What It Is

If the following line in its namesake track didn’t—quite expressly—read “Sweet Home Alabama”, it could well be a blue collar man in any Alberta home this past week. It seems, however, that Ronnie Van Zant was well based when he voiced his opinions of Neil Young’s intruding tendencies thirty-some years ago. Now though, with “Southern Man” long since fallen off the charts, Mr. Young has taken it upon himself to set out on a new moral crusade. His hair might be a little greyer now, but Young’s misinformed and overgeneralized opinions are just as lively as they were in 1970.

That being stated, his thoughts don’t entirely lack merit, nor is there a complete absence of truth from his doctrine. The unfortunate reality, however, is that by basing his argument so intensively on rhetoric and spouting statements riddled with factual errors, Young’s ‘Honour the Treaties’ tour can be considered no less an opinion-piece than this blog. Consequently, while he might have raised a few bucks for a fair cause, he won’t change the hearts and minds of the decided. Those who oppose oil sands development will continue to act upon their beliefs, and oil sands proponents much the same.

Adversely, if Young wishes to sweep new support in his favour, he needs to drop the bullwhip images and play the big-boy game with big-boy facts—accurate and emotionally-detached. Whereas Fort McMurray might be experiencing outrageous inflation, it certainly isn’t Hiroshima, as Young implied it to be. Even with skyrocketing costs on your basic necessities—rent, food, and cocaine—most inhabitants are doing just fine, because that’s the reality of a booming oil economy. The oil sands mines north of the Mac don’t resemble the Japanese city either: they look much, much worse. I’ll attest to that first hand after having flown over them in a light aircraft on several occasions—at least there were still a few branchless tree trunks amid the rubble in the weeks that followed the blast. There are no tree trunks there, nor is there much of anything else.

Man’s anthill stretches out, where fifty-tonne trucks scuttle like insects, and carry their loads back to the colony. Trees go down, bitumen comes out, and oil fans out into the pipelines that are the arteries of our society. Our cars can run, our wounds are bandaged, and dorm students can use plastic cutlery to avoid doing dishes. Our air gets worse, our economy keeps floating and jobs are made available. An aging rock star does his rounds in support of what he feels right—and he has every right to do so. I sit here and type this post, and the world keeps on spinning.

It is what it is.

Base Camp

I love Edmonton dearly—and I leave it every chance I get.

It’s strange how I feel about this city. I’ve got an address on the north side, one I’ve held for nearly sixteen years—but I’d hesitate to call Edmonton my home. I was born here, raised here—I’ve lived here my entire life—but I didn’t grow up in Edmonton. Much of my family, most of my friends: nearly all the people I truly know live in Edmonton—but most of the strongest bonds were not forged in city limits. Edmonton is where I live, but Edmonton it is not where I am.

For when my mind wanders it does not come to rest on images of large malls, potholes and urban sprawl. In the stressful days and long, sleepless nights of the academic year I do not wish for a trip to Whyte Avenue or a gander around the art gallery. No, I speak truly when I say that my yearning for something conjures not images of passing cars and city lights. I daydream of smiling as I look over my left shoulder to see the “Welcome to Edmonton, the City of Champions” sign greeting the oncoming traffic as I bear west on the Yellowhead or south on the QEII.

You see, for I am home—really at home—not as I collapse into bed after a dozen hours of studying, nor as I look down my block and smile on a beautiful spring morning. I am home as I tap tent stakes into the soil of a high alpine cirque, as I watch the sun set across the lake from a remote fly-in cabin or gaze at the stars—unobstructed and unpolluted—from a makeshift camp on some long forgotten logging road.

I grew, and I grow not as elementary faded into junior and senior high schools, nor as my doctor marked my height and weight each year. Rather, I grew as I watched trout emerge from cover in a clear foothill stream to examine and strike my fly. I grew as my photography matured and improved, and I composed art through my viewfinder in all corners of this province. I grew when I surmounted some barren crag of a ridge, alone—silent, save the sound gusting wind and my beating heart—to catch first light on a frosty August morning.

The strongest bonds were formed—with friends and family alike—not when I celebrated the championship with the school team, or united with students who also call my faculty theirs. Instead, they were formed when two of us had fish on the line, and there was only one net in the boat. They were formed arriving at a high alpine lake so stunningly beautiful that the blisters, bruises, pains and sprains faded away in that moment of elation. Bonds were forged when I sacrificed the solitude of a place I called my own such that I could share the beauty with another.

At a superficial glance it might appear as if Edmonton means little to me, but that would be untrue. This city has done much to shape me—for better or worse—that is certain. It offers me stability, an education and the prospect of growth and development. I eat, sleep and breathe here. It offers me a foundation, a springboard from which I can leap forth and explore the world to my heart’s content. Every expedition needs a base camp, and if Edmonton can be the base camp to them all that’s good enough for me.