St. Paul - A City Ready For Alien Visits from Out of Space!

We visited the city of St. Paul in Alberta

Though a town of about 6000 residents, with its main industries being agriculture and oil, St. Paul is a bustling town with a lot of business and economic activities as it serves many surrounding smaller communities.

Though a small town, St Paul has a lot of economic activities

We brought our laundry with us and found a laundry mat in the downtown area and made use of the facility there.

We ate at the UFO Pizza Place

P. and A. were waiting for us for lunch at the U.F.O. Pizza Restaurant. This was not your usual fast food pizza joint with just a few choices from which to choose.

The pizza at UFO was just out of this world!

There were more than thirty different pizzas with so many choices of toppings to choose from that some of us were having difficulty making up our minds. Good thing P. ordered for us.

 I was wondering about the name of the restaurant when someone told me that  a launch pad was built in St. Paul, awaiting and welcoming the arrival of the extraterrestrials from space. Really???

The pizza was out of the world! I had never tasted such delicious pizzas! There were Caesar Salad Pizza, Alfredo chicken pizza, shrimp and olive etc.. We loved it!

We did a prayer drive and prayer for the local church

After our pizza lunch,  a missionary couple drove from Edmonton and joined us for a prayer drive around St. Paul.

Our friend took us to seven different sites including churches and business sites where we stopped and  prayed for each of these places.

Our friend explained some of the non profit business in St, Paul with its goal to build up the city and provide employment to benefit the people.

 Impressed by the companies engaging in social enterprise business, we all prayed earnestly for these companies to succeed and asked for God's blessings upon them.

After we finished our prayer drive, we were ready to explore the world's first U.F.O.landing pad in the town of St.Paul.

The town of St. Paul built the world's first landing pad for UFO's

Why did they build a landing pad for U.F.O.?

Are they not afraid of aliens?

I was really curious about this landing pad for UFO.

St. Paul welcomes the out of space visitors and here is where they can  land

We learned that this world's first landing pad is a symbol of  the great faith which the people of St. Paul's have placed in mankind.

The citizens believe:

1.In the future all space travels will be safe for all intergalactic beings, be it earthlings or from out of space.





2. All visitors from earth or elsewhere are welcome to the town of St, Paul.

Wow! That's a lot of faith in human kind and in the beings from out of space!

We did not see any traces of UFO's but we did enjoy our visit and took a picture under the landing pad built for future visitors from out of space!

Our team visited the world's first U.F.O. landing pad in St, Paul, Alberta

R.T.
World's First UFO Landing Pad
St. Paul, Alberta
May, 2016

Blue Quills First Nations College - Turning Something Negative into Positive

Aboriginal stone sculptures greet visitors as they drive into the college. 

Today we visited the first native college - Blue Quills First Nations College, located in northern Alberta, about a three hour drive north of Edmonton.

The Blue Quills First Nations College was granted university status in September of 2015.

Blue Quills First Nations College,  Alberta, Canada

This is a good news story as the aboriginal people had "turned a negative into a positive".

 They had turned  one of the  notorious Residential Schools into a  First Nation College!








We have been visiting a northern Alberta Reserve for the past few days and learned a number of things of the Residential School Policy and how cruel and inhuman the Canadian Government had treated our indigenous people by forcibly removing children from their parents starting in the late 1800's.

The displays inside the Blue Quills First Nations College explains the history of the Residential Schools

We were fortunate to have G. ( a former student at that school) as our tour guides during our visit of the college,

A former church chapel is now a library

We toured the library which used to be the church where aboriginal children had to attend service each morning.

The boys' and girls' dormitory rooms, the classrooms and various rooms that once housed the aboriginal children had all been transformed into offices and meeting rooms.













The history and past of the Residential School were painful experiences for their former students.

Priests and nuns had their separate bathroom on the third floor

Much efforts had been made to erase the memories of the school,

We saw very few traces of the past in the current building, except for the bathroom exclusively used by the priests and nuns of the school.

The kitchen area where food was prepared for the children

       The Kitchen

Dining area for the children is now a cafeteria for college students

        Dining Hall

The College now offers a number of programs to students such as  Psychology, Early Childhood Education and Arts.

Beautuiful artwork reflecting native themes by students from the Arts Department were displayed everywhere in the College.

Many of us paused  to admire  these wonderful art pieces.

The university is expanding and new buildings have been added to the college.

New buildings are added for the college

The Blue Quills University is open to aboriginal students as well as all Canadian students.

Tepee tents were being set up on the college ground for an upcoming cultural camp for aboriginal students

Visiting the university was one of the most inspiring experiences we have had on this trip out west!



R.T.
Blue Quills University
Alberta
May,  2016

Onchaminahos School - a Cree Elementary School in a Northern Alberta Reserve

Having worked in elementary school and with children all my life,
 I am always interested in how schools especially in other jurisdiction operate.

I  had an opportunity to volunteer and visit the Onchaminahos School - an elementary school in Northern  Alberta

When our friend asked me if I would be interested in volunteering at an elementary school on this trip, I jumped at the opportunity to work with the children and to visit the school.









I visited and spent almost a day at an elementary school on a native reserve in Alberta.




Education in Canada is a provincial responsibility which means that each province looks after the education of its children.

A table was set up  with the Smudging container outside the office of the school

However, the native reserves are different. The aboriginal people belong to the First Nation which has a treaty with Canada, therefore, its educational system is different as it is looked after by the band council.

The school has about two hundred students.

A table was set up with a smudging container placed upon it.

Each morning, students will perform the smudging ceremony before classes start for the day.












All visitors to the school were required to sign in at the office. I did and told them the teacher's name and the class I was supposed to be a volunteer for the day.

It happened to be recess time when I was there, therefore I was ushered into the staff room and waited there.

Lots of posters depicting native cultures and traditions around the school

I had sometime therefore I looked around the school and noticed  there were a lot of posters and bulletin board displays depicting Cree cultures and values posted around the school.

The Cree alphabets displayed on school wall

The Cree language alphabets were proudly displayed on school wall for all students and visitors to see.

Positive messages with aboriginal people were posted to encourage students

There were many poster printed with positive messages for students encouraging them to achieve their dreams of being a somebody!

I volunteered at  a Gr. 4 class

After morning recess, I went into one of the Grade 4 classes and met with teacher. Mrs. Q. who welcome me warmly into her class.

Classroom walls were full of language rich displays

I loved the classroom! Mrs. Q has created a very warm, welcoming place for her students.


The classroom walls were filled with language rich posters and instructions which students could easily refer to when needed.

She reminded me of my wonderful teachers in elementary school and the great time I had when I was a student.

I helped out in a language and Math class.

 In the language class students were learning their spelling words through a couple of word games.

What I really liked was after the teacher demonstrated how the word game was played, students took turn going up to the front of the class and was in charge of the game themselves.


Students were polite, enthusiastic; they clearly enjoyed learning  and were engaged in the activity.

Students were served lunch at school

Then came lunch time! Lunch was brought in on a cart for students.

( I learned that working with the operating budget allocated to the school, the principal and the school try their best to  find mone within their budget to provide lunch to students! Not an easy task, I must say.)

All the food served for lunch was finished by students

Students lined up for their food - Shepherd's  Pie and Mrs. Q. patiently dished out the food for each student.

I visited a Cree language classroom

Teacher and students ate lunch together in the classroom with the teacher supervising them.

  After students finished their lunch, they could go outside and play on the school playground.













I also asked for permission to visit other classrooms, one of which was a Cree language class.

What I saw in the Cree classroom reminded me of what a French Immersion classroom looked like in Ontario.

Learning posters in a Cree class

A Cree class in progress

Lots of posters and words in the Cree language to encourage and help students to learn the language.

School Library

I also visited the school library at this elementary school.

Positive messages in the school library

Again, I saw the same positive messages here for the students in the library.

Atrium to the School Library

My most favorite place of the school was this sunny spot to the entrance of the library!   A beautiful place with skylights where sunlight could stream in and brighten up the entire area.

With ample seating area, students could meet, congregate, talk and share!

I enjoyed my visit to the Onchaminahos School and appreciated the opportunity of working with the students and learning more about their cultures!

Thank you to Mrs. Q. and the Grade 4 class for your warm welcome and kindness!

R.T.
A Northern Reserve
Alberta