Alberta, Again

I’m sitting in the Mill Woods Evangelical Missionary Church in Edmonton, AB, during the rehearsal for Trevor and Keri’s wedding tomorrow. They’re getting instructions about standing and walking, and all that stuff.

The drive from Bozeman to Camrose, AB went fine yesterday. Made 630 miles in 11 hours. My route was as follows: I-90W from Bozeman to Montana Hwy 287 to Helena, where Hwy 287 intersects I-15 north. I-15 took me to the border at Sweetgrass/Couts. Picked up Alberta Hwy 4 there, to Warren, where I picked up Hwy, 36. Almost 200 miles from there with almost no towns – farms and ranches, except for a brief stop in Taber (the corn capital of Canada). Hit Hwy 13 in Killam (famous sign there: “we love our children – Killam!”). Then into Camrose. Rainstorms all around me from Taber north, and lots of water on the road surface at points, but I had only a few drops on the windshield.

Once I was able to get CBC Radio (north of Shelby, MT), I got my fill of Canadian news and talk radio. Lots of the discussion focused around issues related to my summer at PERC: water usage, development on flood plains, sour gas well development near cities, etc. One of the discussions I most enjoyed was with a woman who is the “eyes and ears” of the Bow River. I frequently point out that wildlife and natural resources do not have a “voice” of their own in public discussion. This woman tries to provide such a voice for the Bow. Of course, the problem is that the values she says are “the river’s values” (a phrase she used a couple of times) are really her own – rivers don’t have values. But at least her organization acknowledges that natural resources only enter public discussion through what people say.