Organizing a Women’s March
Nine days out from the January 21, 2017, Women’s March on Washington, DC, Calgary had no local march scheduled. If it hadn’t been for Joni, this city wouldn’t have been part of the largest [...]
Chance Encounters with Wild Animals
The title of Calgary writer Monica Kidd’s fourth collection of poetry, Chance Encounters with Wild Animals, suggests an exploration of the risks and rewards of wilderness travel, the kind that [...]
The Empress of Idaho
I loved Edmonton author Todd Babiak’s The Empress of Idaho. Set in Monument, Colorado, it features all the hallmarks of a small-town America coming-of-age story in the late ’80s, complete with [...]
This Has Nothing To Do With You
That morning” are the first two words of Lauren Carter’s new novel: “That morning,” the one after Melony’s high school graduation party, when everything changes. She wakes up feeling right with [...]
Letter to the War Room
DEAR WAR ROOM: I realize you’ve called yourself the “Canadian Energy Centre” since opening shop last fall, but we all know you’re the War Room as promised in the United Conservative Party’s [...]
Vistas of the West: Poems and Visuals of Nature
Vistas of the West is a well-designed, attractive hardback that may grace the coffee table of many a western home for years to come. It would make a good gift to mail to any puzzled easterner who [...]
Beverley McLachlin: The Legacy of a Supreme Court Chief Justice
With her retirement from the Supreme Court of Canada in 2017, a certain genre of Beverley McLachlin hagiography has emerged. The first woman to serve as Chief Justice, McLachlin cuts a formidable [...]
Saving Seeds
It’s the cusp of the growing season on our farm. The past year hasn’t been for the faint of heart, that’s for certain: another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it summer, the boreal forest lagging [...]
Fort McMurray—Wood Buffalo
Fort McMurray—Wood Buffalo may be in the far northeast corner of Alberta, but it has been at the centre of change in the province for many years. That’s attracted people such as Don Scott, a [...]
Contacting the Premier
When I was offered the Director of Correspondence job in Premier Notley’s office in June 2015, the title triggered images of a quill pen and ink pot atop a Dickens-era desk. Reading the premier’s [...]
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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 ...
Alberta’s Black Swan
The best evidence of our conservative government’s cluelessness before the economy tanked in 2020 is the provincial budget. It was passed in a rush on March 18, 2020, two months after the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, had arrived in Canada. Oil demand in China was already down 20 per cent. Oil storage ...
Part 1: A Tribute to Charlie Russell
Charlie Russell loved to fly, and he seldom phoned first those times when he would fly his Kolb ultralight airplane north from Hawk’s Nest ranch on the boundary of Waterton Lakes National Park, to our “ranchette” near the Crowsnest Pass. We would hear the thrum of the plane’s Rotax motor ...