Edmonton: Alberta’s capital and Canada’s Festival City. What a great surprise. I had always jetted through town: airport to hotel to airport, never sparing the time to explore. Well, now I know. Edmonton is a great destination for both city cultural delights and accessible outdoors exploring. And the surprises start right in the heart of the city where the North Saskatchewan River Valley provides a swathe of parkland winding through the centre of this million metropolis.
At the centre of Edmonton lies Sir Winston Churchill Square with the eight-storey glass pyramid of City Hall and the architectural gem of the new Art Gallery of Alberta which opens next year. Close by is the Sutton Place Hotel where I stayed: a great base for getting about the city. The Gallery Walk is a multi-disciplinary group of art galleries in the 124th Street neighbourhood and the first of its kind in Canada; Alex Patterson of TU Gallery was a companionable guide. And Chris Szydlowski of Segway Guide showed me the delights of the latest generation of Segways on a tour of the trails in the North Saskatchewan River Valley
Nowhere in Canada does a National park lie closer to a major city than Elk Island National Park to Edmonton. Just 35 km east of the city, this was Canada’s first federal wildlife sanctuary and is home to free-roaming herds of elk, moose, deer and bison. Evelyn Henke of Parks Canada guided Alicia Roy, my journalist companion, and I to close encounters with bison and on a splendid hike on the Beaver Pond Trail.
After such an enlightening time in Edmonton, it was a delight to broadcast my radio shows from the Metterra Hotel in Edmonton. My guests were Shirley Lowe of the Old Strathcona Business Association, Alex Patterson of TU Gallery and Mae Anderson, a talented local singer whose first CD “Off the Floor” has just been released. In typical Edmontonian fashion, I was pleased to see Mae perform later at Edmonton Chante, an annual French song festival. My grateful thanks to Kelly Bertoncini of Edmonton Tourism for hosting my trip so professionally.
Fort Henry www.forthenry.com is, of course, the jewel in the crown of Kingston and it is one of the most visited sites in the country. The Fort is both a museum and a spectacular historic site. Once inside the fortification's wooden gates, visitors enter a marvelous reproduction of 19th century military life.
The site offers guided tours, scenic views, musical performances from a military band and military and marching demonstrations by the Fort Henry Guard, who are nothing less than inspired in their re-enactments. We donned the uniform of the Guard (top), watched these remarkable young students parade in 1860’s style (next), shuddered as the canons were fired from the ramparts (next), and even participated in a Victorian Schoolroom (bottom) - including a Geography lesson where the sun continues to shine on a world-girdling British Empire.
