The Pipelines We Need
Read any of Alberta’s daily newspapers and you will know that our province’s only hope is new pipelines. Nothing else will save us. I took some convincing, but I’m in. In fact, I’d like to [...]
Water
Water
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 [...]
In Decline
We didn’t hike on trails to our fishing streams back in the 1960s. We followed cutlines. There were more of them every year. Oil companies would set off explosives along the bulldozed lines and [...]
Gender-bending Water
Drive south on Calgary’s Macleod Trail. Catch the left onto 194th Ave SE and follow it down into the valley toward the Blue Devil golf course. Before you get there, turn right onto an unnamed [...]
By Chris Wood
Safeguarding the Source
Evening beside the Bow River at Calgary’s Pearce Estate Park.Gulls are returning to roost on mid-river islands. Kayakers play in man-made rapids beside a diversion weir that tilts river water out [...]
Diminishing the Demand
A couple of years ago I found myself sitting at a table at the University of Alberta with Greg Goss, an expert in aquatic toxicology. Goss had recently been named executive director of the [...]
By Kerry Freek
Cash Flow
Alberta is Canada’s driest province. That’s not obvious, however, as I cruise the corridors of the province’s newest mega-mall, CrossIron Mills. Touted as a “celebration of all things Alberta,” [...]
By Lynn Martel
High and Dry
Booming Alberta is headed for a dry awakening. The black gold that has made the province so prosperous may also lead to its demise. The burning of fossil fuels is largely responsible for global [...]
High and Dry
The current drought on the western prairies is the most intense since consistent weather records began to be kept, over a century ago. Most wetlands are dry. River flows are 40 to 80 per cent [...]
Water in the Well
Real or imagined, the links, the link exists—firmly entrenched in the minds of many Alberta farmers, ranchers and town councillors. Few will claim that the oil and gas industry is directly [...]
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Listening to Stones
It is a brilliant way to learn. Students of Socrates used to gather around the great man and exchange heady ideas that arose out of provocative questions—what we know now as the Socratic dialogue method of education. You might think the Greek philosopher and his followers hung out in academic ...
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 ...
Who’s Keeping Watch?
As a journalist, covering Alberta's United Conservative Party government is a bit like trying to jump aboard a speeding locomotive. So much weight is moving at such great velocity that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to keep up.
Once upon a time, Alberta governments weren’t so purposeful or so quick—or, if ...