Edmonton: Old Strathcona and Whyte Avenue

It was Saturday in Edmondton and the street was quiet when I woke at 7 a.m. I tried to find a Starbucks which was easy enough, but the first was a drive thru only, then I tried to look find another. Google shows you images of the outside, inside and food. All the photos were the same, showing a mall image. I wanted to sit and do some Writing. Starbucks has been expanding into Target, Grocery stores, and shopping centers. They don’t tell you that. Often there is a starbucks outside of a Target or grocery store. I eventually used ChatGpt, to do the search with a description of what I was looking for.

Old Strathcona Farmers' Market

I drove to the Old Strathcona Farmers' Market on Saturday, arriving around noon. The market is in Old Strathcona, just off Whyte Avenue, and parking in the area was predictably difficult. I drove around for a while before finding the main parking lot about a block from the market. It was completely full, but just as I pulled in someone was backing out of a space. Even better, there was plenty of room for the van. I scanned the QR code, paid for four hours of parking and walked over to the market. It closed at 3:00, which gave me about three hours to wander around.

The Old Strathcona Farmers' Market is a large indoor market packed with rows of vendors selling just about everything you would expect at a farmers' market, along with quite a few things you wouldn't. There were tables overflowing with fresh vegetables and fruit, locally made cheeses and spreads, jellies, preserves and canned vegetables. Other booths sold candles, chocolates and baked goods. One vendor had fresh mushrooms that had been picked in the forest. There was also food from around the world, including Chinese, Thai and Ukrainian dishes. I wasn't particularly interested in buying anything, but it was a wonderful place to walk around with a camera.

One booth selling Fusion Donuts immediately caught my attention. The doughnuts looked amazing—or at least the evidence of them did. They were already sold out. I talked with the guy at the booth and he told me they had sold everything in less than two hours. My immediate thought was, if you know you're going to sell out in two hours, why don't you bring more doughnuts? On the other hand, I was somewhat relieved. Had there been one sitting there in front of me, I probably would have been forced to eat it. With nothing left to buy, the decision had conveniently been made for me. He wouldn’t sell the display donuts.

There were dozens of other booths that kept slowing me down. Several people were selling their own chocolates. There were homemade cheeses, sauces and spreads, jars of vegetables and preserves, and all kinds of specialty foods. I particularly liked seeing the fresh forest-picked mushrooms. This wasn't simply a place to buy groceries. Much of what was being sold had been grown, cooked, collected, baked or made by the person standing behind the table, which made walking through the aisles much more interesting.

I eventually stopped at the booth of a photographer and we talked for a bit. She told me she had been traveling around the world and photographing for about thirty years. Her booth contained stacks and stacks of prints, ranging from roughly C$25 to more than C$1,000. There were so many photographs that she had them organized into categories—continents, flowers, animals, landscapes and others—so people could work their way through them. Naturally, I wanted to take a photograph of the photographer surrounded by all of her photographs. She didn't want me to photograph her or her work. Fair enough. We talked photography instead.

After spending a good part of the afternoon walking through the market and taking pictures, I went to the coffee shop in the market for coffee and a chocolate croissant. I sat for a while and watched Old Strathcona go by. People walked past, bicycles came and went, protesters held signs across the stree, someone was singing on the street, and others seemed content to simply sit outside and enjoy a Saturday afternoon. After the crowded aisles of the market, I was happy to do the same.

I stopped to read about the old fire hall and it’s transformation over the years.

Falun Dafa

Next door to the market, beside the old fire hall, I came across a group of Chinese men and women slowly moving through a series of exercises. I assumed they were practicing Tai Chi, but one of the men explained that it was Falun Dafa, a spiritual practice combining meditation and slow exercises with the principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. Some positions are held for several minutes—sometimes as long as seven—which made the gentle-looking exercises seem considerably more difficult.

He also explained that Falun Dafa was banned in China in 1999 after the movement grew to millions of practitioners and demonstrated an ability to organize independently of the government. I had stopped to photograph what I thought was Tai Chi and instead got an unexpected lesson in Chinese history and politics on a Saturday afternoon in Edmonton.

Art and Wellness on the Street

Continuing down the street, I came across a collection of tents offering everything from aura readings and sound-bath meditation to somatic energy healing. Mixed in among them was the tent of Deanna Miller, an Edmonton artist and art teacher. Her tent was filled with large, colorful paintings, and I stopped to talk with her for a while. She told me that she teaches art and also runs painting parties and workshops.

Beside her tent, Deanna had set up a large canvas where anyone passing by could stop, pick up a brush and add something of their own. While I was there, several boys were enthusiastically painting and talking among themselves about which brushes to use and the different marks they could make. I liked the idea. Rather than simply asking people to look at her art, Deanna was giving them a chance to become part of it. I had stopped to take a few photographs and ended up spending quite a while talking with an artist and watching a group of kids discover what they could do with a paintbrush.

Wandering Whyte Avenue

After leaving the market area, I continued walking along Whyte Avenue through Old Strathcona. The neighborhood has retained a lot of its older character, with brick storefronts and historic buildings mixed in with cafés, restaurants, small shops and public art. I passed a café where a DJ had set up just inside the open front window, with speakers facing the sidewalk. I stopped and listened for a while before continuing down the street.

Across the avenue was the old Princess Theatre, surrounded by some equally interesting old brick buildings. The Princess opened in 1915 and is one of the surviving reminders of the period when Strathcona had developed its own commercial center south of the North Saskatchewan River. The theatre is currently closed, but its old marquee and façade still dominate that section of Whyte Avenue.

Not far away I noticed a man wearing a kilt and a green T-shirt that said, “HERE FOR THE SHENANIGANS.” “Me too,” I said as I walked toward him. He laughed, and we ended up standing there talking for quite a while. He was retired and told me that his wife had died a couple of years ago. He loved living in the neighborhood and also loved to travel. We happened to be standing in front of a travel shop, which gave us plenty to talk about. I told him where I was from and about my travels through Canada and Alaska. He was saddened by the current discourse between Canada and the United States. At one point he said simply, “Life is about attitude.” I liked that. He was interesting to talk with, and another example of how easily a completely unplanned conversation can become part of a day when I'm walking around with nowhere in particular I have to be.

There was plenty to photograph as I continued along Whyte Avenue. One wall was covered by a huge Old Strathcona mosaic made up of hundreds of individually painted squares, while a nearby utility box had been transformed into a brightly colored mural centered on the word LOVE. Then I passed the Dominion Hotel building, dating from 1903, where a window announced ice cream four times in four different colors. Somehow I managed to photograph the sign and keep walking. Given the doughnuts I had already been spared at the market, I was having a remarkably disciplined afternoon.

I eventually made my way over to the High Level Bridge Streetcar, which had been on my Edmonton itinerary. The historic streetcar runs from Old Strathcona toward downtown, crossing high above the North Saskatchewan River. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only person with that idea. When I arrived, the streetcar was sitting at the platform and a long line of people stretched alongside the tracks waiting to board. Tickets are first come, first served, and looking at the line, I decided that riding it would have to wait for another visit. I took a few photographs instead and continued walking.

Peace, Pink Cadillacs and Back Alleys

As I wandered away from Whyte Avenue and into some of the alleys, I started noticing the word peace. One mural had “Walk in Peace” painted across a doorway. Earlier I had photographed a brightly painted utility box with messages about love and peace. Later I began noticing PEACE OFFICER on patrol vehicles and on the backs of officers' protective vests. For a while I wondered if all of this was somehow connected to Peace River and Peace Country, which I had recently driven through. It wasn't. Peace Officer comes from the old British legal concept of maintaining the King's peace, while the name Peace River has a completely different history connected to the Indigenous peoples of the region. Two different meanings of the same word had managed to get my attention in the same afternoon.

The alleys themselves were worth exploring. Murals covered otherwise ordinary brick walls, including old advertisements for the Arctic Ice Company and New Edmonton Breweries. Then I came across a huge old pink Cadillac parked against another colorful mural. I couldn't see a pink Cadillac without Bruce Springsteen's song immediately starting to play in my head, so naturally I stopped for a photograph. Between the murals, old brick, tangled utility wires and the Cadillac, the back alleys turned out to be almost as interesting to photograph as Whyte Avenue itself.

A Pub on Pedals

As I was standing on a corner, a large yellow Pedal Pub rolled past and turned onto Whyte Avenue. Now that was a first. About thirty minutes later I ran into it again and stopped to talk with Conrad, the driver. I asked where the strange contraption had been made. He wasn't sure, but we noticed Het Fietscafé stamped into the metal supports. They wondered what language it was. I recognized it as Dutch and they thought fiets meant bicycle, so Het Fietscafé was essentially “The Bicycle Café.” My business partner when I lived in Europe was Dutch, so the language was somewhat familiar. The passengers pedal to help power the vehicle, with an electric motor providing assistance and the batteries hidden inside the barrel at the front.

Conrad was very friendly, and our conversation somehow moved from the Pedal Pub to photography. He pulled out his phone and showed me bird photographs taken by his uncle, who lives in Nova Scotia. They were absolutely stunning. Before leaving, I took a photograph of Conrad and his coworker with their unusual Dutch pub on wheels.

A Taste of Georgia

I continued walking and taking photographs of the markets and street activity around Old Strathcona. Fortunately, I didn't have to return to the van when my parking time was running out. I was able to extend the parking payment from my phone and keep wandering. It was after five, I was ready to eat and found a Georgian restaurant nearby. Georgian food was something completely new to me, so I decided to give it a try.

I ordered khinkali, traditional Georgian dumplings filled with meat and broth. They are eaten with your hands by grabbing the twisted stem at the top, taking a small bite and carefully drinking the hot broth before eating the rest of the dumpling. The thick stem is normally left on the plate rather than eaten. I also ordered a Georgian lemonade flavored with tarragon, which was unlike any lemonade I had tasted before—sweet, herbal and slightly licorice-like. Between eating dumplings with my hands and drinking tarragon lemonade, it was a fittingly different way to finish an afternoon in Old Strathcona.

Edmonton After Dark

I made it back to the van around 7:30 p.m. and relaxed for a little while. I knew it would be getting dark around 8:30, so I grabbed my camera and walked over to Queen Elizabeth Park for a view across the North Saskatchewan River toward downtown Edmonton. I wasn't alone. People from the surrounding neighborhoods were out walking and riding bicycles, and several others had come with cameras. I found a spot with a good view and settled in.

I stayed for almost two hours, which gave me a chance to watch the city change with the light. The sky behind the Alberta Legislature turned orange and red before gradually fading into blue, while lights began appearing in the buildings across the river. The Walterdale Bridge became more prominent as darkness settled in, and longer exposures turned the cars crossing it into streams of red light. I kept changing compositions as the light changed, sometimes concentrating on the Legislature, sometimes the bridge and sometimes the entire skyline.

By the time I packed up and walked back to the van, most of the people were gone and the streets had begun to clear. After a day filled with markets, music, conversations, murals, strange pedal-powered pubs and Georgian dumplings, it was a quiet, peaceful walk back to the van—no pun intended.

I headed back to the street parking by Tony’s.