Worldwide Affiliate Network Destinations: Calgary

At Global Alliance, we take the “Worldwide” in our company name very seriously. We pride ourselves in offering premium limousine services to our clientele not only in our home base of Toronto but around the globe. Through our sophisticated network of trusted worldwide affiliates, Global Alliance can provide professional chauffeured services in hundreds of international cities. We will discuss many of the major worldwide destinations served via our affiliate network on this blog. Today, we consider the growing western Canadian centre of Calgary.

Although Calgary has been inhabited by European-descended settlers for less than a century and a half, it has become one of Canada’s most populous and economically influential cities. Founded as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1875 and incorporated as a town in 1884, the Calgary metropolitan area now counts over one million residents, Canada’s fifth largest and the largest in the province of Alberta, just topping its northern rival, the provincial capital Edmonton.

Nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, which are visible to the west, Calgary is a gateway to the mountain national parks, in particular nearby Banff. It is also a transportation hub, with major cross-country railroads as well as the TransCanada Highway passing through the city. Extensive ranchlands in Southern Alberta have made Calgary a major centre of the country’s meatpacking industry (Alberta Beef is a byword for quality across Canada). The proximity of those ranches has given the city a strong cowboy identity which only becomes stronger each July during the world-famous Calgary Stampede, a well-attended annual fair, rodeo, and western exhibition.

Beyond the Stampede, Calgary is most renowned as the corporate centre of Alberta’s extremely active oil and gas energy industry. Calgary is home to the second most corporate head offices in Canada after Toronto, many of those offices housed in the skyscrapers in the city’s busy downtown on the south bank of the Bow River. With a concentration of high-powered business leaders and considerable incomes in no short supply, Calgary also features a number of luxury hotels, restaurants, bars, and retail options.

Calgarians know how to relax as well, however. In addition to the Stampede, the city features many indoor and outdoor activity options. As host city of the 1988 Winter Olympic Games, Calgary can boast of world-class winter sports facilities, many of them within the city limits at Canada Olympic Park as well as at Banff and Canmore in the nearby Rockies.

The NHL’s Calgary Flames play their home games at the Saddledome in Stampede Park and maintain a fierce rivalry with the Edmonton Oilers (the fabled Battle of Alberta). Many other summertime festivals have joined the Stampede in recent years, including the well-attended Folk Music Festival in Prince’s Island Park adjacent to downtown on an island in the Bow River. The world-class Calgary Zoo is one of Canada’s top wildlife zoo attractions, and Spruce Meadows to the south of the city is one of Canada’s finest equestrian venues. The Glenbow Museum downtown is the largest in Alberta, and the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame and Museum is located at Canada Olympic Park. A short drive to the southeast of Calgary is Drumheller, famed for its dramatic “badlands” landscape and voluminous prehistoric fossil finds, many of which are housed at the Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology.

Whether you’re planning on visiting Alberta’s largest city for business or for pleasure, please contact Global Alliance Worldwide Chauffeured Services for all of your transportation needs in Calgary.

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