Latitude by FD
7° Celsius 10:20 am March 15, 2015

This picture was taken on the Glenora stairs in Victoria Park, a location that overlooks the river valley, faces the University of Alberta, and has downtown as a backdrop. Edmonton is the place I’ve lived the longest in my life, amongst a series of cities from where I’ve moved from across Canada. I’ve never really considered it home, since Regina is the city I feel most connected to due to the fact that my whole family comes from there. In all actuality, I never really enjoyed Edmonton. The question the majority of Edmonton city-dwellers seem ask each other for eight months of the year is: Why do we live here? And I’ve wondered that myself. If I had not been forced to move here would I have chosen to live in this place?

The answer I came up with five years ago is a lot different to the way I think about this place today. Thinking about this change really made me reflect on Michel de Certeau’s “Walking in the City.” When I was younger, I was mostly a “voyeur” of the city, observing it and growing bored with its sameness and dull routines. But when I turned 18 and accepted the freedom that came with that age, I was able to become a “walker” of the city and write about my own experience with it. I discovered how artistic, lively, and cultural Edmonton is as a city. I took the LRT for the first time and felt exhilarated. Every mode of transport, every cultural event and community engagement such as Heritage Days, Folk Fest, Ice on Whyte, or the Fringe Festival lit up my world and made the city I live in a place of intrigue, history, and amusement. Although the winter weather and snow are what mostly make us miserable and “complain-tive”, I’ve come to realize that Edmonton’s community does many things to make the best of life. One can either be the “voyeur” of their the environment they’re faced with, or they can choose to be the “walker” and can explore everything the city has to offer to make their experience in the here-and-now the best that it can be. The reason I chose the Glenora stairs and early in the morning is because it’s a location where I like to run and exercise, and Edmonton sunrises and sunsets are indescribable. This place really encompasses my life because it is where my life evolves around, and because it’s a space that now makes me call this city home.

CANADIANA by KM
March 21, 2015; 13:30
Bright, sunny, and around -15° Celsius

Cold enough to still be in Canada, warm enough to not require an outer jacket for a seasoned Edmontonian.

Aurora Village, Yellowknife: A premier destination for camera-toting nature aficionados aiming to catch the aurora borealis in their lens.

Even if Yellowknife is not well known outside of Canada, the small city has lovely charms about itself. The place is rich in Indigenous culture (however much it clashes with the White population) and examples can be found easily. One doesn't always need to actively look for it: It could be as simple as the handmade slippers modeled after moccasins in the shop windows, or a totem pole standing outside another establishment. On other buildings' walls, murals can be seen crafted from spray paint or more traditional methods. A half hour outside of the city there's a quaint resort by the name of Aurora Village. Here, the Indigenous culture is the norm. The place actually fits with many preconceptions of what constitutes what may be deemed 'Canadiana': tipis, snowshoes, dog sleds, wood-burning stoves, local dishes, freezing cold and lots of snow. The staff at this resort set up hockey nets, sticks, and pucks for visitors to try their hand at the unofficial national sport.

Unfortunately, even this far north where the white population is significantly smaller, the Indigenous peoples and their cultures are still marginalized. There is friction in the opposing communities, and as wonderful as the experiences offered from resorts such as Aurora Village may be, many Indigenous people regard its use as superficial entertainment.

Micro-narrative by JW
April 1, 2015
170th street and 100th Avenue

Ducking into a coffee shop to escape the sleet, searching for a warm drink to thaw the chill. Not a small, independently owned coffee shop, but Starbucks. Designed to feel like a small, homey boutique, but the air smells like stale beans and plastic wrap – a façade which fails to mask the big-name concept and consumerism upon which the brand thrives. Yet it is a familiar, comfortable, a place where one can study, meet with friends, feel at home. Why is it that something so corporate, so large and cold can feel so warm and safe?

We are conditioned by big-named brands to feel a certain way when we are using their product. Starbucks wants to make us feel young, hip, trendy, and individualized from the crowd. They offer us options, soy milk, almond milk, designed to make us feel as though we are a part of something bigger than ourselves, as though we are making an individual choice, trying something new. Whenever we order that Grande Caramel Crunch Frappuccino made with half soy-milk, half skim, shaken, not blended, with two teaspoons of caramel drizzle and no whip, we feel a sense of power, a sense of order in our otherwise chaotic lives. It is a shelter from the storm, or the sleet, a quiet and friendly atmosphere where we can sit and sip on our customized drinks, separate, but a part of something bigger and better than ourselves. But it’s a lie. We are only ourselves, and we can only operate within the limits of the establishments we enter.

A simple Earl Grey tea. Nothing too fancy, nothing too difficult, and no chance of the barista misspelling the name on the cup. A simple tea to warm the bones after the sleet, and relax the mind.

Micro-narrative North of City by LW
Location: Neighborhood in St. Albert
Time: 11:30 a.m.
Temperature: 5°Celsius

The background of this picture is a section of neighborhood that I have passed on the way to and from the university every day for the past five years. On this particular day it was slightly chilly, with a few clouds but mostly blue skies. While driving on our way to an Original Joes for breakfast, my sister and I came through this area and it was rather quiet with no traffic or any other people walking around in the streets. The house featured in the background with the tall tree in the front is actually the same one that my sister and I grew up in with our family before we moved locations ten years ago. Over the years since then, the tree has grown taller, a fence was added to the yard, and the roof was replaced among other small changes, but this building is the place where our family gatherings were held and where the majority of our traditions made. In this manner, I feel that this photograph ties in well with our group theme of ‘memory’.

Chapters Westside by LG
Wednesday April 1, 2015

So – the sudden unraveling of agreed-upon plans with my friend-cum-chauffeur on account of the inexplicable sleet (why had yesterday been so positively vernal if the promise of mild weather was so soon to be broken?) has compromised the original mission parameters → (Update) Location: Telus World of Science Status: ABORTED. Amidst snow showers with WNW 45 kph winds, the road conditions have devolved to Status: MISERABLE, despite a quoted temperature of 4o Celsius. As a result, I abandoned Foucault and his institutionalized spaces of power for a much more close at hand commodified space of consumption: Chapters Westside. I mark time (it is now 6:57 pm as I take the photo), in particular the phantom season of summer, by the books I read. Was it in the summer of 2008 that Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading made the name Cincinnatus C forever familiar to me? And to my long suffering friends whom I exhorted to “Read this book!” (“If possible, it should be read alongside Kafka’s The Trial for a comparative study,” I further suggested, only to be tutted back to reality once more . . .)

Standing at the top of the stairs gives me a vantage point midway between De Certeau’s Walker, who would tread the pseudo-labyrinthine arrangement of bookshelves to learn the secrets of the store layout firsthand, and the Voyeur who would survey the displays from on high with aerial detachment. In traversing the bookstore, I notice first the books that Indigo-Chapters has deigned to face-front, that is a book whose front page fully faces the customer enticing them toward purchase. Other books are displayed spine outward with only the title hinting at the contents within. The choice as you might imagine is not an innocent one. The bottom line, of course, plays a part. In the Romance Novel section, the clinch cover art amuses, especially when publishers have opted to chop heads and offer only impeccably sculpted male torsos for reader delectation. In Kosofsky’s queer spectrum of sexuality, presumably there is a place for lovers of headless torsos. Human desire is mysterious . . . and lucrative, and the Nested Rossdale Seraph smiles serenely and a little coolly, poised beneath false fluorescent stars.