Back to the Garden
When I think about being an Albertan, I think about gardening with Dad. He took it up when he was 85; he’d retired and he needed more to do. But his new hobby was not for the faint of heart. When [...]
Katherine Govier
Katherine Govier
Retrospective: A Trip Around the Bus Loop
In Grade 6, Lois told me her mother lay on the couch all day, eating chocolates and crying. Astonishing. But not entirely. I believe I knew, deep down, that the place was filled with unhappy [...]
History of the Fantasy
When Rocky Mountains National Park was created in 1887, this beautiful part of the world was deemed empty. “The Indians seem to have feared and avoided the mountains,” wrote Mabel Williams, the [...]
The Natural
Confederation Building, Parliament Hill, Ottawa. It’s dead quiet, not a soul in sight. This place is gothic, its long grey hallways a series of closed doors, each bearing a small number plate. [...]
Both Sides Now
The winter of 1970. In “Room at the Top,” a coffee house about seven storeys up in the frigid night sky of Edmonton, a couple of folksingers are tuning up their guitars while their drummer is [...]
Rebel Daughter
When I left Edmonton for Toronto to go to graduate school, I had an assignment. It was to interview a fellow alumna of the University of Alberta, one Doris McCubbin Anderson, then editor of [...]
A Trip Around the Bus Loop
Sometimes the place you can’t wait to escape is a very good place. Perhaps it is the very best place of all. But you, because you are you, are determined to escape it. The Grade 3 class photos [...]
Wild Roses
Lucy Gray’s aunt had been an artist. Ruth Bentham was her name and she first painted the wild roses and the coulees of southern Alberta, where she had moved in 1937 as a young bride. She then [...]
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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 ...