Hot Treasure
My favourite garage sale find is a small folk-art sculpture. Bars of beaten copper clasp to form a shimmering triangular tower topped by a pumpjack arm—a tabletop oil derrick. Turn the key on the [...]
By Penney Kome
Renewables
Renewables
Spin, Baby, Spin
Power outages are not rare here at the foot of the Livingstone Range north of the Crowsnest Pass, thanks to summer electrical storms, ice buildup in winter and west winds that can gust (where I [...]
By Sid Marty
Transition or Bust
“I’d say the long-term prognosis for Calgary, unless there’s a paradigm shift, is not good,” says geologist David Hughes. We’re standing on Scotsman’s Hill, overlooking the Stampede grounds, the [...]
The Big Decision
The first time I heard tell of the notion of a nuclear power plant in northern Alberta, it was the punchline to an anecdote, intended as a wry slice of gallows humour. It was in the spring of [...]
By Chris Turner
MOST READ
MOST READ
Big Muddy
I found him asleep at Wendy’s on a scuzzy patch of 17th Avenue, his forehead resting on the makeshift pillow he’d created from one arm. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew it was my brother: the black dreads, the lean build, the spatulate brown fingers, once slender, now ...
Deliverance from Flood
When the June 2013 flood hit Calgary, Tony Morris was sitting at his desk in a downtown office tower. He looked out a window and could see the Bow River was rising. Morris left work and met his family at their Roxboro home, not far from the Elbow River. They ...
Stewardship
My dad used to derive a quiet pleasure from driving our family’s station wagon past stuck four-wheel-drives. Alberta’s foothills and mountains had few good roads in the 1960s. Dad took things slow on our camping adventures. When the roads got slick he got out and put chains on the back ...