Hello out there in blogger land. It seems this is the method of choice for communication these days and since I am a long way from my friends and family, I thought this might be a useful way to share some thoughts.
Grande Prairie is a great little city. I use the word "little" with a great deal of caution since many of the people here seem to think this is a big city. I suppose it is to many of its residents who grew up with GP or those who have migrated here from many of the small towns and villages in rural north western Alberta. And it has undergone a major boom and population explosion in recent years.
To me it has many charms missing from the "big" Alberta cities. You can generally see the sky here since there is only one "skyscraper" messing up the skyline. (It is a big black box somewhat reminiscent of the Borg ships from Star Trek TNG for those of you old enough to remember the Borg - "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated." I haven't been assimilated yet.) It has a couple of really good restaurants. The arts community seems alive and well and we get some decent entertainment at the "Crystal Centre" on a regular basis. I am glad that the Grande Prairie College is here. I have hopes of meeting others here that share some of my concerns about sustainability.
I came here expecting total redneck Alberta and was happy to be wrong. There are lots of monster trucks on the roads and it is definitely a blue-collar sort of town. But it is also much more than that. From what little I`ve learned Grande Prairie is way ahead of the rest of Alberta in its efforts to become environmentally sustainable. I`m still trying to figure out how that happened, because the political support for environmentally responsible behaviour like recycling, water conservation and environmental protection seems almost non-existent. Yet, there are are recycling depots all over the place, with a major centre (ECO Centre, neat name) for all the oddball stuff like paint, batteries, electronics, garden waste and so on. I was nearly blown out of my shoes when I found the place and realized how much different stuff they take and redirect.
The municipality isn`t in charge of recyling, or water or sewer like it is back home. Here there is a company called Aquatera that handles what I used to consider were city utilities. Apparently the company is owned by the city and county of Grande Prairie. I don`t quite understand how all this works but I`d like to find out.
More later.
Jigger
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Oops, I should have waited for this one to welcome you! hehe
ReplyDeleteI think that was a fairly accurate appraisal of the area. I grew up on a small farm out by Claimont, but I have lived and worked in several other places before returning here about 4 years ago.
Personally, I think the biggest reason for the environmental effort here was the pre-boom growth period in the mid-90's. It was a slower growth which seemed to have attracted middle class folks from areas where ecological awareness was starting to become popular. So they brought their awareness with them. Couple that with the small yuppie population that GP already had and you have that environmental push (and the solid and fairly well off but also fairly small cultural community). I actually moved back here to work for GPLT so I have some knowledge of that community.
Anyway, I'd love to get together and chat if you'd like.
email is litetechca(at)gmail(dot)com