Flying Ant Buffet
When we lived in Jasper I used to fish until midnight in early summer. Big, brown drake mayflies hatched as the light faded and big rainbow trout moved into the shallows to feed on them. I [...]
Environment
Environment
After the Golden Era
When Nick Zon drove onto the property on Moonlight Bay in 1973, “I knew it was the one,” he says. Willows and poplars shone golden-green in the sun. Lake waters lapped at the grassy bank. Zon, an [...]
Should Alberta Keep Fighting the Pine Beetle?
Kevin Van Tighem, the conservation and nature writer and former superintendent of Banff National Park, says no. Our fight against the mountain pine beetle is doomed to failure. And in fighting [...]
Two Trillion Litres of Toxicity
Much has been written about the egregious environmental impacts of Alberta’s oil sands, from fugitive clouds of petcoke dust (which damage human lungs and hearts) to the invisible curse of [...]
By Jeff Gailus
Environmental Glossary
There will be a provincial election early next year. Should we win, a number of you will be seated in the Legislature. It will be important to keep the learning curve as short and shallow as [...]
Commissioner for Oats
When my dad was a little boy growing up in Round Hill, Alberta, he was immensely proud that his Pa was the Commissioner for Oats. My Jewish grandfather wasn’t a farmer. He ran Round Hill’s [...]
By Paula Simons
Requiem for a River
In 1875 the Northwest Mounted Police, dispatched south from Fort Edmonton to roust American whisky traders, arrived at Nose Hill and looked down on a green valley at the edge of the foothills. [...]
Letter From the Future
Dear Grandma and Grandpa, I just got back from one of the best summers of my life, working in the Alberta Climate Conservation Corps, so I’m writing to thank you for what you did, way back in the [...]
Hot Air
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood at the podium at COP26 and announced that Canada would cap carbon emissions from oil and gas production and ensure they decrease over time, Alberta [...]
By Jeff Gailus
Mark Carney
Climate change is upon us, the sixth great extinction in the history of life on earth is underway and human civilization is at risk. But it isn’t these facts that keep me up at night so much as [...]
By Arno Kopecky
MOST READ
MOST READ
Should Post-Secondary Education be Free?
Hugh Mackenzie
The economist and research associate at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says yes.
Free tuition would redress a massive intergenerational inequity created over the past 30 years. In 1990–91, average university tuition in Canada was $1,464; adjusted for inflation, that would be $2,541 in 2019–20. Today the actual average ...
Out with the Old
On a sunny autumn afternoon, pedestrians walk up to the edge of Edmonton’s 115th St, where steel girders separate the road from the edge of the hill. The view is tremendous: overlooking the lush Victoria Park golf course and the gorgeous panorama of the North Saskatchewan River valley. Most people ...
Pension Folly
In 1965, Quebec, eager to be master in its own house, decided it wanted to have its own pension plan and not be part of the new Canada Pension Plan. Quebec’s population was younger than the Canadian average, and the province had a high birth rate. The province believed its ...