making an archive

Five significant Edmonton materials. Hm.

Let's start with a banal but necessary choice: a copy of The Edmonton Journal, because I think that an important part of representation is self-representation. I mostly read the BBC now, but my family still hasn't cancelled our subscription to the Journal, because where else are you going to read about Heritage Days and the proposed LRT expansion, and scan the food section every week for articles about restaurants that pique your interest?

This t-shirt I have, which says "future U of A graduate" on the back. I got it in third grade, for winning some U of A-sponsored writing competition. I remember shaking Lois Hole's hand in front of an auditorium. The shirt was a million sizes to big when I was eight; it fits perfectly now, and has this weird significance for me. I picked it because it was my first exposure to the University of Alberta, whose significance to defining the city we've talked about in class, and because it has an intense personal memory attached to it -- this is my history is part first-person contribution.

Something literary, to capture the poetic dimension of Edmonton. I can't decide what, because each of the texts we've read in class maps out Edmonton in a different way, and I can't decide which stories to privilege, both literally and metaphorically. (I'm sorry; what a cop-out.)

A picture of the Edmonton skyline. You know the one -- framed just so by the river, showing off our city to its advantage. And here's the twist: flip the picture over, and on the other side is the same shot taken from a different angle, so that it cuts down a different artery and you see industrial-looking greys and browns, low buildings instead of skyscrapers, dirt instead of money.

Lastly, car keys: because no matter how much money we pour into the LRT, six months of winter make Edmonton a driving city. I think that Solnit is right, that there's a fundamental kind of experiencing-the-city that you can only get by walking its streets. But I'm also keeping in mind how different ways of navigating the city expose different narratives (walking, driving, LRT, bus; several of you have made great blog posts about it, which I can't seem to find right now), and how it's become apparent that all of us know a part of the city and very few of us know the whole. If you define your city limits by how long you can walk for, you're going to end up like that student who had all of Paris at her disposal but only moved in a tiny triangle of it. You're never going to get out of Glengarry, so to speak. This is another reminder to myself, I guess: get your license; get out there; get to know Edmonton. And I guess that's an apt place to end.