Edmonton Journal: An Estate Home

 

Photo Credit: Bruce Edwards, The Edmonton Journal

I visited Alison Rayner after one of the first major Edmonton snow storms of the season. As I drove slowly out to her 8.4 acre property, I found my tense "I-hate-winter-driving-muscles" relax despite the icy highway. There was no way NOT to marvel. I was surrounded by a fantasy winterscape- ice dripping off trees, fields full of glinting diamonds.

The Rayner home was just finished, after a 3 year building process. As we drank our tea, you could tell Alison was both relieved and giddy that the project was over. She was a generous host and thoughtful homeowner.

To see pictures of their 6000-square foot estate home, and read more about the building process, click here.

Edmonton Arts Council Grant- Hurrah

Last month I received a letter from Edmonton Arts Council with news that made me hoot, shriek, and generally scare the children. My mouth gaped like it does to those artists on the award shows, and - in my basement, surrounded by my concerned family- I rambled thanks to God, my city, my colleagues, my editors. Right, and to my family.  The feeling of euphoria has continued to buoy my days (I fear that it has also revealed to me just how starved for affirmation I have become working from home in my little freelancing bubble.)

Along with the hysterical energy has come a stabilizing feeling I can only describe as dread. I have to write a book. The Council has agreed to fund a significant portion of my salary for the next few months so I can focus on writing the first couple drafts of a manuscript about my neighborhood Alberta Avenue, Edmonton.  It will be a book of essays, rants, profiles and obituaries. It will be a book without any easy answers, and hopefully, very few glib pronouncements on the glorious, wondrous, fantabulous privilege of living where I do. It is not to be a book of urban boosterisms. It is meant to be a book about the complexities and hylarities inherent when you live in a changing community.

I will be writing a lot less articles over the next few months.  I hope to emerge from this process in May with my clothes tattered, and my soul refreshed. Wish me luck!

And, thank you Edmonton Arts Council.

LINK Magazine: Darryl Cox Profile

Darryl Cox, Flood disaster relief lead for Brookfield Homes. Photo Credit: SAIT Polytechnic

Darryl Cox has been to most of the world's major distaters over the last fifteen years: the Indoniesian Tsunami, New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina, and the earthquake in Haiti. He's gone as a team leader for Samaritan's Purse. Using his skills as a building contractor and carpenter, he's helped rebuild homes and communities, as well as supported imporant mitigation efforts that included sharing best practices on everything from cement mixes and building structure.

Then in June 2013, with Calgary overwhelmed with flood waters from the Bow and Elbow Rivers, his employer Brookfield Homes called him to lead a disaster relief team in his own city.    This was the first of a number of stories I have done on the Southern Alberta Flood Recovery.

Avenue Edmonton: A Modern Home

Photo Credit:  www.iangrantphotography.ca

When I arrived for this interview with Andrew and Viji Nataraj, their landscaping was still a mess of front-end loaders and workers. Even then, I could see the vision in that front yard.

It has only been the last few years that modern homes like this one, featured in Avenue Edmonton, have been sought after and built in this city. In fact, when I drove away from the home through the Glenora community, I counted three new, modern builds withing two blocks of them. Thank God- perhaps in twenty years it means that there will be more than bungalows for families searching for a larger homes in this city.

My three hours with the Nataraj's was largely spent on the main floor of their home- under soaring ceilings and surrounded by September light.  I spent another few hours writing this decor feature, beautifully photographed by Ian Grant.

The Edmonton Journal: Embracing the Golden Stain of Time"

Photograph by: John Lucas, Edmonton Journal

My time with Ruth Glancy was an afternoon filled with discussion of English literature, architectural and political theory.

I've always respected the Arts and Crafts movement- much of the theory's ideas of quality over quantity and beauty before utility resonate in my own interior design.

Meet Ruth Glancy and view her lovely home here. 

Annual Report: Avenue Revitalization Initiative

The Kaleido Festival's main stage.

My husband and I moved into Alberta Avenue just as the Avenue Revitalization Initiative was kicking off.  It is has impacted our life in countless ways: our streets are brighter, greener, livelier (with music and art), more fun.

Last year, I had the privilege to write all of the stories in this 2012 Annual Report.

Avenue Edmonton: Edmonton Theatre Launching Careers

For this article on Edmonton's theatre scene for Avenue Edmonton, I had the privilege to interview  Edmonton-based comedic actor and writer, Mark Meer.  With an internationally recognized voice (he is Commander Shepard in BioWare's Mass Effect), Meer's made a career of comedy: from the CBC's Irrelevant Show to Super Channel's Tiny Plastic Men. 

Meer says, “There’s a notable spirit of cooperation and collaboration in the Edmonton arts community.”  

And I had an incredible night seeing this spirit in beautiful, hilarious symmetry at Rapid Fire Theatre’s improv show,” Chimprov. The show moved from funny to tragic to crass and back to funny. As the actors sweated under bright lights and audience expectation, I couldn’t help but expect that these actors, many at the beginning of their careers, would go far.

Avenue Edmonton: Keeping Current with the Opera

Like so many of its traditional plots, opera faces an epic battle to remain relevant in the YouTube age. Perhaps the most of any art form, opera must overcome the stigma that its spectacle and grandeur are only meant for a privileged elite. “Every opera company has this challenge — reassuring people that they may come in gowns or sweats. We want people to come because they love opera,” says Jelena Bojic, Director of Community Relations with Edmonton Opera.

In this article for Avenue Edmonton, I write that opera in this city is becoming more accessible and more flexible.

I had the opportunity to meet Jelena at Edmonton Opera's digs in the Winspear Centre. In fact, I was invited to come through the "Performers Entrance" and I felt a jolt of celebrity fever. Sadly, I must report that no celebrities were seen in the making of this article. 

The Edmonton Journal: Highwood Distillers' Flood Recovery

Barry Wilde, President of Highwood Distillers.

The staff at Highwood Distillers had about six minutes to get out of the distillery. Still, on their exit two feet of water had flooded 1st Street in High River. Many were later stranded in their cars on the surreal drive home.

The Highwood River often floods the deck of the centre street bridge, but this year on June 20th, it did the unimaginable: it flooded most of the town.

Much of the distillery's spirits ready for shipping were destroyed, however, their whisky stocks were saved. When I toured their facility, 40 days after the flood, staff had worked 30,000 hours for 30 days. 300 trips had been made to the dump. While their losses were yet to be tallied, Barry Wilde, President of Highwood Distillers, said with a hint of resignation, "It represents millions of dollars of lost product and revenue." They still do not know if their bottling line can be repaired: and store stocks dwindle.

This Spotlight on Small Business feature was was printed in the Edmonton Journal on August 23, 2013 and the Calgary Herald on August 24, 2013.

Globe and Mail: I Know Nothing About Raising Her Right

Art by Tara Hardy as published in the Globe and Mail, August 21, 2013

At the moment of our daughter’s conception, we threw caution to the wind, but soon found ourselves scrambling to get it back.

It’s not that we didn’t want a baby, but we had debts to pay, grad programs to start and a pathological fear of minivans that hung heavily over bi-monthly talks titled “Children and Other Distractions.”

Circuitous conversations, they went something like this: “Let’s try to have a kid – but we’ll need a new car – we can’t afford that – so we’ll just work a little longer – but if I had another degree surely I’d make more money – yeah, let’s wait to finish school – but then I’ll be too old – fine, let’s try to have a kid – but…”

On the evening in question, her dad declared: “Seriously, will there ever be a good time?” Locked in an embrace that would distract him from that question, I never did voice the fear that hovered above my right ear: What if we raise her wrong?
I know so little about everything. Well, at least everything that is important to raising a child right.


Click here to continue reading

This essay, originally titled Trust Me: I Don't Know,consumed me the month after my son was born: writing between feedings, editing in the middle of the night. It has been written and rewritten a dozen of times since. Today, it found a home off my hard drive, in a very condensed format (there are about 2000 words more), in the Globe and Mail.

If you enjoyed this narrative non-fiction style, check out my other essays: My Neighborhood In Transition and Backyard Betrayal.

Avenue Edmonton: A Night of Scotch with the Ladies

Meet J.

Pictures by Tim Wilson

He's a Scotch educator from Authentic Wine and Spirits Merchants in Calgary, AB.  I was doing some early research for a couple pitches on the changing relationship between women and whisky and Kate (in marketing for Beam Int'l)  suggested I speak to her husband, J. He had facilitated scotch tastings for over a decade and had started to see more women in the room.

I emailed him and he suggested I come to Calgary for a tasting. A couple girlfriends and I schemed about a weekend of women and whiskey... but no date worked for me to travel. Then his job brought him to Edmonton, AB.


He suggested we organize our own tasting.
I suggested I host it, put food on the table, and find a dozen women to try it.

Then, together we threw a party. 

Avenue Edmonton agreed to feature the evening in its July 2013 Food & Drinks Issue. Find my feature on A Night of Women and Whisky here.

There were a few more ladies in the kitchen and tucked in the living room. My husband and brother-in-law are slinking around back (actually my brother-in-law is behind the lens!), hoping for a few drops of scotch. 

This was the night's door prize. My neighbour and friend, Becky Pickard, originally painted this work for a silent auction fundraiser. It is one of my favorite pieces - now made even better! She's added it (among other of her pieces) to a 7 oz flask. Check out her facebook page. If you want one, they are also sold at The Carrot Coffeehouse and Zocolo in Edmonton, AB.

E-Trail Alumni Newsletter: Tom Yonge Profile

High school is a critical season of life. It’s hard, funny, filled with ennui and other unnamed, uncomfortable emotions. For Tom Yonge, teacher at Scona High in Edmonton, AB, these critical three years represent an opportunity to expand kids’ sense of possibility. For his leadership students, he is working to build a community that will be a model of what can be.

This profile was for the digital, monthly newsletter directed to University of Alberta Alumni (of which I am one: grad '03, baby).

Alberta Views: My Neighbourhood in Transition

 This was a piece I wrote for a competition that, like so many, I never won. The great thing about writing for competitions (besides helping to support many of my favorite print magazines with the registration fees) is that the exercise presents a deadline to work toward. Working alone can be rather uninspiring: deadlines are my critical 'kick in the butt'.

I've lived in Alberta Avenue in downtown Edmonton, Alberta for eight years: we moved here just as the community received millions of dollars of revitalization funding from the City of Edmonton. It's been an interesting, critical, transitional time to live here and this piece is, in part, an exercise exploring my relationship with my neighbourhood and with my neighbours.

See the PDF here. It first printed in Alberta Views in April 2012.

Leap Magazine: Discovery in Melanoma Clinical Trials

I've always been pretty blase about using sunscreen- on myself and my kids. None of us burn easily. But after meeting melanoma doctor and research, Dr. Smylie, I have had to reconsider my  approach to the inconvenience that is a minute of applying lotion to the years it may add to my/kids' life...

Read the full article, printed in Leap Magazine Summer 2013, here.  The original web address is here.

Open Mind: Evolution of Alberta's Construction Industry

There's been a lot of change in Alberta's construction industry since the global recession. In Alberta, however, it looks a little different than in other places. Construction continues to be robust in face of a global recession and it is one of the few places in the world where the construction industry has seen predictable gains over the past five years. With this growth has come greater competition as the world's companies come to Alberta for a piece of the profits.

In this article (published in Open Mind, Spring 2013) I talk to three different companies who have evolved- grown-differently. In part inspired by  succession planning, and in part due to competitive necessity, these companies offer insight into the industry's options at a time when competition makes it virtually impossible to be content with the status quo.

Spezzatino: Mining for Mushrooms

I pitched the idea for this feature after working as a tour guide at the Bellevue Mine Tour in the Crowsnest Pass, Alberta. The stripping of the coal mine's seams had ended half a century ago and I would occasionally have people ask me if anyone had considered re-purposing the mine. I'd ask, "Into what? Perhaps an underground swimming pool (the abandoned shafts were flooded with water)?" "No," they'd say, "into a mushroom farm."

There were rumours of such a farm in Drumheller, Alberta, and in fact, one of the US' largest mushroom suppliers used an old mine site for decades before technology made other above-ground farm settings more profitable. I was fascinated by the idea of re-claiming abandoned mine sites and when the opportunity to write about mushrooms came up for Spezzatino (an on-line magazine based in Toronto), it seemed like a great way to learn more about the possibilities.

Read the full article here.This article also appeared in the American magazine Fungi, Spring 2011.

Alberta Views: The Social Services Industrial Complex

When I first moved to Edmonton from my hometown of The Crowsnest Pass, I spent two years as a volunteer at downtown service agency, The Mustard Seed Edmonton. I then went to university, completed my BA as a political science major, then came back to the Seed as a summer student. Through the course of that decade, I would work in a half dozen positions. In my last position as Managing Director, I facilitated the difficult merger of our organization with a much larger one in Calgary. 

It was a decade that saw incredible growth in the scope and revenue generation of many non-profits in Canada. In this report (see screen shot to the right) "There is No Accounting for Landscape" published by The Institute for Non-Profit Studies at Mount Royal University College in Calgary, AB, author Cliff Spyker notes that government revenue sources grew from $54.3 B in 2000 to $124.6 B in 2008. A 129% growth rate- despite a significant recession.

This growth is largely due to a change in government policy- a shift towards government- contracted services.  For more on what this has meant for Alberta's non-profit sector and social service delivery, read the full article here. 

Gardener for the Prairies: Fruitscaping

It's that time of year: early plum nodules have replaced blooms, purple-headed chives are unfurling, the hops stretch from hibernation towards the sun. It's the time of year I begin to crave berries with my sunshine. This article was printed in  Fall 2011's Gardener for the Prairies and lists some of the many ways you can landscape a northern garden with fruit. Happy planting.

And if you are eating from your Northern garden, I want to know: what's staining your hands and bursting in your mouth right now?

Todd Babiak Profile: U of A Alumni Newsletter E-trail

This profile "The Making of a Storyteller" was based on a conversation over a fantastic lunch at Highlevel Diner with writer and Story Engine founder, Todd Babiak.  I'd read his book, The Garneau Block, when it was first published in serialized form in The Edmonton Journal. In preparation for our interview, I read it all in one shot over the weekend.

There were so many things that resonated in that book (printed a decade ago), with the life and times of Edmonton today. Story Engine is facilitating a unique 'branding' process for the city, and Todd is right in the middle of helping form the narrative that he hopes Edmontonians will tell and re-tell to their visiting relatives and on their travels in far away nations.  Coincidentally, it is a narrative that  regularly pops up in The Garneau Block: Edmonton is a good place to make things. And, Edmontonians are exceptional "makers". While our conversation wandered like a jack rabbit trail in Kinnard Ravine, we kept coming back to this idea about what makes us who we are: as writers, as parents, as neighbours and as Edmontonians.

As I walked to my van through the muck of the spring slush (of course, I decided to wear my lovely yet impossibly slippery Fluvog heels) I fiddled with the recording app on my phone. Todd's interview  was there. It registered 0:00 minutes of recording. "F^#*ing f#&$..."

Thankfully, Todd is a compelling storyteller and our talk stayed with me long enough to write this piece.

(PS. I was a little disappointed he did not wear the purple suit to our lunch.)

Hyperlocal CBC Finalist: Backyard Betrayal

Go to the Hyperlocal website, to check out other stories that map the experiences of our country's writers. The following story can be found at here. 



A decade ago, my back alley was dotted with shelled sentries: rusted Buicks and sheds shrunken by fire. Fence posts leaned like wind-swept trees; the pavement cracks were filled with the deflated balloons of last night’s tricks.  

Today, most of the cars have been towed and sheds replaced with modest garages. Despite the upgrades, it is an alley where people still put out old furniture knowing it’ll be gone the next day, but the furniture is different now. Lamps with silk shades and recently removed bathroom vanities have replaced stained mattresses hosting bloated bugs. Bottles now sit separate from the trash- put out in a friendly way, almost like a tithe. Thankfully, it's an alley that still has grace for my overflowing compost pile and wild gardens: I like to think my cheery red garage door makes the stinking heap of veggies appear quaint and shabby chic.  

It is in this alley where my Italian neighbour introduced me to arugula and showed me the right way to mate a pumpkin flower (with another pumpkin flower, of course). Neighbours bond over gripes about city potholes and the growing army of tomcats. It’s still an alley where strangers can become friends. 

It’s also a place, I realized too late, where friends can become strangers. The sky was darkly preparing to deliver a mid-afternoon thunderstorm and I hurried to strap the kids into their seats for a quick errand before the torrent. I was rounding the van to the driver’s side when I saw him. The veins in his long, skinny arms popped out. Stretched like earthworms struggling for breath, they ended in balled fists that gripped black bags of bottles. His gait was slow, broken, cautious. His eyes were the vacant moons of a cheap high. He didn’t appear aware of me and I looked down to appear unaware of him. But I was hyper-aware of him. I knew him. I knew him from a place 600 kilometers away, from twenty years ago. Flashing behind my downcast eyes, I remembered another alley behind our elementary school. I was the new kid, but he stood out: the only boy with braids.  We acknowledged each other tentatively then. We would grow to know and like each other. We would finish school and go separate ways until this one day, in the middle of the big city behind my grown-up home, we would pass each other without visible pause. My heart beat with discomfort in this alley where dust rises from bumping cars and is trampled back down by the feet of bottle pickers and school children.  All along the road, the fences are being rebuilt. Just now, they are all a little higher and a little tighter than they were before.  

Alberta Venture: From the Farmer's Market to Supermarket- It's a Giant Leap

See Alberta Venture's April 2013 Issue for my piece titled: Secret Sauce.

Here's an excerpt:

While there may be an increase in consumer demand for local products, it still remains to be seen whether Alberta food processors can scale up to fully capitalize on it.

There are some notable success stories of Alberta food processers scaling up from the extremely local farmers’ market setting to retail shelves. CattleBoyZ BBQ Sauce, with its signature beer-style, latch-topped bottle, had its first retail sales in a small butcher shop in Calgary’s Eau Claire Market.
Now it’s sold in stores across Canada. Initially made and bottled in Joe Ternes’s kitchen, it was his family’s time-tested recipe. In 1994, Karen Hope was the Eau Claire Market manager, and she loved his sauce. Hope, a marketing specialist, and Ternes went on to form CattleBoyZ. Together they established the brand and found a manufacturer, and after a year of perseverance (and a bit of luck), the sauce was selling as a seasonal product in western Costco locations.

But the move from the farmers’ market to larger retailers’ shelves rarely happens so quickly. Another successful Alberta food processor, Kinnikinnick Foods, grew more organically, thanks mostly to the powers of the Internet. In the 1990s Kinnikinnick’s gluten-free baking products could be bought at Edmonton’s Old Strathcona Market, and at the time it was one of the few such products available. Jerry Bigam, the company’s current CEO, was a big fan and regular customer, and he decided to buy the company with the hope of expanding its operations. But after struggling to get shelf space at major retailers, he turned to online sales in order to grow the business. “We were the first company to supply perishable food on the Internet,” Bigam says. “For $10, we could deliver product anywhere in North America overnight.”

The online business helped them grow their sales by 60 to 70 per cent annually, and eventually major food distributors started calling them. They now supply product to 65 warehouses and 10,000 stores across North America. But for many local, small-scale processors interested in scaling up, there are significant and often systemic challenges. Ted Johnston, the president and CEO of the Alberta Food Processors Association, has some sobering advice for anyone looking to make the leap. “First,” he says, “they need to buy a giant bottle of Pepto-Bismol.”

Avenue Edmonton: Wooed by the Antique Auction

I'm  a furniture-phile and deal hunter who will willingly spend summer Saturdays hunting through stuffy second hand shops. That said, I'd never been to an antique auction until last fall when I took my virgin trip to Ward's Auctions for Avenue Edmonton (I had the mis-fortune of mentioning 'virginal trip' to the auctioneer, who responded, "I'll be gentle." Then I turned the unprofessional colour of rhubarb.)

"Tripping to Auction" may be the start of a life-long love affair. The deals are great, but the adrenaline rush and energy of the crowd is something else. Pick up the May edition of Avenue Edmonton, or link to: http://avenueedmonton.com/articles/tripping-to-auction.

If you go, please let me know if it captures your imagination too.

My girlfriend, Tina Faiz, dragged this desk to Edmonton from Seattle. The bookcase is from Strathcona Antique Mall, and chair I bought from a film director I met on kijiji.

The couch was the source of major marital tension: it was a five-piece sectional that I brought home without consultation during my "nesting phase" ( pregnant with my third kid). It filled our tiny living room: "but it has a turning martini bar in the corner," was my plea for keeping the massive monument to sixties largess. We negotiated a compromise: three sections. This arrangement has seemed to satisfy everyone, though it's not exceptional for 'sprawling'.

This table was from Stan's Pawn Shop. Quebec maple, the top was sanded by me and varnished by Mat. The chairs cost me $60 a pop through Kijiji.

This piece languished in the Strathcona Antique Market for two years when they finally dropped the price by $500. I saw it and loved it... probably would have paid the previous price too.