Edmonton Introduction

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta, situated in the north central region of the province, an area with some of the most fertile farm land on the prairies. It is the second largest city in Alberta (after Calgary) and is the hub of the country's sixth largest Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) with a population of 1,016,000 (2005 est.). A resident of Edmonton is known as an Edmontonian.

At 684 km2, Edmonton is also one of the largest cities by area in North America — larger in area than Chicago, Illinois, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Detroit, Michigan. However, Edmonton also has the one of the lowest population densities in North America — about 67 times less than New York.

Edmonton serves as the northern anchor of the "Calgary-Edmonton Corridor" (one of four such regions that, in total, comprise 50% of the Canadian population) and is a staging point for large-scale oilsands projects occurring in the north of the province as well as large-scale diamond mining operations in the Northwest Territories.

Edmonton is Canada's second most populous provincial capital (after Toronto) and is known as a well-rounded cultural, government, and educational centre. It plays host to a year round slate of world-class festivals, earning it the title of Festival City[1]. Among these is included Edmonton's Capital Ex (formerly the Klondike Days Exposition), The Fringe, North America's first and largest fringe event, Edmonton International Street Performer's Festival, Edmonton Folk Music Festival, Cariwest, Canadian Finals Rodeo and many more. It has also hosted many international events, including the 2001 IAAF World Track and Field Championships, the West Edmonton Mall Grand Prix, and the 2005 World Masters Games. It is home to North America's largest mall, West Edmonton Mall, Canada's largest historical park, Fort Edmonton Park, and North America's largest collection of authentic eighteenth century ships-of-the-line. In 2004, Edmonton celebrated the centennial of its incorporation as a city in 1904.

While traditionally focused on the oil industry, earning the name "Oil Capital of Canada" in the 1940s, Edmonton's economy has worked towards becoming the second most diverse in Canada[2] and now boasts a strong technology sector with major employers such as Telus, Dell, Intuit, Matrikon, BioWare, and General Electric all contributing to a 6.2% GDP growth, the largest in Canada.[3] Edmonton is home of Canadian Western Bank, one of the few chartered bank headquarters west of Toronto.

Edmonton Weather

Edmonton has a northern continental climate with extreme seasonal temperatures, although they are not quite as extreme as in Regina or Winnipeg. The city has better air drainage than most parts of the Prairie Provinces, and weather stations in the area record frost-free periods of 100–140 days. However, Edmonton still has one of the greatest temperature ranges in Canada. The average temperature ranges from -16 °C (3 °F) in January to 23 °C (73 °F) in July, although over the course of a year, temperatures as high as 35 °C (95 °F) and as low as -43 °C (-45 °F) may occur.

According to the Köppen climate classification, Edmonton has a continental climate with mild/warm summers and cold winters (Köppen climate class Dfb). Edmonton's year-round climate is actually fairly dry on average. However, cooler summer temperatures compared to those further south makes for a lower evaporation rate, allowing for large-scale farming with less risk of a severe drought. The low evaporation rate is also the reason Edmonton sits in an aspen parkland biome rather than a prairie biome. Summer typically lasts from late May into the early parts of September, while winter is in force from November through March. However, winters vary greatly in length and severity.

Edmonton has somewhat dry winters. On average, Edmonton's snowfall is 123.5 cm (48.6 in) per annum, which is much less than many other North American cities. [5] In the wettest month, July, the mean precipitation is 92 mm (3.6 in). [6] However, extremes can occur such as the 114 mm of rainfall that fell on July 31, 1953. Edmonton receives an average of 477 mm (18.8 in) of precipitation annually, but can vary from year to year, especially during droughts. Summer thunderstorms can be frequent and sometimes severe enough to produce large hail, damaging winds, funnel clouds and even tornadoes. However, tornadoes near Edmonton are far weaker and short-lived compared to their counterparts farther south. Tornadoes nearly as powerful as the F4 tornado which struck Edmonton on July 31, 1987, are very rare.

Edmonton Attractions

Alberta Legislative Building Alberta Railway Museum City Centre Airport Commonwealth Stadium Edmonton City Hall TELUS World of Science, Edmonton (formerly, the Odyssium) Fort Edmonton Historical Park Muttart Conservatory Northern Alberta Institute of Technology Northlands Park Rexall Place Royal Alberta Museum University of Alberta West Edmonton Mall Art Gallery of Alberta formerly known as Edmonton Art Gallery Edmonton Corn Maze

Edmonton History

Exploration and settlement

The first inhabitants gathered in the area which is now Edmonton around 3000 BC and perhaps as early as 10,000 BC, when an ice-free corridor was opening up as the great ice sheets covering much of Canada melted. They took advantage of the timber, water and wildlife in the region and thus made their presence in the area for thousands of years.

In 1754, Anthony Henday, an explorer working for the Hudson's Bay Company, was probably the first European to enter the Edmonton area. His expeditions across the Canadian Prairies were mainly to seek new contact with the local aboriginals for the purpose of establishing fur trade, as competition was fierce between the Hudson's Bay Company and its rivals.

European traders from the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company set up trading posts in the area of present-day Fort Saskatchewan beginning in 1795. The trading posts later moved upstream to the present-day site of downtown Edmonton. The North West Company set up a trading post called Fort Augustus, but at the same time, the Hudson's Bay Company set up a fort of its own. The Hudson's Bay Company named its fort after the town of Edmonton in the UK (now a suburb in north London), the hometown of Sir James Winter Lake, then director of the Company.

John Rowand, a fur trader for the North West Company, arrived in Edmonton in 1804 and was vital to the fort's importance, for he established it as the main distribution centre for the entire northwest. Rowand became respected and accepted as a leader by the Plains Indians, managing Edmonton's fur trade with the Cree and Blackfoot in Edmonton for about 30 years. Fort Edmonton and the surrounding area was known to the local Cree as Amiskwaciy waskahigan (the "c" in Amiskwaciy is pronounced similar to a "ch"), meaning "Beaver Hills House". As Rowand had intended, Fort Edmonton became a major economic centre for Rupert's Land, as the lands comprising the present-day Prairie Provinces, northern Ontario and northern Canada were known at the time. Fort Edmonton was the major stopping point before pioneers headed up north or farther west. The two companies merged in 1821, and the name of Fort Edmonton was retained. In 1830 the last fort was built on the present site of the Alberta Legislature.

The Hudson's Bay Company relinquished its ownership and jurisdiction of Rupert's Land to the Dominion of Canada in 1871. Rupert's Land was then renamed the North West Territories by the federal government. People began settling in the vicinity of Fort Edmonton in the 1870s after the government offered the land to settlers at a good price.

The arrival of the railway and early growth

The Calgary and Edmonton Railway reached the area in 1891 with a terminal in Strathcona on the south side of the North Saskatchewan River. Edmonton officially became a town in 1892 with a population of 700. The city boomed during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 as thousands of eager prospectors heading north via the "All Canadian Route," stopping in Edmonton for supplies. The town of Strathcona grew faster than Edmonton until 1905 when the Canadian Northern Railway opened its transcontinental line through Edmonton.

By 1904, Edmonton had 9,000 residents and was incorporated as a city that same year. Alberta became a province in 1905, and the city was officially declared the provincial capital in 1906 after having won out over contenders including Calgary, Red Deer and even Banff due to having the highest number of government representatives. Initially the Alberta Legislature met in the Mackay Avenue School, while the Legislature Building was being erected on the north shore of the North Saskatchewan River. By 1907, the University of Alberta was established across the river in Strathcona, which also became a city that year. The city of Edmonton originally occupied only the north side of the North Saskatchewan River, as Strathcona encompassed the entire south side.

In 1912 Edmonton amalgamated with Strathcona, whose downtown core is now part of the trendy Old Strathcona historical district. As a result, Edmonton attained a population of 53,000. The amalgamation ended years of intense rivalry between these two communities. The High Level Rail Bridge (including a traffic deck) across the river was completed in 1913, linking the north and south sides of Edmonton. A real estate boom was already underway since the 1900s and spurred a massive population increase. The population quickly grew to around 75,000 but dropped back down to 50,000, as the real estate boom suddenly collapsed in 1913. The city was slow to recover economically during the 1920s, and like most cities in Canada, was hit by the Great Depression.

In the 1920s, Edmonton became an aviation shipping point for food and medical supplies using the new bush planes out of Blatchford Field (now Edmonton City Centre Airport). In 1942, the construction of the Alaska Highway made the city a major ground transportation and supply centre to the far north. Edmonton became the anchor of the Northwest Staging Route, carrying war materials and supplies to Alaska in order to head off a potential attack on Alaska by the Japanese. In 1943 Blatchford Field held the record as the busiest airfield in North America. As a result of these developments, Edmonton officially became known as the Gateway to the North.

The oil boom years

The first major oil discovery for Edmonton and the rest of the province was made on February 13, 1947 near the town of Leduc to the south. Although oil reserves were already known as early as 1914 to exist in the southern parts of Alberta, they produced very little oil compared to those around Edmonton. Additional oil reserves were also discovered during the late 1940s and the 1950s in the Edmonton area near the towns of Redwater and Pembina. Because most of Alberta's oil reserves were found to be concentrated in central and northern Alberta, the city became home to most of Alberta's oil production and refining.

The subsequent oil boom gave Edmonton new status as the Oil Capital of Canada. During the 1950s, the city's nearly doubled in population from 149,000 to 269,000. After a relatively calm but still prosperous period in the 1960s, the city's growth took on a renewed vigour with high world oil prices, triggered by the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The oil boom of the 1970s and 1980s ended abruptly with the introduction of the National Energy Program in 1981. The population had reached 521,000 that same year. Although the National Energy Program was later scrapped by the federal government in the mid-1980s, the collapse of world oil prices in 1986 and massive government cutbacks kept the city from fully recovering economically until the late 1990s. Unsurprisingly, the city did suffer from high unemployment rates until then.

Recent history

In 1981, the largest shopping mall in North America, West Edmonton Mall, opened. The mall is Alberta's most popular tourist attraction, and contains an indoor amusement park, a large indoor waterpark, and a luxury hotel in addition to its over 800 shops and services.

On July 31, 1987, a devastating tornado, ranked as an F4 on the Fujita scale, hit the city and killed 27 people. The day became known as "Black Friday". Mayor Laurence Decore cited the community's response to the tornado as evidence that Edmonton was a "city of champions", which later became the city's slogan.

The city entered it current period of economic recovery and prosperity by the late 1990s, helped by a strong recovery in oil prices and further economic diversification. While oil production and refining remains the basis of many jobs in Edmonton, the city's economy has managed to diversify economically, producing even more jobs. Edmonton arguably has the second most diversified economy among major Canadian cities after Montreal. The downtown core and parts of the inner city, after years of extremely high office vacancy rates and neglect, have recovered to a great degree. It is still undergoing a renaissance of its own, with further new projects underway or about to become reality, and more and more people choosing to live in or near the downtown core. With more recent growth, Edmonton's metropolitan population now sits just over 1,016,000 (2005 Statistics Canada est.), with the city proper at 712,391 (2005 civic census).