Welcome to Didsbury

Smoke from wildfires is causing very poor air quality and reduced visibility for Rocky View County near Airdrie and Crossfield, prompting health officials to issue a warning.

Environment and health agencies say conditions can change quickly, with air quality fluctuating over short distances and varying from hour to hour.

A vehicle fire caused major traffic delays on the QEII highway northbound around Highway 581 near Carstairs on Sunday evening.

Emergency crews, including Red Deer Fire, responded around 6:13 p.m. after reports of a vehicle on fire and drivers driving recklessly to avoid the area.

The fire was extinguished and the area cleared, but not before significant backups slowed weekend travellers.

No injuries were reported.

Earlier this month, Crossfield mayor Kim Harris, Didsbury mayor Rhonda Hunter met with MLA Scott Cyr to talk about the Mid-sized Towns Mayors Caucus that both communities are a part of.

Harris explained that the caucus represents 84 communities with a population between 1000 and 14,999.

"We want to get reliable infrastructure funding for mid-sized towns from the province to manage moving infrastructure and growth."

She explained that many smaller communities have aging infrastructure.

Chinook's Edge School Division is welcoming 51 new school teachers for the upcoming school year.

"The group includes teachers who are new to the profession, teachers who are new to Chinook’s Edge, and teachers who joined Chinook’s Edge partway through the 2024-25 school year," shared the school division.

That’s up from 48 new teachers hired for the 2024–25 school year, and 38 who joined at the start of 2023–24.

Superintendent Ryan Sawula says the increase came because of teacher retirements at the end of the 2024-25 school year.

The Town of Didsbury says power has been restored at its Butte pumphouse after an outage caused low water pressure Monday.

The town said restrictions on water use have now been lifted, but some residents may still notice lower than normal pressure.

Earlier in the day, the town had asked people to delay laundry and dishwasher use while crews worked to restore power.

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The ice is back in place at the Didsbury Memorial Complex.

Back in December of 2024, the ice was removed from both the arena and curling rink, following the discovery of an ammonia leak in the condenser.

At the end of June, a new adiabatic condenser was put in place, which allowed the town to get the rink ready for the skating season.

Traffic slowed to a crawl on the QEII northbound east of Didsbury on Thursday morning following an earlier collision, though the scene has since been cleared. 

The crash appeared to have occurred just before the intersection of Highway 582 and the QEII.  Eyewitnesses said the collision involved a semi-truck and trailer that had overturned onto its side.

Motorists were advised to use caution while travelling northbound on the QEII.

While she started halfway through last school year, Chinook's Edge School Division is welcoming Cheryl Griffin as Vice Principal of Ross Ford Elementary School in Didsbury.

"Cheryl says she is enjoying collaboration with her school team, and opportunities to connect to divisional teams, too. She says she is looking forward to next year, and some goals staff will work on," shared Chinook's Edge.

In her free time, Griffin enjoys spending time with her family, tending to her garden, exploring new technology, baking, and playing the piano.

Rocky View Schools (RVS) and Chinook’s Edge School Division (CESD) are hosting events to help first-time school bus riders become more familiar with the experience.

RVS, which serves communities like Airdrie, Crossfield, and Cochrane, are hosting their event from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 27 and 28 at the RVS Education Centre.

Didsbury’s Wesley Wilks has claimed a bronze medal for Team Alberta in the Men’s 50-metre Special Olympics Breaststroke at the 2025 Canada Summer Games.