Reflections from our trip to Alberta

Having discovered that, as WestJet Rewards members, we get free Wi-Fi on our flight, I was able to finish and publish this post while in the air. How novel.

I don’t recall a previous season of life where our travel itineraries were plagued with as many challenges as this summer’s trips.

As I wrote about in this post, our June trip to Montreal was impacted by our cat’s illness. First, there was the delay in our leaving. And then there was the worry and communications with our vet and cat sitters while we were gone.

It was a relief to get home and especially to see that Pippin was getting better. And to of course get back to the gardens and life on our property and all the wonderful summer happenings in our little corner of the world.

We had three weeks at home before our next trip. This time we were flying to Alberta for our nephew’s wedding. Friday July 24th, the day before our flight from Halifax to Edmonton, on the afternoon we were finishing up work and packing for our trip, the power was out for six hours.

A truck had made a delivery of gravel to our neighbour’s house and the driver forgot to lower the dump bed before driving out. The raised bed caught the communication lines that hang over our driveways, which pulled the power pole on our neighbour’s property, where the lines were attached. The top of the power pole broke (turns out it was rotten, or something like that) and the power line was snapped.

We watched the repair from our front windows. Damien hooked up the generator to keep the fridge, freezer, and well pump running. And we packed up in the quiet of no internet and no cell service.

The linemen had everything up and running again by bedtime. Thankfully, our departure the next morning was uneventful.

But the power outage was an insignificant hiccup compared to the WestJet cabin crew strike that grounded our airline, keeping us in Alberta for days beyond our planned departure.

The wedding was Friday, July 31st. (I’ll return to that part of our trip a little later.)

Our original itinerary was an early morning flight back home on Sunday, August 2nd. The morning of the wedding, in anticipation of the possible labour disruption, we rescheduled our flight for Saturday night, the earliest possible departure we could get to our location.

This Hail Mary attempt to get out of dodge before the strike deadline of midnight Sunday, August 2nd failed as the airline started grounding flights on Saturday, August 1st, preemptive of the strike.

By midday Sunday, WestJet had rescheduled us (in expectation the strike would resolve by then) for Wednesday afternoon August 5th, a whole 3 days later than our initial departure time.

No flights on other carriers were available for us to fly out earlier. So there was nothing for it but to wait.

We were in one of the best case scenarios to manage this disruption. Damien took (paid) time off and I had everything I needed (my computer and an internet connection) to work as I do at home.

Our accommodations with Mom were very comfortable. And she was happy to have us for longer. There was no extra cost for us to stay longer, as there were for other travellers stranded by the labour dispute.

We’ve took advantage of the extra days for some more family visits and assisting Mom with some things.

Back at home, our cat and house sitter left on Sunday morning but my mom has been feeding Pippin and watering the plants in our absence. Our nephew helps out as needed and my brother is coming to pick us up at the Halifax airport tonight.

My heart and mind had been turning homeward late last week as the original departure date drew near and so I was disappointed with the delay but I can’t really complain. We had it good.

Even so, I have been anxious to get home because it’s starting to feel like summer is slipping through my grasp. And I don’t want to miss any more of it.

I was ok putting the patterns of my life on hold for a week to come visit and celebrate the wedding but I’ve been missing my usual summer routines and experiences: building my meals from farm and garden fresh produce and all the wonderful local foods I have access to in Nova Scotia; lake swimming on hot days; beach walking; multiple times per week live music opportunities in parks, pubs, restaurants, and theatres; library pickups; berry picking and filling the freezer with summer fruits; ATVing in the back woods; and most notably, tending to and delighting in my garden.

I’ve been missing all that.

I have such a good life in a region, community, and home I love. And I’m eager to return to it.

How I feel can be related to the activities we’re doing or the people we’re visiting (if it’s a visiting kind of trip).

But my feelings in a place are largely a response to landscape, the human built environment, culture, and other things that are hard to put a finger on.

Some places resonate deeply in me. For example, I’ve been places that stir up longing and even grief in me because I so badly want to stay there (short or long term).

I don’t get those feelings in central Alberta.

My soul does not respond the way I have experienced in other places. Having been to those places of resonance and longing I can’t help but compare, especially when I’m here for a duration of days, and not just driving through.

I do think that resonance, and a sense of connection to a place can be nurtured. We can grow to love things through familiarity. But what I’m talking about is a feeling of synergy or affinity that is independent of familiarity. Like a kindred spirit connection.

A feeling of dissonance, alienation, or even indifference to a place is not an objective judgement of the place itself. These experiences are subjective.

My lack of overall resonance to this area leads me to ask the questions: In what circumstances do I feel alive in this region? When do I feel curious and most in touch with my senses? Where are the glimmers of affinity and attunement? Alternately, when do I feel disconnected and numb?

My senses are dulled when driving through, by, or around the ever-expanding subdivisions that ring the city of Edmonton - housing and retail developments on their inexorable quest to swallow rolling fields and farmlands.

The numbness I feel in suburban and exurban zones is true for any city I visit, travel through or around. This is not an Edmonton-only phenomenon. I have the same feeling when I drive through the residential and industrial hinterlands of Montreal to get into the city core for example.

I feel more myself and more in touch with my senses once I have passed through those environs.

(I wonder if this is because I don’t like transitions in general.)

Thankfully, my mother in law lives in a small town southwest of Edmonton. It doesn’t feel like a transition zone. It feels like it’s own place.

The North Saskatchewan River, winding through Alberta’s aspen parkland before joining the Saskatchewan River system and ultimately draining into the Hudson Bay via Lake Winnipeg, borders the north and east edges of Mom’s town.

Her condo, though newer, is in an older area on one of the original founding streets. Walk a block or two, and you’re beneath towering native poplars and spruce. At the end of her street, which T’s at the highway, are open and undeveloped fields.

In this context, in this particular physical environment, I feel more myself - a stirring of curiosity and appreciation for the history, landscape, and culture of the place.

I have been asking myself what is the soul and essence of central Alberta? (I have thoughts about the soul and essence of where I live in Nova Scotia, I’ll save those for another time.)

Some ideas that come to mind for this area are: progress, exploration and expansion (historical and contemporary), growth, oil and gas economy, wind, sky, frontier energy and history, agriculture at scale. And of course the Indigenous land relations and history that is outside my own lived experience and knowing.

There’s more to it than what I’ve listed above but all places have their uniquely distinctive traits, tangible and intangible, that constitute the essence of a locale. And it’s possible I experience a type of alienation (or exclusion), as a settler descendant, from some of the core aspects of central Alberta’s defining characteristics. I don’t know.

I pay special attention to, and note the moments that I do feel alive, curious, and attuned to this place.

Here are a few.

Red sunsets and red moons rising in smoky air. Thunderstorms racing across the prairie with electrifying (in all the ways) lightning displays. (We had some doozies during our visit.)

A vista of far-as-the-eye-can-see blue sky with white puffy clouds. The midnight, dew-laden air redolent with ripening canola as we drove back to Mom’s house from the rurally located wedding venue.

Outside of elements of the landscape, I also feel attuned to the people I love here. But unlike Indigenous inhabitants across this continent, the connection I feel to my familial relations is rooted mostly is shared history, lineage, and marriage, and not so much the land itself. (Except for my mom’s childhood farm which is now my aunt Linda’s farm.)

Maybe the lack of resonance can be explained simply as this is not the place I have chosen to make my home and therefore I feel a certain disconnection from it. However, as I’ve mentioned above I have experienced strong kinship, curiosity, and affinity to other places that are not my home.

Before I wrap this up and hit publish I must say a little something more about the reason for our visit - our nephew’s wedding and all the family time we’ve had in coming here for that special event.

Firstly, I haven’t been to many weddings, outside our siblings’ nuptials. A handful of cousins, if that. Even less friends.

In the days of our youth, we moved far away before our friends-at-the-time-of-our-wedding got married. By the time they were marrying we were literally knee deep in babies and toddlers on the other side of the continent, physically and relationally distanced from our youthful peers.

Weddings are a rare treat in my life and this wedding was especially beautiful at a destination venue in the Alberta countryside. It was gorgeous.

The food and drink were plentiful and tasty. The decorations were classy and luxurious. It was a veritable feast for the senses.

The invitation said to dress formal and we understood the assignment. We don’t get many opportunities like this and participating in the day felt special.

The ritualistic element of weddings is fascinating to me, the script and choreography of it all. I feel like an ethnographer at these kind of things. Both participating in the performance and observing and reflecting on it.

It was a lovely day and I’m so happy we could attend and be witness to this new union, and welcome a new Tougas to the family.

Other than the wedding itself, we visited with/saw family every day of our (extended) stay.

Some of the highlights were spending lots of chill time with my mother in law; celebrating her 80th birthday with all the siblings and available nieces and nephews; supper out with just the siblings; a visit with one of Damien’s oldest friends (the best man at our wedding); a morning visit with my dad’s sister (my auntie Carmen); an outdoor supper with all my mom’s siblings in Wetaskiwin; eating Alberta elk, harvested by my brother-in-law last fall; joining my sister in law for a line dance class; and just the casual, frequent comings and goings of impromptu family gatherings.

I am filled up with the memories of this trip. I am happy to be almost home.