Dead Parrot
Nostalgia consists of sentimental longing for a time with pleasant associations. Think of a party where boomers sing Beatles songs and someone recites Monty Python’s dead-parrot skit. The [...]
Cranes On High
Calm September days can feel almost surreal in central Alberta. A sleepy stillness lies over the aspen groves and prairies. Time seems suspended. That breathless autumn beauty surrounded me the [...]
Thin Power:
Andy Marshall’s study of James Rodney Winter Sykes, Mayor of Calgary from 1969 to 1977, has more perspective than most books about landmark political careers. As Marshall recounts, when Rod Sykes [...]
Searching for Petronius Totem
Peter Unwin’s new novel, Searching for Petronius Totem, is a grand and bewildering off-road trip into Canadian weirdness. A dystopian kitchen sink domestic drama by way of private-eye-era noir, [...]
One Day We’ll All Be Dead
Intuition says that personal essay should come easily to authors who’ve grown up in the Internet age. What better incentive to hone your craft than a constantly connected audience hungry for a [...]
Tar Wars:
From an outsider’s perspective—in my case, glancing in from Saskatchewan—it remains a mystery as to why the government of Alberta’s messaging about the oil sands often misses the mark. Or, [...]
Profile: Tsuut’ina Nation
Some call it “the great upheaval.” It started back in November 2013, when the Province of Alberta signed an agreement with the Tsuut’ina Nation to build an extension of Calgary’s Stoney Trail—the [...]
In Focus: Alberta Craft Council Calgary
The Alberta Craft Council has at last realized its goal of creating a physical presence in the southern half of the province. The council, which was founded in 1979 and operates Edmonton’s [...]
Baba’s Other Children
Last summer Deron Bilous, Alberta’s minister of economic development and trade, announced 2016–2017 would be the year of the Ukrainian-Canadian. Weeks later he declared that every September 7 in [...]
Head Bangers
Tristan Rice didn’t remember the hit. He didn’t remember much of the rest of the game either, only that sometime in the third quarter one of his fellow offensive linemen asked him, “What the hell [...]
MOST READ
MOST READ
How Ethical is Alberta’s Governing Party?
We should have seen it coming. The first inkling that controversy would dog Jason Kenney’s victory in the 2017 United Conservative Party leadership race came not during that contest but a year earlier, when Kenney ran for the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives.
On the evening of November 16, 2016, at ...
Inside the War Room
On the campaign trail in 2018, Jason Kenney promised that one of his first acts as premier would be to establish a “fully staffed, rapid response war room” to defend Alberta’s oil and gas sector. This was the cornerstone of his “Fight Back Strategy,” a massive shift in the tenor ...
Getting the Axe
Rod Skura was on a deadline. It was a Thursday afternoon, mid-August, and as an Alberta events-listing site had proclaimed: “Festival season is in full swing and you need to take advantage of it before it comes to a screeching halt.” The weekend festivities—“a whole lot of music, culture, food ...