There are many ways to aquire a real Christmas tree in Alberta! If you're in the big cities, you'll easily find Scouts Canada and other various organizations and businesses with pop up tree markets all around. Alternatively, you can head out into the back country to find, pick, cut and drag home your very own Christmas tree.

An easily accessible permit from the Alberta Government website allows you to go cut up to 3 trees to be used as personal Xmas trees.

Don't forget your boots, gloves, your saw and of course some rope to tie the tree down!

It's always a fun tradition to go hunting for the perfect tree. Alberta has a few various backcountry areas to choose a tree from and there is a useful map online where you find the permits.

This year we headed west of Sundre and deep into the forested area. A little tip, get off that main backcountry road! 1st of all, trees closer to the road will be more dusty. Secondly, more people will be pulling from that main hwy. If you are comfortable enough to venture a bit further into the back country and off of the main road, you'll likely be rewarded with a larger selection of perfect Christmas trees.

Using a real tree is better for the environment than those fake ones!

Also, if you don't have a tree by the time Dec 22 & 23 rolls around, most places are giving them away for free, or cloee to it, by then in towns and cities!