This was the view from the fourth floor at Dawn yesterday, the day I left Edmonton on final extended leg of my travels. The school busses and garbage trucks were out and about and the traffic hadn't yet built up to its usual intensity.
Before there was Edmonton there was Strathcona, south of the river. After about 1911 Edmonton gained its name and its dominance over its older urban partner. The area around 82nd Ave (Whyte Ave) that I hung out in today (and Saturday) is the old town and significant efforts have been made over the decades to keep its character and heritage values. The Strathcona Hotel in previous post is one example. The building in foreground of this picture is replica of original Edmonton - Calgary Railway terminal, runs tourist trains between May and October. Nice place.
Just up the road from Cook County Tavern is this imposing building. Although reclad in its timber boards it is apparently much as it was about a hundred years ago. I had a beer here this morning before adventuring through the heritage district of Old Strathcona and its second hand bookshops and cafes.
I went to this place on Saturday Night with Sister, Hubby, and some cousins. We had a ball, crawled back to the motel after 2am. Reasonable cover fee after 10pm, albeit with photo ID check with a photo being taken upon entry for 'security' purposes. Drink prices were less than similar venue back home. Big crowd of line dancing flannel shirted cowboy booted edmontonians having a ball. Surprisingly, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.
My sister and her husband were part of the curling crew that had such fun playing the game. Being on the ice for a couple of hours and curling the heavy stones sure works up an appetite, so we all went out for a late lunch / early tea to West Edmonton Mall. We were in a zone of this gigantic shopping centre that is in permanent dusk and had a great meal.
To my mind curling is a cross between the more familiar sports of lawn bowls and skateboarding (surprisingly, considering curling is played on ice). One foot has a slippery sole, the other a gripping sole. One pushes off with the grip sole, slides on the slider. You can wear 'overshoes' to convert your own footwear into curling footwear.
I went curling with a few family members yesterday. If Icehockey is the 'yang' of canadian winter sports, curling is the 'yin'. The first is ability plus violence, the second is ability plus brains.
A downside of snow is that it covers everything when it falls, including roads and cars. Everyone has a brush to wipe it off the windows, or you can do what this driver has done and just use your hand to scrape it off of the bits you need to see through.
My first cousin once removed is a keen member of the Rush 'cheer team'. We don't really have anything like it in Australia, they take it very seriously with championships of their own. A pretty good excuse to go and watch a lacrosse game if you ask me!
Here's me, my cousin and his missus at the Rexall stadium. This facility probably seats about 20000 when full for an Edmonton Oilers icehockey game. Maybe a quarter of that for a Rush lacrosse game. You can see that we're having fun, and that even though there's no ice in Lacrosse that it was still a bit chilly.
I went to the Lacrosse with my cousin and his wife last night. They started going regularly to the games because one of their daughter's is in the cheer squad (see above), but the game isn't bad either. It is certainly not for weaklings, as this picture perhaps shows. It is very quick, and reasonably high scoring.
As I stood on my uncle's back verandah I caught this little guy checking me out in the dusk. Apparently he and his progeny create all kinds of havoc in the gardens of the gated community in spring, causing trees to be wrapped in wire and flowers to be hung in pots. No-one knows where their burrows are, I suspect under someone's house.
One of Canada's religions is ice hockey. Here can be seen some of the kit of a goal keeper. Haven't got either the helmet or the stick in view in this pic. As you can see, quite a lot of gear even for a neighborhood knock-around bout. It's all fibre glass and modern materials, so weighs next to nothing despite its bulk and impact absorbing qualities.
I spent last night on the edge of suburbia in the home of a cousin and his family. Not far from where they live march this great line of overhead transmission wires. It's a great big swathe, which the locals use as a throughway for non motorised transport and to walk their dogs. From the warning signs, beneath the wires are oil pipes.
Looking out from the fourth floor condominium that I spent the other night in (thanks Ethel!) was a magnificent Spruce tree, laden with cones. Apparently it's a sign of stress in the tree, perhaps due the relative lack of snow they've had this past winter. Pretty, never-the-less.
Here's where I spent last night after my rather uninspiring tour of the downtown area. As you can see, quite comfortable. Which is not surprising, it being inside the 'Comfort Inn'. Probably the most comfortable night I've had and, as you can see, in a certain style. Cost was in similar league to all other places, with the buffet cooked breakfast this morning as part of the deal - making it good value. Not that I wish to turn this into an advertisement, but they were there when I needed them. Still, it's nice to be in suburbia for a while now (!), will fill you in on the next post.
The North Saskatchewan River cuts through central Edmonton. It is flanked by parkland and roads. I'm sure it looks pretty in summer but at this time of year (late winter) this frozen in-boat and the ice are perhaps the most scenic aspects of this showcase wildlife corridor. Good on the Edmontonians for keeping such large 'green' spaces and wildlife corridors. In my experience it's like a cross between Kings Park in Perth and the Brisbane River (Brisbane), functionally speaking.
In the nineteen seventies and eighties a lot of Edmonton's old buildings were torn down. The headline replacements were the huge corporate houses that one sees everywhere in the world. The more practical outcome was lots of parking lots in the spaces the mining companies haven't decided to build their corporate dog boxes on. This is one of the lots that surrounds my motel.
The deciding factor in my coming here now was that my cousin Randy was getting married to AJ on 24 March in the Recreation Hall of the hamlet of Ardrossan (about 20 kms to the East of Edmonton). So it's only fitting I include a picture from the evening on this blog!
Although the mountains were cool, the prarries were cold. I got off the bus at Edmonton at 10:30 pm, windy and -7. Waking up the next morning in my motel I could see it was sunny outside before opening the curtains. This was the view that greeted me. Sunny and -7.