My Alberta: Whyte Avenue on an August Night

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Welcome to My Alberta.

Tonight I'm on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton.

The Fringe Festival is on. Traffic moving down the avenue. People walking between restaurants, theatres and shops. Music, conversations and laughter. The old trees lit up over the street.

Edmonton feels alive tonight.

I spend a lot of time writing about the things I see that trouble me. Homelessness. Addiction. Poverty. The rising cost of simply trying to live. People who seem to have been forgotten while the rest of the city keeps moving around them.

Those things are part of My Alberta.

But they aren't all of it.

This is part of it too.

People coming together. Art. Theatre. Food. Music. Small businesses with their doors open. Strangers sharing the same sidewalks on a warm August night.

A city isn't just its buildings, roads or skyline.

It's people.

It's community.

And maybe part of caring enough to point out what's wrong is also remembering to stop sometimes and notice what's beautiful.

Tonight, Whyte Avenue is beautiful.

Welcome to Edmonton.

Welcome to My Alberta.

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