Centennial Offering
October 2004 marks the centennial of Edmonton, Alberta, and municipal patriots are being encouraged to share their stories of why this city is a fine place to live. I may be misusing the word ‘patriot’, but it is intentional. Why should it be that if you love your nation, you’re a ‘patriot’, but if you love your city you bear the embarrassing label ‘booster’?
Edmonton shares the Canadian condition of lacking an easily characterized identity. A contest to coin a phrase parallel to “as American as apple pie” was very nearly won by “as Canadian as possible under the circumstances.” When the Northwest Territories was split in order to establish the Aboriginal territory, Nunavut, another contest was held to re-name the remaining portion. For a long time the most popular candidate name was “Bob”, although I very much liked “Restavut”. In the end, the newly defined jurisdiction was christened the Northwest Territories.
Edmonton, like Canada, isn’t well captured in a name or phrase, but can only be appreciated by a) living here for a long time, then; b) traveling all over the world and determining that you don’t truly feel at home anywhere else. That will get you part way to being an Edmonton Patriot.
The rest arises from hosting Americans. The 1996 International Fringe Festival, like others before and since, sent out recruitment letters seeking billets for theatre companies from all over the world. Unbeknownst to me one of my room-mates, Mike Charrois, volunteered our household as the accommodations for a three person company out of Orlando, Florida, the Black Swan Theatre. Mike figured the rest of us would be cool with it.
“But only if they’re Democrats,” I warned.
“They’re grassroots theatre people! They have to be Democrats…”
For the ten days of the Fringe, Mik Jacobs, Dee Dee the stage manager from Chicago, and a third person (her name escapes me), ballooned our household to seven, and we all hung out together like we’d known each other for forever. Polite guests, they wouldn’t eat at “home” unless they only got left-overs, so we just stopped inviting them and cooked twice as much food. They comped us into their show, Therapism. And we toured them around as much as our work schedules would allow - making a point of taking them to the Instruments of Medieval Torture museum that was open at West Edmonton Mall at the time.
“This is a great city,” Mik said as we all sat on the front porch drinking coffee one evening. “It’s big enough that there are a lot of things happening, but its small enough to be CLEAN.”
When the Edmonton Fringe was over, they said they were all sorry to be leaving. Mik parked himself on the front porch and waved goodbye to the company as if he were staying put. As a farewell we gave them an Edmonton history book that we’d inscribed with “you have friends in Edmonton”- shamelessly ripped off from Pennsylvania license plates. (I wonder if “you have a friend in Pennsylvania” still appears on PA license plates?) I learned later that they cut the next stop of their continental tour short, the San Francisco Fringe, because they all agreed they’d passed the high point in Edmonton.
Recently learned fact: Edmonton bush-pilot, Wop May, was the ‘rabbit’ Baron von Richtoffen (The Red Baron) was chasing when the Baron was shot down in World War I.
Edmonton shares the Canadian condition of lacking an easily characterized identity. A contest to coin a phrase parallel to “as American as apple pie” was very nearly won by “as Canadian as possible under the circumstances.” When the Northwest Territories was split in order to establish the Aboriginal territory, Nunavut, another contest was held to re-name the remaining portion. For a long time the most popular candidate name was “Bob”, although I very much liked “Restavut”. In the end, the newly defined jurisdiction was christened the Northwest Territories.
Edmonton, like Canada, isn’t well captured in a name or phrase, but can only be appreciated by a) living here for a long time, then; b) traveling all over the world and determining that you don’t truly feel at home anywhere else. That will get you part way to being an Edmonton Patriot.
The rest arises from hosting Americans. The 1996 International Fringe Festival, like others before and since, sent out recruitment letters seeking billets for theatre companies from all over the world. Unbeknownst to me one of my room-mates, Mike Charrois, volunteered our household as the accommodations for a three person company out of Orlando, Florida, the Black Swan Theatre. Mike figured the rest of us would be cool with it.
“But only if they’re Democrats,” I warned.
“They’re grassroots theatre people! They have to be Democrats…”
For the ten days of the Fringe, Mik Jacobs, Dee Dee the stage manager from Chicago, and a third person (her name escapes me), ballooned our household to seven, and we all hung out together like we’d known each other for forever. Polite guests, they wouldn’t eat at “home” unless they only got left-overs, so we just stopped inviting them and cooked twice as much food. They comped us into their show, Therapism. And we toured them around as much as our work schedules would allow - making a point of taking them to the Instruments of Medieval Torture museum that was open at West Edmonton Mall at the time.
“This is a great city,” Mik said as we all sat on the front porch drinking coffee one evening. “It’s big enough that there are a lot of things happening, but its small enough to be CLEAN.”
When the Edmonton Fringe was over, they said they were all sorry to be leaving. Mik parked himself on the front porch and waved goodbye to the company as if he were staying put. As a farewell we gave them an Edmonton history book that we’d inscribed with “you have friends in Edmonton”- shamelessly ripped off from Pennsylvania license plates. (I wonder if “you have a friend in Pennsylvania” still appears on PA license plates?) I learned later that they cut the next stop of their continental tour short, the San Francisco Fringe, because they all agreed they’d passed the high point in Edmonton.
Recently learned fact: Edmonton bush-pilot, Wop May, was the ‘rabbit’ Baron von Richtoffen (The Red Baron) was chasing when the Baron was shot down in World War I.