Edmonton is a home for us all.
While not everyone originates from Edmonton, Alberta, or even Canada for that matter, we find ourselves here for particular reasons. Regardless of our love (or perhaps despise) for that which we call E-Town, Deadmonton, Oil Country, or whatever else may be on your list of witty nicknames, it's a great city for a myriad of reasons, lavished with beautiful scenery and full of opportunity for us to expand our horizons (the internet doesn't care if we're cliché in blogs, right?)
I'd imagine that almost everyone's immediate and subconscious sense for the city is best summarized in one word: cold. Personally speaking, I like to say that Edmonton has two seasons year-round: 1) Winter, and 2) preparing for Winter. Sure, maybe -30°C isn't exactly ideal weather for working on that tan, or perhaps the ten-feet of snow we're constantly buried in isn't great for that nice car you've got parked in the garage, but aren't these sacrifices what make us distinctively Canadian? More specifically an Edmontonian? Only you can proudly say that we're enjoying warm conditions in January, when in reality you could still keep that six-pack of beer cold in the snowbank in your backyard. The only thing we're missing are polar bears.
My inhabitancy of Edmonton is often limited to the south side, largely due to my lacking sense of adventure and not having a GPS in my car to make up for my poor navigation skills (even if I had adequate winter tires to take me there). Nonetheless, life in Riverbend hasn't been all that bad since the time I moved here in 1999 from the heart of the Okanagan in Penticton, British Columbia. It truly was a spectacle that first time we crossed borders and drove into the City of Champions, witnessing snow in April for the very first time of my life, after not seeing any at all for almost three years. It was a surreal experience then; a commonplace feeling nowadays.
If I had to pinpoint certain aspects of the city that stand out to me above the rest, I would identify the following:
- NHL Hockey: As I made mention of in my brief introduction to the class, and being a fanatic who was raised with the game, we're fortunate to be one of only six cities in the country (of a possible million) to have such an opportunity to indulge in Canada's favorite pastime. Living in Penticton, traveling to Vancouver to see a live game was our only viable option; having it in your backyard is a luxury. If hockey isn't your thing, there's always the Eskimos, Rush, and even the Capitals serve as good alternatives.
- Easy accessibility to many things we take for granted. If you were looking for that new, hot item that you just saw on a commercial and needed to have it right away, your best option to find it in Penticton was at Cherry Lane Mall, which sounds very small and town-like, doesn't it? Well it was both. Mainly just small, though. It never had what you were looking for either. Here you've got West Edmonton Mall, Southgate, Northgate, (there might even be a Westgate/Eastgate that I am not aware of) Capilano Mall, Kingsway, Mayfield, the list goes on.
- Education, jobs, and opportunity for advancement. There was no University where I lived. There was not many jobs where I lived. Between no access to local education and scarce work, you're definitely limited in what you can do. We've got it good here.
We shouldn't limit ourselves to any one part, district, or element of the city. There's so many things that you can see and do here. I also believe that living in such a wonderful place is not a right, but a privilege. It could always be worse. If you ever think about how much Edmonton "sucks", or "you can't wait to get out of here", I encourage anyone to turn on the news to see how lucky they are. You could be living in a place where disease, poverty, and famine run rampant, where natural disasters misplace people and ruin lives, and where attending University is a dream and not just a possibility. While trying not to be negative, sometimes I think seeing things in a darker light is necessary to come to these certain realizations. I don't know about you, but I'd gladly throw on that winter coat and shovel my sidewalk any day for a chance to live here, but ultimately, that's up to us all to decide for ourselves.
Cheers,
Patrick
You are definitely right in your argument that we are quite lucky to live in Canada, especially compared to many other places around the world, but we could still have that if we lived in Montreal, so why here?. To me, I can't decide whether it is a conscious choice that people make to live here and to deal with the consequences because the pros outweigh the cons, or if we are just too ambivalent to bother altering our surroundings.
ReplyDeleteYour sentence that mentions "1) Winter, and 2) preparing for Winter" made me smile :). Reading your blog made me realize there are some things about e-town that I do actually appreciate. I can't imagine living somewhere where they didn't have an NHL team, because that's a big part of my life. I said in class already that I LOVE the mall, and I guess I appreciate the U. But I'm sure I can find another city with an NHL team, big mall, and a good university. I know it's a lot better than some of the cities out there, but I guess I'm still looking for something about Edmonton that will reaaaally make me want to stay here. But you make good points!
ReplyDeleteI like how one of your identifiers with Edmonton is the NHL Hockey Team. Most of the time, the city's hockey team is the first thing that people associate with the city of Edmonton - whether it be how horrible the team is doing or how great the team used to be. I find that most Edmontonians are so fixated on how "great" the Oilers were in the late 1980s, and in turn, we want that association with "greatness" to return to the city somehow. As if rebuilding the Edmonton Oilers is somehow the first step that would elevate Edmonton to becoming a more "world class" city.
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