I took this in January sometime..typical snow filled day in this city. I was sitting in Second Cup at 105th and Whyte. This is sort of the de facto centre of Whyte Ave & close to places like Blues on Whyte & The Elephant & The Castle.

I'm not really a fan of Second Cup..I think it's contrived "cool" and rather un-original but unfortunately Whyte doesn't have many choices when it comes to "indie coffee houses". There is a place called Cafe Dabar which is about 5 blocks west of here..but it's more an Internet surfing place than a coffee house.

Home..Sweet Home

The sign above is the one at the corner of 112th Street and Whyte Ave, across from the U of A campus & just around the corner from where I live.

Whyte Ave is 82nd Street and part of it runs through an area known as Old Strathcona. The "cool" part of Whyte Ave seems to start around 99th Street and heads west to about 112th where Whyte ends..at the U of A campus. The area is called Old Strathcona & also consists of another area called Garneau which is more or less the U of A campus & some businesses along 109th street

Old Strathcona is..without question...the best area in this city. It's a charming place, a mix of modern businesses like Chapters that sit next to mom & pop stores. It's home to a dozen pubs, live music venues, interesting food places & just about everything else you can think of. One could spend weeks just walking around, going into each pub, etc just to see what's going on.

The area next to Old Strathcona is Garneau. It's the University & a few blocks of streets with 90 foot trees and old homes. The roads are narrow & the area is incredibly pleasant..it reminds me of the better neighborhoods back in Toronto or Ottawa. It's also where I live and has probably been my saviour while I've lived here. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Old Strathcona is as good OR BETTER than Calgary neighborhoods like Mission or Kensington. It's a true gem & one of the best neighborhoods in Western Canada.

What makes Whyte/Strathcona so different from Mission or Kensington in Calgary is that it's not all upscale. This is a place where little indie food places still manage to survive..whereas in Calgary they're long since vapourized when the boom hit and rent soared. Whyte Ave reminds me of Marda Loop..years ago, before the upscaleness hit the area and all the interesting shops were replaced by stores designed to cater to people with 6 figure incomes.

Strangely..a whole bunch of people in Edmonton either like or hate Whyte Ave. They seem to see the bad side of it, the late night drunks, the noise when the Oilers play, the 20 somethings that line up at Lucky 13 to go and get toasted. That's only a small fraction of what goes on in this neighborhood but it's the part of the 'hood that catches the attention of people.

I've spent 5 months living here and I give this place 5 stars out of 5. And I've yet to really explore it .... because for the most part, the temps make it too cold to go walking. When I leave Edmonton..there isn't alot I will miss, but I will miss this area. If you come up this way..park the car and walk. It's worth it. I'll get into detail on some of the pubs, etc that you'll find on Whyte in the next while

Vue Weekly

If you live in Calgary, you've probably read FFWD Weekly..a remarkably good Arts & Entertainment weekly available in Cowtown. The same company that does FFWD does a magazine up here called SEE...and by all accounts it sucks.

What doesn't suck is VUE Weekly, this indie weekly that I actually look forward to reading. It reminds me of a poorer version of NOW magazine from Toronto..but it's actually more interesting. It's a true "indie" magazine and it's as much fun to read it for the advertisements as it is for the articles. It's got some great writing in it & some interesting opinions...not all of them the usual left wing point of view either. Nothing wrong with "left wing"...just I find that those notions are sort of outdated.

VUE is a great magazine to really find out what's going on in Edmonton. It's an easy read, it's small & compact and available almost everywhere in the city. It has a real Edmonton vibe to it & that's something you come to appreciate. If I can say one good thing about this place, it's got a true genuine real "indie" sort of vibe. Edmonton is like Buffalo North..it's not really on the map & because of this it's music and arts scene incubates without outside influence. There are no expectations...but I'll take this further when I write again..I've got to go work overtime today. Ugh.

Roads

The picture above is 106th Ave, just outside of Chinatown in Downtown Edmonton. The brown mess you see is sand, salt & snow mixed together. Perhaps I'm a little "off" but it seems rather stupid to me to dump sand all over snow and then let it sit there. Maybe a wiser idea might be to plow the snow away..but that doesn't happen here. What I find most annoying is that cities like Montreal...which have HUGE amounts of snow manage to keep their roads clean and they're not part of the Alberta Advantage.

Have you ever heard of the Iditarod ? It is a dog sled race that takes place in Northern Canada. Each day I drive in Edmonton on streets like this, I can't help but get the feeling I should have a dog sled to get around. You know when Americans ask if we all live in igloo's ? Well maybe they got that opinion of Canada because they saw a slideshow of Edmonton's streets and assumed we all use dog sleds.

Oh, and just like the rest of Alberta, the city also uses rocks on the road..as you can see by the cracks in my cars windshield.

Winter in Edmonton

Winter in Edmonton is best described as awful. I am a cold weather type and it's now late March and I'm so sick of snow it makes me stressed. Winter starts here in November..and the temps rapidly fell to -35C and stayed there..not for days but for MONTHS. I was fortunate that I was living in a place where I have heated underground parking..otherwise I would have not been able to start my car. Nothing sucks more than going out to a cold car and waiting 20 minutes for it to warm up. It gets so cold here..that the car freezes and when it hits a bump in the road it feels like your neck is going to break

Edmonton also SUCKS at cleaning their streets. There are no snowplows in this city at all. The streets get covered with snow and the tires of cars form ruts which freeze in the snow. Once your tires are trapped in these ruts, it's often hard to get out of them..and the bottom of your car scraps the snow. I ripped off a piece of plastic on my bumper because of it.

The odd day when it warms up a bit, the snow in Edmonton streets combines with the sand they toss on the road to create what is..a form of frozen mud. It sticks to everything and gives the appearance of living in a 3rd world nation. I sent pictures to my friends in the east & they were shocked...specially given that Edmonton sits on top of billions of barrels of crude oil and should by all accounts...be rolling in the money. I guess it's going somewhere else

The city also fails to clean the sidewalks as do many people in front of their house. I watched a woman in a wheelchair get stuck in the middle of the street in mid winter and I had to wonder into the street to help her out. She was a senior and clearly stressed by the situation..and I was appalled that no one else got out to help, they just sat in their cars.

The number of injuries from these conditions is also startling. No less than 4 people at work had broken bodies/skulls thanks to the ice. One woman fell and hit her head and was passed out in the snow for over 20 minutes. Another work mate dislocated his shoulder after falling. I too..felt the brunt of winter and tore the tendons in my foot. I spent over 5 weeks limping in crutches thanks to the "sidewalks". If you've never broken a foot, I can't begin to tell you how hard it is to live when you can only limp around. Getting food, washing clothes, etc, are all very trying..and it's exhausting to hobble up the street to Safeway to buy something to eat. It's a 20 minute marathon that should take 5 minutes.

The Edmonton winter gets a 0 out of 5 stars from me. I am VERY glad I won't be here next winter.

On The Way Home

Since mid November, I've been living in Edmonton doing some work up here. Calgarians seem to dislike Edmonton and there are glaring differences between the 2 cities.

The biggest problem with talking about Edmonton from a Calgary perspective is that Edmonton folks get VERY upset at the comparisons between the two cities. Any type of debate or argument quickly turns heated & it becomes a "Calgary versus Edmonton" thing. I'll be the first to admit that Calgary can be a bit snobbish at times and does give Edmonton a raw deal but some of it is deserved.

So, until I return to Calgary, the following is all about Edmonton..