A Tale of Two Cities

This is my city in a nutshell. The beauty of the untouched wilderness alongside manically industrious oil refineries. These were built back in the heyday of the 70's when Alberta really started to feel it's muscle and get all giddy about vast treasures of black gold, just waiting to be tapped. There's no way this construction would be approved in today's environmentally sensitive atmosphere, but there it is, and we live with it.

On the other hand, we have a tremendous Greenspace coursing through the heart of the city along the river valley (and the many creeks that feed the river). You can go right through town along the river and be surrounded by trees the entire time.

We support NHL Hockey (GOilers!) and Experimental Theatre (Fringe!) with equal fervor.

We're constructing a state-of-the-art Art Gallery while at the same time keeping ever more numbers of Tim Horton's coffee shops not only viable, but overflowing with customers every single day.

In a province in dire need of people to fill the jobs our present boom has created, we are host to people not only across the country, but from around the world, all hoping to make their fortune in a modern day equivalent of a Gold Rush.

Good old Edmonton. The filthiest slush hole this side of Moscow in the winter - but summer! Summer the way God intended and mankind dreams for. Long, warm gentle evenings, with an accompanying music-filled, eye-opening, mouth watering festivals at every turn. We live those summers like the next one won't arrive for another ten years.

That's why we look for the beauty to be found in winter...and it is there. The way snow can reflect a dozen colours at once, and the landscape looks like it's wrapped in a cool, clean blanket of sparkling wonder.



Which in February, is exactly how it feels.