Edmonton, Canada's gateway to the North

North Saskatchewan River Valley in Edmonton /Korea Times photos by Jon Dunbar

By Jon Dunbar

EDMONTON, Canada — To Koreans, Edmonton is one of Canada’s lesser-known major cities, its main claims to fame being its location three hours north of Calgary and housing North America’s largest shopping mall. But it has its own hidden assets, particularly its natural environment and festive atmosphere.

Transferring in Vancouver and passing by the Rocky Mountains, a domestic flight to Edmonton in the interior prairie province of Alberta may quickly seem regrettable.

As the plane circles to land at Edmonton International Airport, the ground below is a flat plain of checkerboard farmlands. The airport is in Nisku, a small town south of the city that is never seen by people passing by. As one drives toward Edmonton, the distant downtown core comes into view from far away, owing to the flat terrain.

The Muttart Conservatory, found in a cluster of iconic glass pyramids in the River Valley, offer four biomes of plant life.

But upon piercing the city center, a vast valley over the North Saskatchewan River opens up before one’s eyes.

Edmonton’s River Valley is one of North America’s largest urban parks, zigzagging its way through the city from roughly southwest to northeast. Paths and wooden stairways make most of it accessible to pedestrians and cyclists, sort of the inverse of what Korea’s alpine topography provides here.

Views of the downtown core are iconic, especially around the Muttart Conservatory, an array of glass pyramids each housing a different biome of plant life, worth visiting whether in the dead of winter or heat wave of summer. Further from the city center, the River Valley offers an escape from urban life, where civilization is just a short jaunt uphill at all times.

With a population just over 928,000, Edmonton is slightly larger than Seoul in land area owing to urban sprawl. In 2013 during the last mayoral election, civic activists ran the “Zombie Wall” campaign, calling for a more centralized approach to urban planning which would make the city more defendable from zombie invasions.

Today, four years later, Edmontonians are building upwards as well as outwards. The downtown core, for years considered a lost cause, shows signs of new life.

The Legislature provincial government building is a magnificent example of public architecture, offering various wading pools for young kids to play around in during the day, and adults at night. An old Labatt brewery district has been transformed into the Edmonton Brewery District, offering a major supermarket and other big-box stores in a convenient central location.

Construction cranes are ubiquitous throughout the city’s central region.

Downtown Edmonton

Meanwhile, Edmontonians, cautious of gentrification issues, find ways to celebrate their various urban spaces, organizing various festivals to retain citizen ownership of this isolated metropolis.

South of the river, one can find Whyte Ave, a cultural street running through the former town of Strathcona, long ago absorbed by Edmonton’s expansion. It offers unique restaurants, live music venues and cozy neighborhood bars, as well as various festivals including North America’s oldest Fringe festival.

West of here is the University of Alberta, the largest of Edmonton’s three main higher education institutions. Its campus offers pleasing scenery among century-old architecture and advanced new buildings.

A highlight is the campus’s long, linear dormitory for international students built around a shopping corridor. The university is home to many classic examples of architecture, as well as helping earn Edmonton its reputation as a center for brutalist architecture.

Further out west is West Edmonton Mall, a behemoth of retail shopping that houses an amusement park, a waterpark, a skating rink, bowling alleys, a firing range and an Asian supermarket. Seoulites familiar with Lotte World would find something recognizable in this mall’s expansive environment.

Edmonton’s northern latitude, along the 53rd parallel, means it is most pleasant to visit during the warmer months, roughly June to September. On one of the warmer summer days, Seoulites can breathe easy and appreciate the cooling breeze, while hearing locals complain about the heat.

During summer, sunset isn’t until around 10:30 p.m., offering hours of extra daylight that can be put to all sorts of uses.

During summer, sunset isn’t until around 10:30 p.m., offering hours of extra daylight that can be put to all sorts of uses. Around 9 p.m., the sunlight is as strong as if it were afternoon.

While this may seem like a novelty to Koreans who can’t expect sunsets later than 8 p.m., Edmontonians enjoy it just as much, as they themselves spend half the year living in the dark with exceptionally short days.

Jon Dunbar is a copy editor at The Korea Times.