Mining Coal and Gravel
Unless the Kenney UCP find a way to dodge and defer, we can expect to learn whether our government considers coal more important to Alberta’s future than water. It’s really as simple as that, [...]
Kevin Van Tighem
Kevin Van Tighem
The End of Innocence
In 1960s Calgary it was easy for a kid to be naive and free. Naive, because Alberta seemed a perfect place, far from all the ugliness populating the pages of the papers our parents read. Free, [...]
Treaty People, Treaty Place
Fall solstice, September 22: The prairie grass, gold in the sun, stretched all the way to the end of a world of birds. Long wavering skeins of snow geese and sandhill cranes, shimmering swarms of [...]
Sacred Trails
In my childhood church we walked a short loop, some evenings, along the Stations of the Cross. They were 14 bas-relief renditions of ordeals suffered on the day Jesus was crucified, arrayed [...]
Return of the Grizzly Hunt
The first big November snowstorm means bedtime for Alberta’s grizzly bears. This was a good berry year, so most will go to bed fat and wake up next spring healthy. And then some may die. The UCP [...]
UCP Report Card
In 2017 I issued a mid-term report card on the environmental record of Rachel Notley’s government. Their performance on land use planning, parks establishment and climate change was exemplary. On [...]
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 [...]
Pestilence, Again
Sometime in 2019 a tiny little virus called COVID-19 discovered a new host species and began to multiply. That would have been merely an interesting phenomenon were it not for the fact that we [...]
Bears and Brains
Winston Churchill said “History is written by the victors.” In other words, consider the source before believing an assertion. Another example of “he who holds the pen” relates to intelligence. [...]
Making Magic
A stillness comes over the natural world each August as birds cease their territorial singing and the year’s crop of fledglings quietly fatten on the summer bounty of bugs and berries. Noise has [...]
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The Nenshi Years
I find it easy to forget what Calgary was like when it all began—before what I’ll call the Nenshi Years. It feels like a lifetime ago, several political epochs back. Before the pandemic, before the Olympic bid, before the flood. Before the boom—and whole boom–bust cycle—ended. Before the PC collapse ...
Sidewalks to Nowhere
On a cool November evening in 2012, a crowd of more than 100 invited guests, primarily land developers, gathered at a private venue in downtown Calgary. The host was Cal Wenzel, head of Shane Homes. From a stage in front of a big screen he proceeded to review each Calgary ...
Amarjeet Sohi
On a Friday morning in spring 2016, Amarjeet Sohi sat barefoot in the den of his craftsman style home in south Edmonton. His first few months as Canada’s federal minister of infrastructure had been frantic, sending him across the country to listen to the wants and needs of every big-city ...