The Canadian city nobody cares about

In grade 10 math, we learned the jarring fact that if a person spent 10 years walking and ended up in exactly the same spot he started, then scientifically speaking, no work had been done. No progress had been made according to the universe. I attended my tenth grade across the street from the hospital I was born in. Years later, I moved in down the street from it.

By all scientific laws, after nearly 2 decades I’d done nothing. My hometown is not a distant memory, it is my present.

I moved from rows of 1970’s brick townhomes to a halfway suburban cul de sac, to my first apartment, amid the sirens and constant foot traffic of downtown, Edmonton, Canada. The furthest I’ve moved now is to the north side of the city, where I now live in the basement of a quirky mint green trimmed house.

So what makes my hometown special? How can I capture how special it is when my wanderlust begs me to talk rather about all the places I’d love to live besides here.

Loving my hometown was a process. Growing up, I felt like BC was in my veins. My mother was the product of a third marriage and subsequent divorce and her time was split between rustic central British Columbia, with its towering cottonwood trees and snow-capped silhouettes of mountains on the horizon, and coastal BC, with its endless ocean and rainy winters. We visited often, and every time I went I thought “this feels like home”.

After high school, I took a leap and decided to move in with my grandma in the small town in BC I’d grown to love. I reasoned that there would be no better way to spend my gap year than climbing mountains and basking in the sun, swimming in the ocean, and lakes, and rivers. It was only then that I realized my heart belonged in the plains and mountain crested borders of Alberta.

Edmonton, Alberta is known for only a few things. West Edmonton mall; a jewel of Canada as the biggest mall in the country; boasting 800 stores, a 3.3 million gallon wave pool, and the largest indoor roller coaster in the world. It’s also known for its sheer amount of murder and crime, and has so affectionately been dubbed the “murder capital of Canada”. It’s known for -40 degree Celcius winters, and knee-high snow from Late September to early June.

It’s not the record-breaking feats of Edmonton that makes me so proud to have been born and raised in the smallest of big cities in Canada. West Edmonton Mall was not where I spent my days. Downtown was a mystical place to me that only existed as a shadow in the distance, its skyline only somewhat visible to me from certain angles.

I grew up instead on the cracked pavements of Millwoods and fell in love with its multicolored townhouses and the little malls scattered throughout. I watched the city develop in front of my eyes, I watched rich neighborhoods sprout overnight on the edges of southeast Edmonton, I watched the Library get bigger and bigger, and I stayed in place, creating worlds upon worlds that existed only in the few blocks I could walk to in the Richfield community.

Growing up in Edmonton meant community. In early childhood, we ran free until the sunset. The lamplight's glimmer was the only thing that beckoned us inside. We’d cross the street and play in the park with people we barely knew or didn’t know at all. I’d wait until families exiting the mosque across the street would take their children to stretch their legs before bed, and swarms of new and old faces would join us for long-winded games of grounder, or tag, or sandtrap. There was no one we were afraid of, everyone who walked out streets and played our games was like family. Often, kids we barely knew would waltz into our house asking to play.

Though the northern winters seem bleak from an outside view, I spent my winters tobogganing with my family. My siblings and I would waddle to the hill behind our elementary school, followed by the scratchy drag of our sleds echoing through the streets. We’d be decked out in snow pants tucked over the tops of our boots, our hoods pulled up over toques and scarves, mittened hands extending from oversized sleeves. Our breaths would crystalize on our scarves and eyelashes and eyebrows as we’d trudge up the hill and wait for a big push to send up flying down what felt like a mountain.

After the long haul of cold, we never missed a beat making most of what sun we were lucky enough to get. I spent my summers shadowing my brother at the skatepark by the highschool. I rode my two-wheeler up and down the tiny slopes, steering clear of the towering boys on their skateboards and scooters. Along the block, we played elaborate games in the sweltering heat, rode our bikes as far as our little minds could comprehend, collected caterpillars and ladybugs in buckets and jars to keep as pets. I spent the cool evenings dragging a lawn chair to the green space behind the townhouses with my neighbor friends, and we’d talk about life as much as 9-year-olds could. We gathered and laughed to avoid whatever turmoil was underway inside our own homes. The nooks of the neighborhood were our recluse, our hideaway from the inside, which sometimes felt more dangerous than the outside ever did.

My family grew backyard gardens full of carrots and tomatoes and lettuce and sometimes raspberries, or (in a year I remember was particularly exciting) we grew a patch of stalky corn that felt like it reached the sky. My favorite thing to grow was sunflowers. They’d grow and grow, taller than any of my siblings- taller than anything I’d seen before. I reasoned in my young mind that if the summers were longer, they’d probably never stop growing until they disappeared behind the clouds, like Jack and the beanstalk; unleashing some magical world that we could climb to.

As I got older and outgrew popsicles, free city-funded day camps, playing home free until 11 pm, and drawing elaborate chalk hopscotches down the entirety of the pavement in front of the house, I also outgrew Millwoods. I wanted to see every corner of the city, I was fascinated by the lure of the city.

Edmonton is somewhat known as a hub for art. Some of the buildings themselves look more like art than buildings. I fell in love with the Citadel Theatre and would stare out at the sparkling buildings downtown from the second story of the theatre at intermission. I fell in love with art, music, and dance. I spent my tenth-grade year bussing an hour downtown to the art school I attended, where I met friends who had no fear of the unknown. They’d grown up taking city busses from neighboring towns and had trekked this far for the best arts education the city had to offer. Nothing could stand in the way of their ambitions, much less their adventurous wandering.

Throughout high school, I followed suit with my friends and discovered my own individual jewels of downtown. The sketchy bubble tea place stationed in one of the houses down the street from the school, the record store across the street where I spent many lunch periods browsing the dusty collections of vinyl. Before dance recitals, I’d walk to the nearest mall to get food with my performance friends, bundled against the snow that fell around us like sifted flour. I fell in love with the way the towering cityscape would melt away behind me on the bus ride back to Millwoods. I fell in love with Little Italy and Chinatown, with their colorful hanging signs and swirls of new scents and sights.

In the summer of 2018, my best friend and I spent almost every day walking till our feet ached incessantly, taking the LRT downtown. We’d sit through services at churches we’d never been to before, and run through the pouring rain to find our favorite cafe on Whyte ave, where we’d talk endlessly about our opinions on life, and religion, or our newest story or short film ideas. We’d walk the legislature grounds and dip our legs into the stone basin fountains. We’d walk along the river, finding the best paths, passing the prettiest neighborhoods. We’d circle around abandoned buildings and boarded up houses seeking some thrilling noteworthy adventure, collecting tokens of our exploration along the way: A water damaged page of doodles abandoned outside a foreclosed home, business cards from farmers market vendors with the best fudge samples. Movie ticket stubs and brochures, and random trinkets that meant something to us, and only us.

Edmonton may not be my final resting place, but every year I fall in love with it more and more. Edmonton for me is family, and friends, and finding joy in the simplest things. It’s remembering those humid summers and long winters, littered with precious memories of love and friendship, and the unbreakable bond of family, both the one I was born to and the ones I adopted along the way.

To this day, I’m discovering new things, that may not seem spectacular, but mean the world to me. It’s hard sometimes to get through the winter, especially now, amid COVID and social distancing. I miss bike riding and hiking or getting whimsical Airbnb’s by the river just to see what it would be like to live there. I miss walking out the door with a friend, with no plan in mind, just a bus ticket and a thirst for new experiences.

Still, Edmonton is my home, and I’m proud of it. I’m proud of its culture, its close-knit communities, the art on the streets, and the frosty tipped trees that are staples of long cozy winters in the North. I’m proud of the summers, and spending my childhood dancing in the rain, and running through fields barefoot, growing almost as quickly as the city itself.

No. It’s no tropical getaway or mountainside beauty, there's no stretching ocean in my backyard. The things most special about Edmonton are harder to spot than that. It’s the life that every corner breathed into me. Every outdoor adventure, every late-night walk, every sunrise and sunset, every mysterious new location, obscure dance show, or lively festival of art or music or theatre, made me who I am today.

Though by all scientific laws, I haven’t progressed at all, in reality, this city has molded and shaped me, raised me, and given me the tools to move forward throughout my life with a thirst to know the unknown. It’s made my skin tough- tough enough to handle freezing winters and boiling summers. It’s made me open to meet all kinds of people and embrace them. It’s made me brave enough to keep trying new things without fear.

No matter where I end up, Edmonton is the home town treasure I will always look fondly upon.