Edmonton is a very spread out city. There are a few high-rises building in the city centre. We did not visit them but instead drove extensively over the large 4 to 6 lanes highways which circumvent and cross the city. Here, we stayed with Bill and Juliana for 3 nights. Juliana is former classmate of Jamaliah, who left Brunei with her husband some 40 years ago to settle in Canada. We also met up with 2 other classmates of her and their husband for a Lebanese dinner and an evening of dancing on the music from a Filipino band in a Casino/club on our third night in town.
Edmonton has a harsh climate and therefore has already for years a very large shopping mall with a large indoor swimming/wave pool with a beach. The complex also has an ice-skating ring (there was a junior 5-a side ice hockey competition ongoing) and a water attraction with a sea lion show and paddle boats in the form of a swan. For years Jamaliah wanted to visit this paradise. I parked myself at the local Starbuck and patiently waited for her return. Bill and Juliana dropped us here at this West Edmonton Mall because our camper was at the VW dealer. We brought it to the dealer in the morning hoping they can fixed our Aircon system. Unfortunately they confirmed that the Aircon unit was damaged and needed to be replaced. And as in S. America they have no spare part in stock since our camper comes from Europe. We probably have to order this from Europe and have it ship/post to us here in Canada. They also found that one of the brackets of the driveshaft had broken. They welded it and the next day we could pick it up. Unfortunately the vibrations at 90+ km/hr were not gone. Most likely these vibrations were the root cause of the damage. Since it was weekend we could not find any garage to further investigate this issue and therefore decided to just drive on the next day (Saturday).
Edmonton also has a heritage park (Fort Edmonton Heritage Park). This one is fairly new and well maintained. They have a small amusement park, a Hudson bay trading fort, and many historical building which once stood in the city. We walked through the park but also took the steam train and the electric tram. Very interesting were the discussions we had with one of the indigenous people in the modern native cultural museum. There is a strong movement ongoing to recognise the rights of the indigenous people in Canada especially after the discovery of the many children’s graves outside of the boarding schools where for years the native children were educated for assimilation into the “western“ society.
Rudy Welling's Travels 