote, Hill had left the meeting. The remaining five voted for the motion.

The community of Riverside celebrated Canada’s 150th birthday with a community barbecue at Partici Park on Friday, September 1, The Heritage and Arts Committee supplied a grant for the barbecue and members of the community were able to cross a few items off their Canada 150 ParticipACTION Playlist including slack lining, sack races, and hula-hoop.

Megan’s Moves also did a Zumba demonstration and Nazirah Bellydance performed and guided a few potential dancers through some basic moves.

Riverside Medical Clinic welcomed the community to its new facility at its grand opening Friday afternoon June 30. Residents toured the facility and also enjoyed a snack in benefit of the Greentree School playground. They also announced the winner of their logo contest. Congratulations to KieraTreller,centre, who just completed Grade 6 at St. Anthony’s School, she had her logo chosen for the clinic.  

mailphoto by Patrick Kolafa

Riverside Value Drug Mart is back in the winner’s circle after topping Drumheller United in the final of the Drumheller Coed Recreational Soccer league.

The championship match was played on Thursday night, June 22, and Riverside Value Drug Mart won 7-2 to end the season undefeated. This is the third time in four years that Riverside has won thehonour.

“This year was a different team, we only had a half dozen returning from last year. So it was a mixture of a lot of new players combined with the old,” said GavinMakse.

   While Riverside repeated as champion, it is not indicative of the real competition on the field.

“This is the first time the team that finished first in the regular season has actually won the league championship,” saidMakse.

   The score was also not indicative of the play on the field. Drumheller United put up a strong fight versus Riverside. Coach David Easter saw great improvement throughout the season. This team has students from both DVSS and St. Anthony’s.

“Honestly the growth we saw from them was awesome. The score tonight doesn’t fully reflect how much growth they have had,” said Easter.

 He said when they started this season, there was talent but no cohesions.

   “We grew into working as a team, moving as a unit, especially defensively,” he said.

League-wide, it was a great season.Yavis topped Recovery for the third place.

“We had over 60 players registered in four teams,” saidMakse, adding that drop-in over the summer will be at the new St. Anthony’s School field on Tuesday and Thursday night.

Riverside Value Drug Mart (first photo) took home the championship for the third time in four years, while Drumheller United (seen here) took home silver.

On Saturday, July 31, the Rockyford Fire Department paid tribute to their fallen firefighters with a $40,000 clock tower.

In recent memory, two particular men were recognized for their duty; David (Dave) Mabbott and Richard (Rick) Zachariassen as their names are forever etched into the lower base of the tower.

The project took approximately six months to build with a shared cost between the Rockyford Fire Association, Village of Rockyford, and individual volunteer firefighters.

(Mailphoto by Terri Huxley)

    A year end get-together has been put in place to commemorate a job well done for Greentree/St.Anthony’s parents and teachers alike at the Badlands Community Facility (BCF) on Thursday, June 29.
    Roots of Empathy is a classroom program dedicated to anti-bullying and further along development in a young person’s life through new mothers and their child’s progress.
    “So we had two mom’s going into schools; two into Greentree and two into St. Anthony’s as well. The kids get to learn through the child and through different themes they get to understand the behaviour,” said FSCC coordinator April Harrison.
    “Its also a big promotion of anti-bullying.”
    At the wind-up, Terri Wood received a recognition award for her 10 years of dedication to the Roots of Empathy program.

Shortly before 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday January 17, Drumheller RCMP responded to a residential break and enter in progress in Rosedale.
While en-route, police were informed the suspects left the residence in the homeowners truck with the homeowners travel trailer attached.
Police arrived in the area to see a trailer matching the description turn onto highway 10.
The vehicle attempted to flee from police and in the process overturned the trailer into a ditch, disabling the truck.
A male and female were taken into custody and face numerous charges related to the break and enter, driving and firearms offences. Both accused are known to police.

Drumheller Rotary Club prepares to say farewell to Polish exchange student Iga Rodziewicz (18).
After arriving back in August of last year, Rodziewicz hastravelled all over the western half of the world with an immense amount of knowledge to take back with her.
Come July 18, Iga will finally be making her way home back to the small city of Grudziadz, Poland.
“It was an amazing time for sure, I spent a lot of time with my host families, with exchange students, and people from school,” said Rodziewicz.
For the majority of her stay, Rodziewicz was taken under Rotarian Tracy Kakuk and her husband‘s wing. They have a family with young adults roughly the same age as her, making the stay much more enjoyable.
“She fit right in,” said Kakuk. “There was no problem right off the bat.”
Rodziewicztravelled all over North and South America including much of Canada like Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia. She has alsotravelled down to California, Mexico, and Guantanamo aside from Alberta with multiple host families.
“There were lots of things to do all year,” said Rodziewicz. “All year was the best year of my life – I’m so appreciative of my parents, they gave me an opportunity to be here, to make new friends, to see all their country’s and I just want to thank everyone who took care of me, whoare taking care of me still.”
She was able to save up enough money to travel, none of which was paid for by family.
“When I decided to do it, it was a big process. I did all paperwork, Visa’s and stuff – it was so hard but when I came last year in August, it was unbelievable that I came here,” said Rodziewicz.
Before she has a chance to leave, the family will take her to the Passion Play and the Calgary Stampede.
Over the year, Rodziewicz’s English had also noticeably improved.
“She spoke good English when she came but it’s a lot better now,” said Kakuk. “We had a lot of fun correcting her.”
At first, Rodziewicz had applied for Calgary and was disappointed to find out she was placed in Drumheller.
“She was kinda quite upset when she wasn’t going to be in Calgary, she was going to be in Drumheller but after being here, she is glad that she got to come to Drumheller and not Calgary,” said Kakuk.
Overall, Rodziewicz has grown immensely since the beginning and will treasure the year forever.
“I think I am more mature and more outgoing and I haven’t got this barrier, it was hard for me, now it’s easy after all year,” said Rodziewicz.
“It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to everyone.”
The two families plan to meet with the Kakuk’s traveling to Poland in September.

For all his dedication in volunteering and assisting with the many Rotary Club projects, Ken Smith is the recipient of Rotary’s Distinguished Unsung Hero Award.

This is just the fifth time the award has been presented. Ken pitches in at all times to help the club raise money for community and area projects, from selling tickets, doing the heavy work and anything else asked of him. The Distinguished

Unsung Hero award is open to anyone, anywhere in the world. Its’ purpose is to recognize individuals who contribute so muchin volunteer work and who may not be publicly recognized. Rotary welcomes any submissions. These should be directed to Box 1331, T0J 0Y0.

(photo submitted)

Garrett Holowath (20) of Rumsey, Alberta, will play baseball for the U21 Alberta team at the Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg from July 28 to August 13.

After one of the coaches in the same men’s league approached him to play for the team, Holowath made his way through try-outs to make the Alberta team.

“I’m left handed and that really helped me,” said Holowath. “I think it gave me a little advantage compared to the rest of the guys.”

After lots of experience and games, Holowath was ready to tackle something higher on the ladder.

“I’ve been playing ball for most of my life so it just kind of worked out and an opportunity presented itself to go and I took it and now we are in Manitoba,” Holowath said.

The team officially formed in October of last year and have been practicing ever since. They have competed at senior men’s tournaments for the last month and a half in order to prepare for the upcoming Summer Games.

For the next 17 days, Holowath will be playing at the John Blumberg Softball Complex in Winnipeg. Sure to be in the cheering section would be Holowath’s family as his grandparents reside in thecentre province.

“My grandparents live in Manitoba so I’ve been coming out here to Portage, Oakville area for my entire life every other summer,” said Holowath.

Holowath is excited and proud to be representing his home province of Alberta.

“It’s a great opportunity and I’m pretty pumped to be out here.”

Volunteers Dianne Snyder, and Dwight Constable join Jennessa McAuley Community and Family Services worker with the Salvation Army, Captain Jennifer Hillier and Shane Hillier of The Salvation Army in opening Sally’s Social Cafe, aimed to bring people together for lunch and fellowship each Wednesday at Knox United Church.

(Mailphoto by Patrick Kolafa)

The Salvation Army has found a great way for people to get together and have an inexpensive lunch.

On Wednesday, June 28, Sally’s Social Cafe was launched. Going forward, Knox United Church each Wednesday from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., will be the place to come for lunch and enjoy other people’s company.

   “We want to build strong community connections,” said Captain Jennifer Hillier of the Salvation Army. “It is open to anyone in the community.”

While it provides a nutritious lunch each week for just $3, Hillier says the goal is more to bring people together.

They have assembled a strong team of volunteers to make it work, and have also enjoyed some great donations to get it up and running. They could always use more volunteers.

“There will be some board games available for people just want to stay and have some fellowship time, some fun, laughter,” she said.