Ahead of the Ice
Fall I stand in the line at the grocery store on a Tuesday evening. Outside, big fat flakes swirl to the pavement. It’s late October and this is one of the first snowfalls of the coming [...]
Stories in Storage
An authentic 19th-century samurai sword, with a manta-skin handle designed to give the user a better grip when the duel gets bloody—brought back to Alberta as a souvenir more than a century ago [...]
Gloria Sawai
Shortly after the death of Edmonton writer Gloria Sawai, I was invited by her children, Naomi and Kenji, to go through her library and select whatever books I should like to keep. Obviously this [...]
What Lies Beneath
Tony Bruder and Ron Schmidt get on either side of the six-foot boards as I crouch down to get a better look. The two Pincher Creek-area neighbours shuffle the weather-beaten wood aside, revealing [...]
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Why She Runs
It's a half hour before dawn when Rachel Notley emerges from her hotel elevator, and I barely recognize her. She’s wearing her running clothes and a battered pair of Asics Gel running shoes. Despite having arrived in Calgary late the night before, she has a schedule to keep and she’s eager ...
The Plans to Strip-Mine Coal in the Mountains
It looks like spectacular wild country, but some see it more as a big money sandwich.
The top layer of that sandwich is comprised of alpine grasses, forget-me-nots and stonecrop, glacier lilies and ancient, brave pines whose branches have been gnarled and weathered by centuries of wind. In summer, solitaires and ...
Suddenly There’s Room at the Inn
On a recent Thursday outside the Coliseum Inn, a woman in wrinkled clothes balances a large blue sleeping bag atop her shoulder. In the parking lot a man pushes a shopping cart overflowing with clothing. Outside the lobby doors, a man asks, “Hey, got a dollar?”
The scene is at odds with ...