Edmonton Interlude

I remember the Edmonton of more than 40 years ago quite vividly – dilapidated (and supposedly haunted) row houses not far from the Legislative Buildings, a neighbourhood diner where we had banana splits, the front of the Students’ Union Building at the U of A, going to Klondike Days and to the formula car races. One’s impressions of a city can be made up of such a series of small memory snapshots that carry on into the future. I’d always thought of Edmonton as a city that I liked.

In the last couple of years I’ve been coming here much more often than previously, to visit my grandson and his parents. The city has grown of course, and it feels less friendly to me. Huge condos loom over the downtown riverbank, the dilapidated row houses are no more and neither is the diner. Clean cities are a good thing to my mind, but it also seems to me that Edmonton has lost some of its interesting character, at least in and around the downtown.

These days I’m more aware of the freeways than anything else, though the river valley and Whitemud Creek Ravine cut welcome swaths of slightly wild green. Walking in Whitemud Park, one can watch  chickadees and feed nuts to squirrels, while listening to the sound of wind in the trees. My impression of the city now, probably has a great deal to do with where my grandson and his parents live – close enough to Whitemud Drive that the noise in their postage stamp back yard is constant. Still, the LRT is an extremely useful mode of transportation for reaching downtown and beyond.

Going to the Royal Alberta Museum is always interesting, and the John Janzen Nature Centre is a perfect place to take kids on a gloomy or cold day. Fort Edmonton Historic Park is still as engrossing to me as it ever was, though I think they had better animateurs at times in the past. I look forward to revisiting the Muttart Conservatory, where I haven’t been for several years. I’d like to explore other neighbourhoods  such as Queen Mary Park, Garneau and Calder.

This visit, we attended the Silver Skate Winter Festival, an event rooted in Dutch tradition, which is now in its 23^rd year. I wondered whether the name referred to the book Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates, which one of my teachers read to us in elementary school. I didn’t find any reference to the book on the website, but other story book characters (Little Red Riding Hood, Baba Yaga, King of the Wolves and Rübezahl) wandered around in costume at the event. There were horse drawn sleigh rides, bannock making, ice sliding, snow sculptures, maple sugar taffy pulling, and much more.

I doubt that Edmonton could take the place of Saskatoon, Victoria and Halifax in my heart, but the city has its good points.