Water

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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,” [...]

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 [...]