Northside Delacroix
A homeless man once grabbed Shannon by the ponytail and tried to drag her into the trees in Rundle Park. It happened a few months after her mom drank herself to death; Shannon was just eighteen [...]
The Sandbox
The earth is a reluctant storyteller. Unless prodded by a backhoe or the blades of a plough, the soil retains its secrets. Perhaps today our inquisitive shovels will loosen its tongue. The [...]
Economic Diversification
When I sat on the Alberta Treasury Board, but a few short years ago, we were talking about investing provincial surpluses in the Heritage Fund. Today? Our oil-and-gas-dependent economy is in free [...]
Beer Boom
Lacombe, just north of Red Deer, may not be the first place you think of when the conversation turns to craft beer. But these days some good brewing is definitely happening in town. In fall of [...]
It Takes A Village
During the Second World War the Ernest Manning government refused to invest in wartime day nurseries for Calgary and Edmonton—despite the fact that so many Alberta women with young children had [...]
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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 ...
Herd Memory
On a cold day in February, I flew over the tightly knit stands of black spruce and jack pine in northwestern Alberta, straining my eyes below, eager to catch sight of a woodland caribou. My dad, a wildlife biologist, called them the “grey ghosts” of the boreal. Woodland caribou have ...
An Environmentalist’s Case for Beef
“…If you knew how meat was made, you’d probably lose your lunch. I know; I’m from cattle country, and that’s why I became a vegetarian. Meat stinks, and not just for animals but for human health and the environment.”
That was Alberta singer-songwriter k.d. lang, in a 1990 television spot for ...