Avenue Edmonton: Style Q & A with Tyler Olafson

One of my favourite Avenue Edmonton covers.

Tyler Olafson is classic Alberta: bringing together Cows and Prada for a photo shoot that I really wish I'd been to. When I interviewed Tyler, it took me a half-minute to figure out that the guy sliding into the booth across from me (at Dadeo's) was there for an interview. On Style.  It wasn't that he didn't look nice enough, but his mustache was bushy and long.  And Avenue rarely seems to 'do' mustaches.

The 'stash cleaned up pretty good.  This is a Q & A with a guy a lot like the cowboys of old (not the new settled ones, but the Go West Young Man kind). He's an electrician and biker and rancher... he also wears Hugo Boss.

Avenue Edmonton: Work of Art

When Wendy Turner was 20 years old, she bought her first original pieces of art. Wandering in an Edmonton gallery in the late ’70s, she fell in love with two drawings by Victoria, B.C.’s Myfanwy Pavelic. The nude drawings, studies of Bill Brandt photos, are in black ink against a pale blue and cream backdrop. From afar, the bodies could be landscape form. “I saw them and I thought: ‘I want them,’” says Wendy, co-owner of The Artworks. 

This was one of my favourite homes to visit. So many things to look at, so many stories to tell- the piece could have been twice as long! Click here for the rest of the Article and further photos.

Couples in Business Together: Making it Work in Avenue Edmonton

The idea of starting a business with my husband has always held an allure. Lululemon and EventBrite were started and continue to be run by couples. So are successful Edmonton businesses the Duchess Bake Shop and Beacon Hill Properties.

When I imagine our life in business together, I see soft focus images of flexible schedules, days full of shared adventure, and a common purpose that draws us closer. 

Illustration by Dennis Orb; printed Feb. 2014 in Avenue Edmonton

My parents worked together for most of my childhood, and- for the most part- I loved that our whole family was incorporated into their work. It was only as I grew older that I became aware of the strain the business put on my parent’s relationship. The romance of the positives became more nuanced in my teens when my parents sought a totally different work- life balance.  Mom found a 9-5 job. Dad started a new company and many of the particulars of his business remained bound between the four walls of his office.

They both seemed to exhale with relief. Business together had been good, but it had been hard. 

Just as no one business is the same, so every couple in business has a unique story. I set out to speak to three couples that have adapted their relationships and businesses to suit their lives. Sometimes the business strengthened the relationship. Other times something- either the business or the relationship- had to “give”. In every case, these couples created something that was only possible because they were in it together.

Read the Avenue Edmonton article, Making it Work, here.

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.

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.

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?

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.