Lethbridge sits in the sunny heart of southern Alberta, claiming more hours of sunshine than anywhere else in Canada. It is a prairie city through and through — flat agricultural land stretches in every direction, growing grain and sugar beets, with oil and gas operations dotting the landscape between the farms.
The city straddles the Oldman River valley, and the dramatic coulee that cuts through town gives Lethbridge more topographic interest than you might expect from the prairies. The High Level Bridge, a massive steel trestle railway bridge spanning the valley, is the longest and highest of its kind in the world and worth seeing from below in Indian Battle Park. Fort Whoop-Up, a reconstructed whisky trading post, tells the rough-and-tumble story of the region's frontier days, and the Galt Museum covers the coal-mining and settler history of southern Alberta.
The Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden beside Henderson Lake is one of the finest traditional Japanese gardens in Canada, built in 1967 to honour the Japanese-Canadian community displaced to work in Alberta's sugar beet fields during World War II.
Lethbridge is about an hour north of the US border and two hours south of Calgary, making it a practical stop on a southern Alberta road trip. The University of Lethbridge adds a bit of student-town energy, and the nearby Alberta Birds of Prey Centre — a working conservation facility for hawks, falcons, eagles, and owls — is worth the short drive east of town.