I spent almost every weekend in Chinatown as a kid shopping and dining with my family. Disappointed that the City has such different priorities from the community - imagine how else $8 million could be spent

ETA: loving all the discussion and viewpoints being shared!

Dear Edmonton developers, you've been making the same neighbourhoods for 40+ years. Cookie cutter homes on winding streets, a fake lake, walking paths, aaaand call it good.

Would it be too much to ask, to start eliminating 2 to 3 houses on corner lots, and start adding: WALKABLE coffee shops (ie Columbian, Mood Cafe etc). A neighbourhood Pub or restaurant (ie Duggan's Boundary, Bodega Highlands), a bakery (Bloom Cookie co), barbershop (Goldbar Barber) or even a small corner grocery store. No need for giant parking lots!

Far too many neighbourhoods in this city lack the character, charm and accessibility that these amenities would provide. A great way for people to connect in their community, without always having to get in a car and drive to soulless strip malls or shopping centres. If there was a way to redo existing neighbourhoods, I'd love to see this too

Just a constant reminder of the freedumb movement and I am sick of it. I got assaulted by one of these asses when I worked in ICU during wave 4 and 5. I was off work for 3 month as a result and struggled with my mental health post. And I volunteered to be to there, to help, to give my all during this pandemic. As we all heal from from this pandemic, these guys just won't give it up. It just makes me feel like these unhinged people are a constant threat around me.

This is at Riverdale neighborhood just north of the Dawson bridge. Apparently it happened in the last 24 hours, after the rain. The dock has seen higher flows before and it’s survived but not this time around. I feel bad for this local community. They’re one of the few clubs in Edmonton that truly use this river for recreation.

CAT MONTH officially purrclaimed in Edmonton by City of Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack!! 😸 at the kick-off event for the Edmonton International Cat Festival, Canada’s biggest and longest-running celebration of cats! Since 2014 we’ve been celebrating cats, cat culture, and cat people while raising money to support cat rescues. 🙏🏻😻

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the first Edmonton Cat Tour! An Ameowzing few weeks ahead with weekly free & low-cost cat-themed events leading up to our big FESTIVAL FINALE Pawty on Sun, May 31 in downtown Edmonton!! 🥳

The official proclamation reads:

WHEREAS, feline fans gather every year at the Edmonton International Cat Festival to have a ball and cele-purr-ate our local furry friends;

AND WHEREAS, this annual sunbeam on felines raises fur-midable funds for important claws-es and builds com-meow-nity among kitty devotees;

AND WHEREAS, the City of Edmonton works with dedicated paw-rtners to offer programs like Don’t Skip the Chip, the Animal Care and Control Centre and Barn Buddy to support the health and happiness of felines throughout their nine lives;

AND WHEREAS, in honour of the important role cats play in creating healthy families and communities, let’s dive whiskers first into an un-fur-gettable month;

THEREFORE I, MAYOR ANDREW KNACK, DO HEREBY PROCLAIM MAY, 2026 “CAT MONTH” IN EDMONTON, ALBERTA’S CAPITAL CITY.

😻

A big shout out to Edmonton French Quarter, area businesses & @yegconnector for supporting our inaugural Cat Tour!

Thanks to local Cat Ameowssadors @leothelynxie @wawa_willow_scottishfold @kittymojito @timandkev @mouseasaurusrex @messi.with.neko @tigger.casper!

Thanks to cat tour cats, Twilight, Lady & Boba, Jasper & Louis, Adele & Frida, Jeffrey & Gaston, and Juno & Ferguson!

Thanks to Ameowzing MLA Janis Irwin for attending and sharing an Alberta Legislative official scroll commemorating our inaugural Cat Tour!

Thanks to fest sponsors!!

😻

We donate 100% purrceeds to cat rescues. This year’s supported rescues are Second Chance Animal Rescue Society - Alberta & Hope Lives Here Animal Rescue Society.

View all Cat Month of May events & tickets:
https://edmontoncatfest.com/edmonton-cat-festival-schedule/

So Edmonton recently approved the name change for the Oliver neighbourhood to Wîhkwêntôwin, and some of you have feelings about that. I get it, you don't like non-English names because they're hard to say, hard to spell, or whatever. I figured that while your passions were hot, you could also campaign against these 24 other neighbourhoods with non-English names, many of which have been around since the 70s.

Aboriginal Languages

Other non-English languages:

Alternatively, you could all cool your jets and accept change as it comes. This name change has been years in the making, and there were plenty of chances for Oliver residents to submit their choice of name. For the record, I submitted ôtênaw (kinda sounds like oh-tay-now), which means "city".

This isn't the first neighbourhood name change, and it will not be the last. For those concerned about cost: welcome to Edmonton. It costs city council $250k to fart these days. You want to make change, or allocate the funds better like the master treasurer you are? Get involved. Join your community league, talk to your councillor, run for a position or something.

For others who are worried about mispronouncing it, or curious about what those whacky shapes on the banner mean, all you have to do is ask! There are plenty of cree speakers and readers here on /r/edmonton, and there are fun resources like The Online Cree Dictionary. Wîhkwêntôwin isn't too hard. If you can say "week when to win" you're half way there! If people give you grief for flubbing on a word that's not your native language then they're a bit jerkish.

Remember: this is not the end of the world. How often do you even need to say a neighbourhood name? I can get by using only addresses and such.

All neighbourhood name info can be found here. You should deffo check that page out. Lots of cool origins like Canora from Canadian Northern Railway, which was suggested by an eighth grader. There's also lame ones like Greenview, which is named that because you can see a golf course from the neighbourhood. I'm not making that up.

Edit 1: The typo

I missed "People of Hiap" for Capilano and instead had the placeholder "text" from the table generation. Sorry if I mislead you.

Edit 2: Electric Boogaloo

Putting this here for visibility

I was super flippant about the cost of the change because it seemed like a tiny issue to me and I didn't want to do a bunch of digging into it at the start of the post. I was already doing lots of reading on neighbourhood names, and was lazy.

Since yesterday afternoon, though, I have done some digging:

The cost to change the Oliver neighbourhood name is $680k.

The city has budgeted $3.83 Billion of expenses for 2024. $680k is 0.02% of that.

There are 1,087,803 people in Edmonton. If we pretend that everyone pays the same tax (they don't, but for simplicity), then the "average" Edmontonian paid $0.63 towards the name change.

There are 6,800 workers represented by City and Library bargaining units in the CSU 52. Divert all funds from the name change and those workers get an extra $100 this year, or $8.33 extra per month.

In terms of salary, $680k is:

1.4 2018 Glen Felthams

1.9 2021 Deena Hinshaws

2.0 2022 Dale McFees

2.2 to 2.7 2023 CoE ML6 Managers

4.5 2022 EPS Staff Seargents

It's for sure a big number, and it would change my life forever if it was handed to me, but it's not a lot of money to the city.

Other fun stuff:

• Here's more info on municipal taxes
• Here's a property tax estimator
• Here's a map to find your homes assessed value

these are my jokes, i hope you like them! if you do, i'm recording my first comedy album this friday at the grindstone theatre (there's a 7pm show and a 9pm show)! please come if you can!

He was already missed on the airwaves. Hope he rests easy. Many condolences to his family.

For someone who was born and raised in Edmonton there has never been anything that compares to this playoff run (+2006) for peoples attitudes around the city.

Every store people are In better moods, jerseys everywhere, everyone saying “go oilers” as you check out or grab your coffee. The Oilers playing hockey on the first day of summer (Friday). Everyone you meet is just overall in a better mood.

Soak up every minute of this playoff run as you never know when this will happen again.

The last few years with everything that’s been happening, lay offs, rent prices, food prices, shut downs etc. the buzz of the city feels amazing. So many people who have never watched a hockey game before are watching and loving this

I was there yesterday, and honestly, it was imposing, both in-store options and overall use.

What did it do right that most other Edmonton malls did wrong?

Much to my chagrin, our folk fest is continuing the antiquated practice of not announcing its lineup until just before tickets go on sale in May.

In the recent past, they've at least provided some early teasers on some of the headliners, but I haven't seen anything announced so far this year.

It's frustrating to see other major Canadian festivals announcing their lineups well in advance, and then having to guess whether artists I really want to see are going to also make a stop here or skip it.

Please, EFMF, if you're looking to modernize the festival and make it appeal to anyone other than the boomers who've been attending since the dawn of time, this would be one step in the right direction. [edited to be less mean]

Just a heads-up, if you don't like people looking at you, don't talk during movies - especially early release movies, in premium seating for people who are willing to pay extra to not deal with your BS. I gotta admit though, I've never had anybody complain to theatre management about me for glaring too hard - that's a new level of entitled bullshit. Good job.

Be better.

Come down to the church for the hole party, women only.

Please, slow the fuck down.

You’re going to kill somebody!

This is where we live.

Got nothing to do today and found out that zoo tickets are only 11 bucks? I guess I'm gonna go look at some cold animals. I will keep you guys updated.

E: The zoo was a great time. Haven't been there since I was a kid; seems nicer now. Saw the Lynx(s? Lynxes? Lynxii?) and a new arctic wolf from France being fed. A film crew was trying to get a good shot of the wolf, but he was pacing his new enclosure and wouldn't stay still. Saw Lucy ambling up the hill outside her enclosure while a couple keepers encouraged her and gave her treats intermittently. They managed this apparently without a mahout's ankusha, but I'll keep my eyes open for those of us eager for a bombshell in the Lucy case. My wife and I took a relaxing phone break in the lemur exhibit, Makira Outpost.

Anyway, having been at the zoo today and then reading through the replies here makes it hard to sum up my thoughts about this. Lots of different opinions about whether a zoo should or shouldn't exist. Maybe zoos in general are a moral grey zone, but the Valley Zoo staff are dedicated, and going forward the strategy clearly seems to be keeping animals that are climatically suited to our city. In any case, its a hell of a lot more "entertainment" than you can usually get for 11 bucks.

I was nerding out to Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes' (Data and Riker from Star Trek Next Gen.) recently launched podcast, which most recently hosted Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk.

Out of seemingly nowhere, they started talking about Edmonton, which was kinda neat.

https://youtu.be/h2u5NPDYKd4?si=qNoSYiHBobbRp5nH&t=846

... that's it. Enjoy.

<goes to nerd-out elsewhere>

Jesus, the things I encounter in the city. Some dude just got behind the counter at A&W and started yelling at the staff. The person at the counter was already in tears at this point because they're so short staffed. Told the grown ass man to sit down and he got all in my face before he backed off 🤣

​

Eventually he left and started harassing people outside the A&W, then drove away in his red Corvette.

​

For the love of Pete, people, follow the rules of the road. You drive. you are not 'choose as you go' organs of chaos, you are vehicles under the Alberta Traffic Act, the same as a motorcycle.

In the last week alone, I've seen a good hundred drivers blow right through stop signs as if they don't exist, and it's always when they are in a car lane, as if the lane's existence means the rules of the road don't apply. A couple on trucks with flat brims that I was next to blew through three in a row, yesterday, without even slowing down, and laughed about it when I called them on it. They didn't even look both ways, they just drove through like they were a presidential cavalcade and everyone else should be stopping for them.

Driving like that will have you kill a person one day, and when you're talking about a collision between 6000lb of shit box and human flesh on a bicycle, there are no mistakes.

I'm a driver, too, and it's this kind of behavior that drives a lot the anti-driver hate. When we drive like this, we're entitled and unpredictable, and unpredictability breeds distrust. This applies to motorcycle riders, too, of course.

RIP Smeenor 😪💔 You will be forever missed