A medieval encampment grows in southern Alberta

The four room subterranean structure is something similar to what J.R. Tolkien envisioned for his iconic book series published in 1937. It was the dream of Linda and Daniel Smith to transform a fantasy burrow into reality. The result of that dream is the Good Knights medieval encampment south of Three Hills or about an hour and a half drive northeast from Calgary, which the duo operate.

It all started with a unique door.

“Inside the round doors is a 20 foot long (6.1 meters) hallway and because we wanted this wheelchair accessible, that means the door has to be has 36 inch (91 cm) tread width, which means a seven foot (2.1 meters) wide door,” said Daniel. “A seven foot round door is a big door to open and close and so so then the whole building kind of morphed out from that.”

The Smiths first thought of the burrow in 2017 and started excavation a year later. But construction costs quickly escalated and the project was put on hold. Crowd funding and a grant from Travel Alberta helped restart it and now the burrow is set to open soon.

“You look at the original artwork that Tolkien did and you know, the doors were quite large,” said Daniel. “Our initial view was to make it diminutive, but the building codes wouldn’t allow us so we had to have minimum heights on ceilings and doorways and widths and that kind of stuff.”

Darrell Friesen and his son-in-law Graham Wilton are helping build the structure and say it’s been a challenge from the beginning with a lot of problem solving involving round doors and arched ceilings.

“Usually you’re trying to build things square,” said Friesen. “As you can see, most everything is a round here (is curved) so you can almost put your square away.

“It’s a real mind bender,” he added. “No pun intended.”

SUPPORT GROWING

Linda monitors the Good Knight’s web site and is seeing lots of support for the project from people across southern Alberta.

“Just overwhelming,” she said. “In the last five years Daniel has probably had 20 or so calls every week asking when we’re going to be done, it’s huge, we have waiting lists (for people who want to book).”

Daniel said some people were referring to the four and a half year long project as “the Hobbit Burrow”.

“We ran into some legal issues with the Warner Brothers lawyers and so we had to back right away from that,” he said. “There is a slight resemblance so you can’t get around that but this is our own project, we’re not marketing (it that way), we’re not trying to confuse anyone that this has anything to do with their properties.”

The grand opening for the burrow is in December and the Smiths are already planning to expand, with three Romani wagons complete with running water.

“We’re calling it The Wanderer’s Hideaway and so it’s inspired by the Romani travelers from Europe, what some people call gypsies,” he said. “We’re building three covered wagons, they’ll have queen size beds, a two piece bathroom, little sleeping closet under the main bed, each with its own little private campsite so this will be the new themed area.”

Learn more about the medieval encampment here:  www.goodknights.ca