Gondola proposal raises many questions
The estimated $155 million proposed gondola would represent the single most expensive private commercial project ever built in the River Valley and raises many questions. From a transportation perspective, is the gondola a duplication of existing cross valley means of transport such as bus, LRT, cars, bicycles, streetcar, and the beautiful new pedestrian walkways.
Other concerns not yet addressed include noise, privacy, aesthetics, impact to Queen Elizabeth park and ᐄᓃᐤ (ÎNÎW) River Lot 11∞ Edmonton's Indigenous Art Park, as well as slope and bank stability. Council needs more information before it can make a fully informed decision on the many questions raised by the gondola project. This information can best be developed in an open and transparent impact assessment process.
Council’s stated goal of protecting our river valley as a legacy for future generations of Edmontonians can be ensured by requiring the proponent to carry out an independent impact assessment, with terms and process dictated by the City but paid for by the proponent.
As with any wise decision making on this scale, this process should be a precursor to any decisions including leases of public lands. We recommend City Council table the approval of all City land dispositions related to the gondola until the completion and approval by Council of an impact assessment process to address all the unanswered questions about this project.
Read comments by Chad Huculak, Edmonton Sun, at https://edmontonsun.com/opinion/columnists/huculak-in-a-city-rife-with-dumb-ideas-the-proposed-edmonton-gondola-is-the-dumbest-of-them-all
and Nisha Patel, former Edmonton Poet Laureate, at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1K71UHqYKxJKYGfGc17sFD44L7RvMKjfWLnGiqLtnCH0/edit
Big Island, wahkohtowin and maskêkosihk
At 68 hectares, Big Island is not big and is no longer a true island due to natural processes, but it supports the river valley’s role as a provincially significant wildlife corridor, playing a key role in sustaining ecological connectivity through the Capital Region and holding cultural significance for Indigenous peoples who have lived in amiskwaciywâskahikan, the Cree word for Edmonton, for millennia
Since time immemorial, the River Cree and Western Cree peoples, living in small bands, enjoyed wahkohtowin or kinship with all aspects of nature including trees, plants, fish, birds, abundant game, migrating flocks and herds while trading along the North Saskatchewan River. The land was respected and cared for and in turn it gave abundant provisions to humankind. Plants provided plentiful remedies, some say more than 200 medicines were gathered and used. Land meant, and still means, animate and inanimate family members, culture, identity, and self. The land, spirituality and natural law were intertwined and still are.
The arrival of settlers in the 1880s led to the depletion of traditional food sources, the introduction of diseases, and the creation of reserve lands, which at one time stretched all the way to the North Saskatchewan River adjacent to Big Island. Those lands are known as maskêkosihk, the Land of Medicines, or Enoch Cree Nation, and the living descendants of the original people are known as the maskêkosak, people of the Land of Medicines. The maskêkosak have an intimate connection with the land and their traditional lands once encompassed Big Island.
More about the Big Island Provincial Park proposal, including video, establishment proposal and online survey open until August 21 at https://www.alberta.ca/big-island-provincial-park-engagement.aspx
Louise Umphreville: Edmonton’s forgotten First Lady
Louise was a single mother, when she met John Rowand, an up-and-coming young fur trader in the North-West Company. At the peak of his career, Rowand became Chief Factor at Fort Edmonton and in charge of the vast Saskatchewan District of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
Little is known about this Métis matriarch, but Louise Umphreville brought a herd of valuable horses to her “country marriage” with John Rowand, fluency in Cree, and a wealth of contacts and relations among the peoples of the plains who would be Rowand’s trading partners, allies, and suppliers.
Louise exerted authority in the community. Through her personal wealth, her extended family, and her alliance with Rowand, she became one of the most powerful women in the North-West.
Visiting Alexander Ross praised Edmonton’s propriety and credited not just its male leader. “I had seen very few places in the country where domestic arrangements, either within doors or without, were conducted with so much propriety as at this place. […] The moral and pleasing effect was such as might be expected, and reflects great credit on Mr. Rowand and his family.”
Louise died in 1849 and is recognized in the Traditional Aboriginal Burial ground in Rossdale. This memorial lies below the final site of Fort Edmonton. Louise’s name is engraved on a plaque here, along with the date of her death. Learn more at https://citymuseumedmonton.ca/2021/08/10/louise-umphreville-edmontons-forgotten-first-lady/
Photo by Sherry Heschuck, who found this Giant floater mussel on the bank of Whitemud Creek near its entrance into the North Saskatchewan River. The presence of mussels in a water body usually indicates good water quality.
Comment or contribution
Please note that articles may not reflect the position of NSRVCS. River Valley News is meant to be a clearinghouse for the wide variety of opinions and ideas about Edmonton’s River Valley. Email river valley photos, event information, comments, or questions to nsrivervalley@gmail.com
Sincerely yours,
Harvey Voogd
North Saskatchewan River Valley Conservation Society
780.691.1712
