Both Edmonton and Calgary have quality symphony orchestras. Many performing venues exist throughout the province. Notables being the Calgary and Edmonton Jubilee Theatres, as well as many university- and college-based companies. The Northern Lights Theatre located at Keyano College in Fort McMurray -- 530 km north of Edmonton -- is known throughout western Canada for its quality performances and curriculum. Several well-known theatre artists got their start in an Alberta theatre.
Summer brings a multitude of festivals to the province. The Fringe Festivals, Folk Festivals, Multi-culture Festivals, Heritage Days -- just to name a few -- highlight the province's cultural diversity and love of entertainment. Most of the major cities have several performing theatre companies who entertain the populace with everything from opera to soap opera in venues as diverse as the Jubilee Theatre to the Bus Barns.
Both cities tout first-class Canadian Football League and National Hockey League teams. Baseball (Pacific Coast League) and soccer as well as Rugby and lacrosse are played professionally in Alberta.
Architecturally, the province may be somewhat lacking. Calgary is known for its New York- or Toronto-style glass-and-steel high-rises while Edmonton boasts many facades from the early 1900s. Still, not bad for a province that was formed in the early 1900s and started as NWMP (North West Mounted Police) outposts.
In 2001 one British journalist nicknamed Edmonton 'Deadmonton' for its lack of culture and night life. He later recanted after being shown the city by the then mayor 'Bill Smith' by helicopter. The province's universities stand equal to and well above many other institutions of higher learning in Canada. Alberta boasts one of the few successful and accredited distance learning universities (Athabasca University) in Canada. Of the schools of higher learning one cannot ignore the two major colleges, NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) and SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) which produce annually thousands of qualified, ready-to-work graduates in disciplines as varied as 'Mechanical Technology' and 'Baking'. Alberta's educational institutions are second to none in Canada.
Although Alberta lacks a preponderance of notable large art galleries of the New York or Toronto variety, many small and galleries exist in the major centres. These galleries focus on local artists and artisans. Canadian and northern Canadian art and crafts are notable in their popularity. Local sculptors, painters, weavers and many other artisans show original works throughout the province.
Many films and some television shows have been shot in Alberta. Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven and the CBC's Jake and the Kid are notables among many. For years, the TV program Viper was shot in downtown Calgary. Though it could be said that few films and television shows are filmed in Alberta compared to the rest of Canada, this is really a matter of finances and grants from the various provincial governments and can change on a whim or an election. Some notable oases in this desert are Banff, a Rocky Mountain resort town that is home to the annual Banff television festival, and the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller which has a remarkable collection of dinosaur fossils found in the Alberta badlands.