Alberta Day celebrations are returning to Rocky Mountain House for a second year, with organizers planning an even bigger slate of family-friendly activities to mark the occasion.
The event, hosted by the Rocky Mountain House Community Events Committee, will take place Aug. 31 at Helen Hunley Memorial Park from 1 to 4 p.m., followed by an outdoor movie screening in the evening.
“Each year, we’re hoping to grow a little bit more and bring even more of the community together,” said Tina Hutchinson, chair of the organizing committee. “Last year was a great start, and we’re building on that momentum.”
This year’s celebration will feature a wide variety of games, bubble art, face painting, and cultural performers — along with a live musical performance by Amber Williams, scheduled to take the stage around 2 p.m.
The RCMP will also be participating, bringing a cruiser for kids to decorate with painted handprints as part of the “It Takes Many Hands to Build a Community” activity. Community peace officers participated in a similar event in 2024.
The Rocky Museum will again be open by donation and will host heritage games and a blacksmith demonstration throughout the afternoon.
In the evening, residents are invited to Curtis Field for an outdoor movie beginning at 8:30 p.m., where the new How to Train Your Dragon film is set to be screened. Hutchinson adds, it’ll be screened on a larger, high-quality daylight screen, allowing for an earlier start than on last year’s inflatable screen. Free popcorn will also be available.
The event is once again supported by a $5,000 provincial grant, awarded by the Alberta government to assist with Alberta Day programming — the second consecutive year the Rocky committee has received the funding.
Hutchinson adds, the community seems to be turning about in bigger and bigger numbers with each Community Event Committee-planned event.
“[With the Spring Into Summer Event], we had 600 burgers and hot dogs, and we ended up running out in the last hour,” she says. “As each event happens, we seem to be gaining more and more of the community to celebrate.”
–
RELATED
–
The inaugural Alberta Day event in Rocky took place in 2024 and drew approximately 300 attendees to the outdoor movie, with more visiting throughout the day.
Alberta Day was established in 2022 to commemorate the province’s founding on Sept. 1, 1905, when the Alberta Act came into effect and the province officially entered Confederation. The government declared the date an annual opportunity to celebrate Alberta’s culture, history, and identity.
Comments