River Valley News - Dec 5/24

Ice formation on the North Saskatchewan River

Ice is cold. But how does it form? On lakes and ponds, ice comes together in a sheet across the surface. But on a river like the North Saskatchewan, ice forming is far more chaotic. Frazil crystals, or tiny specs of ice, take shape as the temperatures drop. At first, they are small, only a fraction of a millimetre across.

As the crystals collide in the water, they freeze together and form large flocs that float to the surface to create frazil pans, which look like discs of ice. Floating along, the pans meet up and eventually jam the river downstream. As more frazil ice reaches the jam, the ice cover moves back upstream forming a solid cover as it goes.

How fast does it take for river ice to form? If the temperatures plunge quickly, it takes a few days. And because of the turbulent North Saskatchewan waters, the river super cools quickly to begin frazil ice formation. https://www.edmontoncommonwealthwalkway.com/winter/how-did-that-ice-get-there

Keep Moving tells the story of Pekiwewin

Keep Moving is a podcast series about houseless encampments in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (Nêhiyawak for Beaver Hills), also known as Edmonton. The podcast is a part of a PhD dissertation and can be listened to on CJSR 88.5FM, Spotify or Apple.

The podcast starts by telling the story of Pekiwewin, an Indigenous-led houseless encampment in the river valley that lasted for 112 days in 2020. Pekiwewin supported up to 400 houseless Edmontonians for over three months amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, housing and drug poisoning crises. The podcast wanted to showcase the success of an Indigenous-led volunteer grassroots community effort.

Edmonton’s houseless community, the majority of whom are Indigenous, are still experiencing the harm that results from punitive government measures and insufficient support. Keep Moving continues to share stories about life in the beautiful Beaver Hills, Pekiwewin, and much more. Give the podcast a listen at https://apirg.org/portfolio/keep-moving-podcast-series-pekiwewin/

like the hoarfrost, a poem by Nisha Patel

Nisha Patel was the City of Edmonton’s 8th Poet Laureate and is a Canadian Individual Poetry Slam Champion. This poem was originally presented for Winter City Edmonton, and replayed on CBC’s Sunday Magazine near the end of the segment https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-57/clip/15812738

I was once a girl left in the cold

by a careless boy on valentines day

five years later I become a woman who fell in love with herself

when I heard the birdsong above Victoria's park

went looking for the magpies

and found only the still pond-water

I saw myself in the uncompromise when I was met with Saskatchewan's

northern caress: no woman is alone when she is solitary,

and no woman is solitary when we have a panting sky above us

which is to say that I want to be held

like the hoarfrost holds the trees over Jasper Ave

that I long for the daylight's gift like I long for a lover

to bring me warmth on even the loneliest of sunday noons.

under the bright rustle of ravine-dwellers

I learn to love winter the way I learn to love myself:

slowly, achingly, laboriously, and at risk of a damp heart

Read the rest of Nisha’s poem at https://www.nishapatel.ca/post/like-the-hoarfrost

A View from A Train by Chris Doyle, Kingsway LRT Station, YEG

https://www.edmontonarts.ca/public-art/a-view-from-a-train

Comment or Contributions

Please note articles may not reflect the position of NSRVCS. River Valley News is meant to be a clearinghouse for the variety of opinions and ideas about Edmonton’s River Valley.

Email river valley photos, event information, comments, or questions to nsrivervalley@gmail.com

Forward this link to anyone you think may want to sign up for this newsletter https://www.edmontonrivervalley.org/newsletter-signup

River Valley News - Nov 28/24

How the goji berry bushes of Grierson Hill were saved

When Ken Gee was a child in the mid 70s, his grandparents would invite him and his brother to go collect goji berries in the river valley. Goji berries were used in traditional Chinese cooking and soups. To pick these berries, they would drive, at a certain time in summer, down to Grierson Hill.

Once they made it to this hill, Ken’s grandmother would step out of the car and swing her empty one litre milk carton over her neck. She’d then climb up the hill to collect as many berries as she could. When her makeshift container was full, she would take it home, put the berries on a straw mat, leave them to dry in the sun for a couple of days and then store them away.

Many others also took part in picking goji berries from Grierson Hill. And they were all worried when the announcement came that the convention centre was going to be built on this land. To save the goji berry bushes, many women went to the hill with their shovels and dug up them up. Some of these bushes are now at Ken’s parents place, as well as a lot of other Asian households in the Edmonton Area.

https://soundcloud.com/cjsrfm/ken-gee-on-picking-goji-berries

Keep your eye out for this winter raptor

Ryan Schain photo

Are you looking for a challenge this winter? Well then, you need to keep an eye out for the Cooper’s Hawk. This bird is one of Edmonton’s most common winter raptors. It has a large square head with a darker cap, a clean and organized patterned breast, and a rounded tail. When this bird is in flight, it is proportions are longer tail, bigger head, and less wing.

The cooper’s hawk flies fast, and often only offers brief looks. They tear through cluttered tree canopies at high speed while pursuing other birds. They are not easy to identify, even for experienced bird enthusiasts. But you are most likely to see them prowling above a forest edge or field using just a few stiff wingbeats followed by a glide.

Dashing through vegetation to catch birds is a dangerous lifestyle. In a study of more than 300 Cooper’s Hawk skeletons, 23 percent showed old, healed-over fractures in the bones of the chest, especially of the furcula, or wishbone.

An interesting fact about the cooper’s hawk is that they capture birds with their feet and kill it through repeated squeezing. Unlike falcons who kill their prey by biting it, the cooper’s hawk prefers to hold their catch away from their body until it dies. They are also known to hold their prey under water until it stops moving.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Coopers_Hawk

River Valley News needs your support

Kyle Schole photo

You and another 2,300+ people receive our free e-newsletter River Valley News. In 7 years, this newsletter has grown from a publication whose first issue was sent to 300 society members, to a weekly sent to 2,371 Edmontonians.

Though we are a completely volunteer run organization, we need $300 monthly to pay for distribution of River Valley News, our website, and to keep our social media feeds up to date. Our first request last November and December 2023, raised $4,256.50 from 48 donors. Donations ranged from $10 to $300 with $88.68 per person as the average. Donate now at https://www.edmontonrivervalley.org/donate

Our communication outreach is vital to NSRVCS and plays a key role in our work. It helped us in our successful campaign to create Big Island Provincial Park. It informs people of our current initiative to create a National Urban Park. It highlights our work with the City of Edmonton on enhanced protection of our river valley and ravine system.

Your support is critical to continuing publication of the River Valley News and our communication outreach. We know you are committed to our work to conserve, protect and preserve Edmonton’s river valley for future generations. Thank you for your financial support! https://www.edmontonrivervalley.org/

The Dos and Don’ts of winter in Edmonton

Welcome back to winter. We’re all seasoned experts in the season of blustery snow. But having a good list of activities to do when the flakes and temperatures drop doesn’t hurt either. Here’s your not-so-comprehensive list of Edmonton winter Dos and Don’ts

Do build a snowman. The best snowman temperatures tend to be just below freezing. Don’t stick your tongue to metal. Your tongue will freeze to it and you’ll be stuck. It hurts. Reeeaaally bad.

Do go skating. Edmonton has plenty of outdoor rinks to enjoy, many of which are in river valley parks. Try the Victoria Park or Rundle Park IceWay for a natural skating trail right in the river valley. Don’t eat yellow snow. It might look like lemon flavour, but it’s not. It’s for sure not.

Do spend time with people you love. As cold as it gets, winter has a way of warming hearts. Take advantage of the season with some of your favourite people. Don’t dress like its still summer. We get it. Some of us want it to be summer all year long. But you’ll freeze. Your skin will get angry. Your mom will be disappointed. Don’t disappoint mom. https://www.edmontoncommonwealthwalkway.com/winter/it-s-winter-what-to-do-not-do

Gold Bar Farm

Marilyn writes “After reading Carrie’s comments about Goldbar Farm, I was wondering if you could forward my email to her. I would be interested in forming a community group to try to save that parcel of land.”

Still Life by Studio F Minus, Grant MacEwan LRT station, YEG

https://www.edmontonarts.ca/public-art/still-life

Comment or Contributions

Please note articles may not reflect the position of NSRVCS. River Valley News is meant to be a clearinghouse for the variety of opinions and ideas about Edmonton’s River Valley.

Email river valley photos, event information, comments, or questions to nsrivervalley@gmail.com

Forward this link to anyone you think may want to sign up for this newsletter https://www.edmontonrivervalley.org/newsletter-signup

River Valley News - Nov 22/24

Metis ironworkers built Edmonton’s downtown

The people who did the most dangerous jobs in constructing the skyscrapers in downtown Edmonton in the 1960s and 1970s were almost all Metis men who had trained as ironworkers. That included the CN Tower, built from 1964 to 1966.

It was dangerous work. In just one year in this period, 12 ironworkers across Canada died on the job. Deaths occurred because when it came to health and safety procedures, there really wasn’t any to speak of. There were no safety harnesses. Tom Daniels explained that “We didn’t have the luxury of steel-toed boots, safety belts, nothing, not even snap-on hooks. We made our own. You come to the job. You got a hook? No. Here’s a piece of rebar; make one.”

Edmonton’s CN Tower, the tallest building in Western Canada from 1966 to 1971, was their greatest achievement. It was planned for a three-year build, but the determined Metis ironworkers helped cut a year from that schedule. They worked 12-hour shifts. The night shift welded columns together to the top of the tower while the day shift put mounds of steel in slabs and then installed slabs floor by floor.

Hugh Edgar described daytime work this way: “We had to put the beams in and then the slab, and it usually took three or four days. It was hard work. There were 11 bars, 60 feet long. I was only 140 pounds and them bars were 300 pounds that we were carrying.”

That hard work earned them a miserly wage of 98 cents an hour when they began working on the CN Tower in 1964, just above minimum wage. But the Ironworkers Union enrolled them as members and negotiated a doubling of their wages by 1966. https://citymuseumedmonton.ca/2024/11/05/waltzing-with-the-angels/

City of Edmonton not on track to meet 2024 emission targets

The City of Edmonton is falling short of its greenhouse gas emission targets, two years after the municipality introduced its first carbon budget. It emitted an estimated 16.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2023, higher than the 13.4 million tonnes it was aiming for, the 2023-2026 carbon budget update report shows.

"If Edmonton's current emission trajectory continues, Edmonton's GHG reduction targets will not be achieved," the report states. Like any other budget, a carbon budget determines how much the city can spend over a period, only instead of money, it's budgeting greenhouse gas emissions. The city aims to become a carbon-neutral community by 2050. 

Melanie Hoffman, co-chair of the city's independent Energy Transition Climate Resilience Committee, said the news is disappointing. "We are not on a trajectory to change that," Hoffman said in an interview Tuesday. To get on track, emissions would need to go down to 12.7 million tonnes or less in 2024. "The trend for this year indicates that this target will not be met and there are no current initiatives or actions that will allow the necessary reductions to meet the target," the report says.

The city is facing a $34-million deficit by the end of the year, the city's finance department said in its fall budget adjustment update. It proposes to cut the Community Energy Transition Strategy Program, an action plan that outlines ways to create healthier neighbourhoods, by $1.8 million. That will set the city back in its goals, Hoffman said. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-fails-to-meet-climate-targets-2-years-after-launching-carbon-budget-1.7381843

Wally Ursuliak the father of curling in Japan

Hokkaido is the curling capital of Japan. It’s home to the 2018 Japanese women’s Olympic bronze medalists. And people living there say they owe their curling success to Alberta. But how did it all happen? In 1980, Alberta and Hokkaido became twinned jurisdictions. When Alberta sent exports to Japan, they landed in Hokkaido. One of the most surprising exports? You guessed it: curling.

Edmontonian Wally Ursuliak helped win the curling world championship in 1961. In 1986, Ursuliak took a visiting Japanese delegation to a curling event in St. Albert. The sport enamoured his Japanese visitors. And that day, they invited “Mr. Wally” to Japan to introduce Hokkaido to the beauty of the shot rock.

For six years, Ursuliak travelled Hokkaido. At every stop he showed and taught curling. To many Japanese curlers, Wally is the father of curling in Japan. https://www.edmontoncommonwealthwalkway.com/winter/curling-albertans-sweeping-the-world

Gold Bar Farm

Carrie writes, “I am wondering if it's possible to look into saving the area known as Gold Bar Farm on 106 Ave and between 46th street and 43rd street. It is a historical sight, a full block with a historical house on it and dotted with hundreds of trees, skirting Gold Bar Ravine. Sadly, it was sold and now the city is rapidly allowing multifamily housing to overpopulate our older, established neighbourhoods, increasing housing and traffic. We are losing trees and habitat for creatures such as birds. In Gold Bar, we are near the refinery and we appreciate conserving as much green space as possible to offset the pollution. I'm curious if there are any options in trying to protect this land?”

Bio-Glyphs by Ron Baird, Biotechnology Business Development Centre research park https://www.edmontonarts.ca/public-art/bio-glyphs

Comment or Contributions

Please note articles may not reflect the position of NSRVCS. River Valley News is meant to be a clearinghouse for the variety of opinions and ideas about Edmonton’s River Valley.

Email river valley photos, event information, comments, or questions to nsrivervalley@gmail.com

Forward this link to anyone you think may want to sign up for this newsletter https://www.edmontonrivervalley.org/newsletter-signup