Don’t Fence Me In
Try and picture them all. On his first visit to the Waterton area in 1865, John (“Kootenai”) Brown wrote: “The prairie as far as we could see east, north and west was one living mass of buffalo. [...]
Wildlife
Wildlife
Gods’ Footprints
If you could hold a black-throated green warbler in your hand, it would be soft to the touch and strangely light. Barely as long as an avocado, the slender greenish bird with a black neck and [...]
Hunting in Jasper
A few years ago Sykes Powderface and I visited a mouldering old cabin in Banff National Park. He told me a Chinese immigrant market gardener who once lived there used to trade vegetables to [...]
The Mystery of Ursus arctos
At the edge of a swampy opening in a remote region of the Peace Country, Lyle Fullerton is pleased to find what we’ve traversed the muskeg for: some golden hairs of Ursus arctos caught in a [...]
By Trina Moyles
On the Brink
There is something angelic about trumpeter swans. Rare, ethereal, the size of a child, they wear robes of white feathers and course across the sky like clouds. They were once widespread in Canada [...]
By Jeff Gailus
The Big Squeeze
The afternoon of June 5, 2005, started like many Sunday afternoons for Canmore resident Isabelle Dubé: after a leisurely morning with her husband and 5-year-old daughter, the 35-year-old teacher [...]
Rattus Non Gratus
When history’s most formidable villains are tallied, we may get suspects like Caligula, Genghis Khan or even Snidely Whiplash. But history, typically written by humans, neglects an insidious [...]
By Geo Takach
Alberta’s Grizzly Century
When Andy Russell died on June 1, 2005, nature honoured him with a tempest the likes of which he had never seen in Southwest Alberta during his 89 years. Rain fell like lead shot for almost a [...]
By Jeff Gailus
The Meatmaker: Life and Death on the Banff Highway
Eyes flashed in the darkness. It was early October, 1970, and dozens of elk had congregated along the highway between Banff and Lake Louise. Interested only in each other—it was the height of [...]
By Ben Gadd
Being Nice to Bears
The massive grizzly extends its paw, curling its long and potentially deadly claws into the palm of a gentle human hand. It’s a moment of trust—and a moment of extraordinary communication between [...]
By Wendy Dudley
MOST READ
MOST READ
Reducing the Harm
It's a little after 10 o’clock in the morning and Taylor feels like she’s climbing the walls.
When her name is called and the door to Lethbridge’s supervised drug consumption site buzzes open, Taylor moves quickly on her crutches. She settles into a chair at the second booth from the end ...
Should All Drugs Be Decriminalized?
Hakique Virani says yes.
Twelve-step addiction recovery programs teach that it is irrational to “do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.” This should be a lesson for legislators too. As the 4,000 Canadian families who lost a loved one to an opioid overdose last year know, our ...
Holy Healthcare
Just tell them we don’t have it here.” That’s what the nurse told me in Killam Hospital, an hour east of Camrose. I’d asked what would happen if a woman came into our ER asking for the morning-after pill. The nurse wasn’t being self-righteous, but simply explaining the policy.
As ...