It all started in Edmonton...

Coming from my previous job in Vancouver at the city's premier business weekly newspaper, I became pretty familiar with the business world in Vancouver.  The companies that started there, the companies that moved to there or away from there. 


Now here in Edmonton, I'm a little less in the loop on the business community.  But I always find it interesting to find out how big companies got their start, so I have come to find out that several well known retail companies were started right here in E-Town! 


The Brick - The first store was opened in Edmonton in 1971 - then called Bill Comrie's Furniture Warehouse.  In 1975 the store moved to a large brick building in downtown Edmonton, and in 1978 was renamed "The Brick Warehouse"...later "The Brick".  By 1980, the business was generating $75 million/year from that one location.  Today, The Brick operates 200 locations across Canada.


Boston Pizza - Boston Pizza and Spaghetti House opened in Edmonton in 1964.  By 1970 there were 17 locations, 15 of which were franchises. Once of the first franchisees was Jim Trevliving, who we now know and love from one of our favourite CBC programs, Dragon's Den.  Jim and his business partner George Melville bought the chain of restaurants in 1983, and now Boston Pizza has over 325 locations across Canada, 54 in the United States (there known as Boston's The Gourmet Pizza), and 2 locations in Mexico.


Running Room - The first Running Room was a small one room store, housed in the renovated living room of an old house in Edmonton in 1984.  The company now has over 90 retail locations throughout Canada and the US. 


Earl's - Earl's was founded in 1982, with the first location right here in Edmonton.  Still a family run business, Earl's has over 50 locations in Canada and the US. 


Booster Juice - Okay, technically, Booster Juice didn't start in Edmonton - it started in a suburb of Edmonton, Sherwood Park.  And get this, they opened a smoothie bar in November, 1999.  November?  Really?  I would think November in Canada's North would be the perfect time to open hot chocolate shop, not a smoothie bar.  But that's why I don't own a successful business.  Booster Juice now has over 170 stores worldwide (including five in Saudi Arabia!). 


Edmonton has also been the testing ground for US companies looking to enter the Canadian market.  We often get the first location in Canada or the first location in Western Canada.  We have the first Victoria's Secret location in Western Canada, where else but at West Edmonton Mall.  We also had the first Canadian location of Bath & Body Works (also at The Mall).   We also have the first Canadian location of the American fondue restaurant, The Melting Pot.  (I haven't been here yet, but that 2 for 1 chocolate fondue coupon is sure burning a hole in my pocket, so hopefully soon!) 

The Alberta "TO DO" List

Now that I've been in Alberta for a few months, and working for an organization that promotes Edmonton as a great place to live, work, and play, I have discovered all the things there are to do here.  So I have compiled my Alberta "to do" list (items not listed in any particular order):

• Visit Fort Edmonton Park, Canada's largest living history museum.
• Visit the Valley Zoo in Edmonton and see Lucy the Elephant.  There is quite a bit of controversy about poor Lucy, who was orphaned in Sri Lanka at the age of two, and brought to Edmonton.  Rightly or wrongly, at age 35, she is here and I want to see her.  Elephants are one of my favourite animals (along with octopus).  Animal rights activists, inclulding Bob Barker(!), are taking the City of Edmonton to court over Lucy, stating that elephants are social animals and she needs to be with others of her kind, and in a warmer climate.  While I don't necessarily disagree, veterinarians have stated on several occassions that Lucy is not physically fit to move, and the stress of a move could be life threatening to her. 
• Dinner at La Ronde, Edmonton's only revolving restaurant.  La Ronde is in the Crowne Plaza Chateau Lacombe hotel,  perched atop a hill overlooking the river valley.  I can only imagine the amazing views to be had from up there!  I think the best time to go might be in the fall when the sun sets during the dinner hour so you can get the full affect of the sunset.  
• Visit the Royal Alberta Museum.  Just cuz I love museums.
• Visit the Art Gallery of Alberta.  The Art Gallery just re-opened in January 2010 after a major renovation.  The new building is unlike anything else I have ever seen.  Though it's not to my particular taste, it is still interesting nontheless, and I can't wait to go check it out.  Particularly because The Art of Warner Bros. Cartoons exhibit is here! 
• Theatre district of Old Strathcona.  Given that this is right in my neighbourhood, I've already been to a production here.  But did you know that Edmonton has the most live theatre per capita in Canada?  And Old Strathcona has the most theatres in one area of Edmonton, with eight companies performing out of four venues in two square blocks.  And the best thing?  Ticket prices are so reasonable!
• Visit the Alberta Legislature building.  The city of Edmonton is the capital city of Alberta, so I had better go check it out!  (Plus, I have a lead on getting us in on the VIP Tour!)
• Hike in Elk Island National Park.  We've already hiked the park once, but I definitely want to go back - there are many more hikes to do!  Less than an hour's drive from the city, Elk Island protects prairie grasslands and boreal forests and is home to free-roaming herds of bison, elk, and deer (as well as being home to many other species of birds and other animals).  Elk Island's claim to fame is that contains the densest population of ungulates (hoofed mammals) in Canada and second densest worldwide with only the Serengeti plains in Africa having a more concentrated population.
• Spend a weekend in Calgary.  Just to go spy on the competition.  hehe  Plus, I hear the zoo is amazing!
• Spend a weekend in Drumheller.  I want to go to the Royal Tyrrell Museum and go for a hike through the badlands and see the hoodoos.
• Festivals and more festivals.  Edmonton has so many festivals, I don't think there's any way I'm going to see them all.  The Fringe Festival is the largest Fringe in North America, second in the world only to the original Fringe in Edinburgh.  The Folk Festival is super popular - this year's selling out in only one day!  With headliners like Van Morrison, Gord Downie and Ben Harper, I should have known to get myself sorted sooner.  I am hoping the weather will cooperate and we'll be able to check out the Street Performers' Festival this weekend.  There are so many others that I won't list them all here - I will just endeavour to see as many as possible!  (And I'm actually looking forward to the Winter Light Festival as well!)
• I didn't really think about this one until my guy mentioned it.  Going to Fort McMurray and taking an oil sands tour.  Not at the top of any tourist list I'm sure, but given all the controversy and having seen it on tv a million times, I think it will be interesting.   I'm sure it will break my little green heart, but if I can get over that, it will certainly be interesting to see it first hand and learn where our oil comes from.  Then I can have a more educated opinion when it comes to the environmental effects of the oil sands.  (But really, until we can curb our demand for oil, they are going to keep digging for it where ever they can find it.  Please, some genius out there find us a cheap, renewable, sustainable oil substitute!)
• Go cross country ski and snow shoeing.  I guess the good thing about a long winter is that there's lots of snow and time to get out to play in it.  And having the river valley trail system three blocks from our house means easy access to over 150kms of trails to go cross country skiing and snow shoeing.
• Outdoor skating.  Growing up in Vancouver, the climate is just not appropriate for outdoor skating so I've never done it.  But here?  Well - let me tell you, when it's daytime highs of -10, there better damn well be SOMETHING fun outdoors to do!  There are seven outdoor rinks in Edmonton, so surely we can find time to hit one of them.  And maybe sneak in some Baileys for our hot chocolate! 
• Survive the winter.  This may be the hardest one of all - I think it will take all my strength, focus and dedication to make it through winter here.  But over a million people do it every year, surely I can try!  :) 

Oscar would be proud of Edmonton

Trash is taken pretty seriously here in Edmonton - I think our favourite trash-loving muppet would be proud. (Did you know that Oscar the Grouch was originally orange? He wasn't green until Season 2!)

As a resident, it is very easy to recycle. Just put your recyclables into a transparent blue bag that you buy at any store, and put it in the bin. There's no sorting of containers vs. newsprint vs. "other paper". For single family homes, just put your blue bag out with your garbage on collection day. For apartment dwellers, just drop your blue bag into the blue bin which is (hopefully!) located in the garbage room of your building.

Our building, I am dismayed to admit, does not have a blue bin. I just find it so hard to believe that in this day and age, a condo council would not have a recycling program in their building. but alas, I am a renter, so don't have much of say about what goes on around here. We just grab our blue bag, and take it down the street to another building's blue bin.

Not only do you not have to sort - but you can recycle almost all your household goods. Plastic containers of all kinds (instead of having to check the bottom to make sure it's the right type to go in the Vancouver recycling system), milk cartons and tetrapaks, even empty non-hazardous aerosol cans.

In keeping with Edmonton's desire to have the largest of everything (more on this in a future post), Edmonton boasts North America's largest waste processing facility. The Edmonton Waste Management Centre is 233 hectares of composting, residential and industrial recycling, e-waste recycling, and treatment plant.

The EWMC also houses a Research and Development Facility as part of the Edmonton Waste Management Centre of Excellence. In case you are wondering, the EWMC is open for group tours, call 780-496-6879 for more information.

For items not blue-bagable, residents can bring other household waste to one of three eco-stations in the city. Here they can unload cans of paint, car batteries and electronic waste at no charge! For other household items, like that old sofa that the cat has scratched up and even Value Village won't take it, bring it to the eco-station! There will be a charge, but you can get rid of furniture, fridges, fencing, and any other big bulky items that might otherwise end up in the landfill.

The eco-station also offers any usable paint that comes in to customers for free! Need some neon green to finish up that door trim? Or midnight blue for that canvas painting you're working on? I'm sure you'll find it at the eco-station. Since 1995, over 350,000 litres of free paint has been given away.

Edmontonians should be proud! They divert approximately 60% of all household waste away from the landfill through recycling and composting programs, with a goal of reaching 90% diversion by 2013. FAN-tastic! Great work Edmonton!

I must say, for a city with a reputation for being very "industrial" and not particularly "green" - Edmonton does a great job managing all the waste produced here.

Moving on...

This is a short post, just to update any potential readers out there that I am now an official Albertan. No, I haven't picked up a shiny new pair of boots from Lammle's Western Wear & Tack. But I DO have an Alberta driver's license. And my Alberta Health card is on its way as I type.

It took me two months to find work once I got here - not too bad I think. There seemed to be lots of opportunity here, at least in my field. I had many interviews, and two offers that I turned down before I got an offer I couldn't refuse. (Incidentally, the unemployment rate in Edmonton for March 2010 was 7.5%, compared to the national average of 8.2% and 7.8% in Vancouver.) Mind you, I did a lot of leg work and had great referrals through my network to line up interviews and create opportunities.

The irony of my job does not escape me - my role is to help promote Edmonton as a great place to live, visit and do business. How do I promote a place that I barely know? Well, it's pretty easy actually. Every day I go to work, and learn something new about where I live, and then find ways to tell other people about it. Not too bad, I say.

I would even say that I have an advantage in being new to the city, as everything is new and exciting to me. I'm not jaded by a place I've lived all my life, having "been there, done that". I think its fairly common to take where you live for granted and not be excited by it anymore, so I am glad to have this opportunity to learn about my new city.

Now "real life" begins - working Monday to Friday, staying active, and taking in all that the city has to offer. And being sure to get out there while I can without a toque!

In future posts, I am going to endeavour to write about the things I learn about Edmonton - good, bad, or ugly. Yes, I will be comparing to Vancouver, because that is my home, and the only place I have to compare it to.

And now for my legal disclaimer:
The opinions on this site are strictly my own, and in no way represent the opinions of my employer, my friends, or the guy on the subway. I may or may not have all my facts straight, and I in no way endorse one product over another (unless they pay me to, in which case I will tell you). I am not responsible for content on other other websites that I may link to, so if you are offended by anything I didn't write, really, do I need to hear about it?

Basically, read at your own risk, and kids, don't try this at home. :)

Kiss me, I'm....Greek?

Okay, I admit it. I'm prostituting my blog for a contest entries...FIVE contest entries, actually. I subscribe to an e-newsletter called "Can I Get the Recipe" and they are giving away what looks like an amazing Greek cookbook called "How to Roast a Lamb". If I post about this contest, the website and the review of the book, I get FIVE additional entries to the contest. Sign me up!

I've been looking for Greek cookbook that I can one day surprise my honey with an amazing Greek dinner, and there it was...waiting for me to enter the contest to win it! Plus, I don't have a problem endorsing something that has served me well - Can I Get the Recipe (also see the button on the sidebar of this blog) is a great little website a friend told me about and after looking it over, I signed up for the newsletter right away. I am a self-professed recipe junkie, and while like most recipe junkies I probably don't actually cook at least 75% of the recipes I have, I still love to have them. And these are actually useful, down to earth recipes - ingredients can be purchased at your local grocery store, and dishes can be easily prepared, you don't have to be Jamie Oliver to make them. The recipes I have made from this site have been easy and delicious!

My only wish for this website is a better search feature - I just tried to find my favourite recipe that I have made (pork chops with apple cranberry compote) and couldn't find it to link to it here. :(

Now, I hope I win this cookbook so I can make dinner for my amour in our new kitchen! Yes, that's right folks, the Vancouverite is making the move to the Great White North. We've found a great new apartment, and I look forward to reporting more from E-Town soon!

Next year I'm going to be Miss dEdmonton

Well, it just goes to show you that you never know how information is going to come to you...today I discovered the Miss dEdmonton contest through a burlesque Facebook group I belong to.

"Miss dEdmonton?!?" I said to myself. "Surely this must be Halloween related...I've GOT to check this out." Well, it turns out I'm too late to be this year's Miss dEdmonton - the contest closed September 30th. And I'm not a resident of Alberta, but that's a minor detail.

Miss dEdmonton is part of "dEdmonton" - Canada's Halloween Festival. How COOL is that?! A whole festival and website dedicated to all things Halloween in Edmonton. Whew! I'm feeling better about this town already.

Even though I won't be in town for the month of October, it still warms my heart to know there's people out there like me. Halloween nerds unite!

(And next year, I may still be in the running towards becoming Edmonton's next top Miss dEdmonton.)

Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day

Well, looks like I totally missed covering summer in E-Town. Now we're on to Fall. Or Autumn if you're British.

I must admit that the Fall that I have seen in Edmonton is quite beautiful with the trees starting to turn colour. From the plane, the fields were a beautiful golden colour - perhaps from summer drought or perhaps from harvest season. I'll think of it as the latter.

I spent two September weekends in E-Town - the first was cool at night, but still hot during the day. Hot enough to laze around in the park in the sunshine on a Sunday afternoon. The second weekend...well, by then you could tell that Old Man Winter is on his way. The wind picked up - a LOT. And it was cold. I even saw people wearing jackets and scarves at 2 in the afternoon! Being from the West Coast, and truly my mother's daughter, I resist bringing out the winter coat for as long as I can, so I opted for no coat that trip. I won't make that mistake again!

But I will try not to focus too much on the weather, but let's face it - that's the biggest, most obviously difference between Edmonton and Vancouver. It's a definite climate shock.

You could definitely sense a change in the city though - even our own activities were directed indoors for the last September weekend. It felt like people were getting ready to hibernate for the winter - taking in the last of the tolerable sunshine days, gathering all the food and warm clothes they will need for the coming months.

We took in a film for the Edmonton International Film Festival, which I am thrilled to see happening there. I am a huge movie fan, and love the Vancouver International Film Festival, so am happy to see one in Edmonton too. The film we saw was screening at the Empire City Centre theatre in "downtown" Edmonton.

This is where I saw a huge difference between Vancity and E-Town. It was 1:00 on a Saturday afternoon, and the downtown core was like ghost town. I think I saw more tumbleweeds than people. Our car was the only car in the parkade! In Vancouver, you`d have to drive around for hours to find a parking spot at the mall on a Saturday afternoon.

That`s something I really enjoy about Vancouver, is that people actually live in the downtown core. There are grocery stores and drug stores and movie rental stores - all the kinds of things you want around the place you live. Plus you have access to all the great restaurants and entertainment all around you.

My guy lives by the university - close to Whyte Ave. I really enjoy that area - there`s lots of little restaurants right close by, and so far most of the neighbourhood amenities. I can walk to the grocery store and the coffee shop, even sushi! I just wonder how many of these areas there are in Edmonton. It seems so spread out and inaccessible sometimes.

The next time I visit will be in November - I can assure you I`ll be packing my mittens and warmest winter coat then!