Lost in Alberta

After poring over my Edmonton guide book last night, I woke up early this morning and got directions to all the places I planned to visit. I ordered them in a way that would make the most efficient travel, then wrote down the route from one to another, in that order.

The best laid plans, yadda yadda yadda.

I made it to my first stop -- an old chapel from a very early settlement called St Albert -- without any issues. I wandered the area and took some photos, accompanied by the clear but distant sound of a hymn from the Sunday service going on inside the church. From there, I made it downtown, but only after discovering the main road was closed, weaving through arbitrary side streets in the general direction of tall buildings, then circling the city center for 30 minutes in search of parking. When I got out of the car, frustrated, I calmed myself with a coffee, then did a bit more shopping. It was about all that downtown had to offer.

Next, I headed to the Muttart Conservatory, 4 architecturally interesting greenhouses nestled in a wooded area along the river, with a backdrop of the Edmonton skyline. It sounds lovely, doesn't it? Well, I wouldn't know, because I never made it there. Apparently the conservatory is rather near to the site of the Folk Music Festival (which I also wasn't able to get to, harumph), and all streets were closed except to residents with proper documentation.

So instead of visiting the conservatory, I drove all around the vicinity, unsuccessfully trying to find the first turn in my directions to the next stop, and finally ending up back downtown, completely by accident. Since all my directions were only point to point, and I didn't have a map on me, I turned the car back in the direction of the hotel and eventually, somehow, made my way back to regroup. Luckily I passed a Harvey's on the way, so that Canada's most delicious fast food poutine could ease the sting of frustration I'd felt most of the day.

I understand that Alberta's harsh winters take an awful toll on the roads, and that there are only a few months with clement weather in which to fix them. But does that mean every road needs to be under construction at once? I haven't spent more than 2 minutes driving in any direction without running into orange signs. It's really making me annoyed with this town, which could otherwise be quite charming.

Anyway. After consulting Google's Canadian site yet again, I shoved off for the last place on my list, a small former trading post town called Fort Saskatchewan. After contending with poor directions (Google's at about 40% fail rate in Canada, bee-tee-dubs) and even more road work, I finally left Edmonton's limits and came upon an open road through beautiful country, which took me straight to my destination without any confusion at all. The Fort itself wasn't all that exciting -- even the pen of sheep looked exceptionally bored with the place -- and the wind was blowing so cold that I didn't take the time to walk around the vast historic park. I just spent a few minutes and made the drive back to the hotel.

I leave in the morning, and I'm not sure what the evening holds for me, but I'm thinking it's not much. Nothing is within walking distance, and driving is so irritating that I'm pretty much over it. This has turned out to be little more than a shopping trip for Canadian goods, and it would have been a lot cheaper and accomplished the same goal to drive up to Richmond for the day.

But I took lots of pictures, and now I can say I've driven on both Wayne Gretzky Drive and Mark Messier Trail. How many American hockey fans can say that? Huh?

At least it's something.

West Edmonton Mall

I booked my trip to Edmonton on a whim, figuring I'd never get up here during the ultra-frozen winter to see a hockey game, and assuming I could get tickets to this weekend's folk music festival.

But the folk fest tickets were sold out long ago, and resellers didn't really work out for me. So now, here I am in Northern Alberta, trying to figure out what to do, and there isn't much. So I went to the mall.

West Edmonton Mall was once the largest in the world, and is known for having a waterpark, a hotel, an amusement park, and a submarine adventure, all within its walls. It's no longer the world's biggest mall, but is still in the top five. I spent an hour there, walked through about half of it, perused a few stores, bought a couple things, and wasn't even remotely impressed.

It's a mall. A mall with a lot of extra crap inside, because for 9 months of the year, it's too cold to go outdoors here, but it's still just a mall. It wasn't quite the capitalist mecca I was expecting, and I don't know why it attracts 22 million people a year. Nobody even got caught under a fake boulder. Shrug.

I now have all day tomorrow to fill, and thought I'd spend some of it visiting one or two of the quirky nearby towns that sprung up here during the province's frontier beginnings. When I looked for some directions, though, I noticed that what the guide book calls nearby, is actually 50-100 miles away, since Canada is just so damn big. I'm all for a road trip, but my rental Chevy has such an oversized interior and undersized windows that backing or changing lanes is undertaken largely on faith. It's not my favorite way to drive.

So it's a bit of a disappointing start, and I'm at a bit of a loss for what comes next, but I'll make it work. I still get to have a weekend with all things Canadian, and that always makes me happy.