The Camel Humps: A Special Little Corner of Edmonton
Around the time that Alberta became a province in 1905, the riverbank went through a process that produced its unique topography that gives it its odd “Camel Humps” name today.
Stories tagged: environmental history
The Last Edmonton Coal Mine: Whitemud Creek
Rambling up the steep paths of the Whitemud Creek cutbank, a view of Rainbow Valley Park appears along with the…
Edmonton: A World Class Dump, Part Three – Salvage Men, Coal Mines, and a Futuristic Weir
In the middle of the twentieth century, G. S. Woodward was one of a handful of Edmontonians who plied the…
McKernan’s Lost Lake
Although the lake is no longer visible, its “ghost” is discernable on early maps and in the form of flooding…
Big Island: A Window into the Past
Big Island, a 70-acre island located 16 miles upstream from the city of Edmonton, is a lesser-known piece of Edmonton’s…
Edmonton: A World Class Dump, Part Two – Feel the Burn: Edmonton’s Curious Love Affair with Incinerators
Perhaps the desire to burn our waste comes from a primeval desire to cover our tracks. And our smells. Incineration…
Kisiskāciwani-sīpiy – Swift Flowing River
Rising out of the Rocky Mountain glaciers, flowing ever eastward toward Hudson Bay, the North Saskatchewan River has meandered across…
The Prins Family and the Dutch in Beverly
Jacob and Aafje Prins helped more than 800 Dutch newcomers settle in Canada and the hospitality of their big white…
Edmonton: A World Class Dump, Part One – Grierson Dump
Waste may be as old as humanity, but the idea of trash is a relatively modern concept. In the first…
A Kingdom in North Edmonton: Castle Downs, 1969-1979
When I moved to Castle Downs nearly ten years ago, I saw a typical 1970s development: parks, schools, stores, churches,…
The North Saskatchewan River
Before the highways and railways, there was the North Saskatchewan River. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Saskatchewan River…
June 29, 1915 — Edmonton’s River Valley Floods
On June 29, 1915, the North Saskatchewan River flooded Edmonton’s river valley. The river had flooded before, of course, but…