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 [...]
Katherine Govier
Katherine Govier
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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Reducing the Harm
It's a little after 10 o’clock in the morning and Taylor feels like she’s climbing the walls.
When her name is called and the door to Lethbridge’s supervised drug consumption site buzzes open, Taylor moves quickly on her crutches. She settles into a chair at the second booth from the end ...
Should All Drugs Be Decriminalized?
Hakique Virani says yes.
Twelve-step addiction recovery programs teach that it is irrational to “do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.” This should be a lesson for legislators too. As the 4,000 Canadian families who lost a loved one to an opioid overdose last year know, our ...
Holy Healthcare
Just tell them we don’t have it here.” That’s what the nurse told me in Killam Hospital, an hour east of Camrose. I’d asked what would happen if a woman came into our ER asking for the morning-after pill. The nurse wasn’t being self-righteous, but simply explaining the policy.
As ...