High: a bridge-level map of edmonton (revised)

I posted the previous version of this map in installments, but decided to try a different technique for web display this time around. In paper copy, the map panels are attached in one long line, like the span of a bridge, and fold out accordion-style.


click photo to enlarge (you will be taken to a separate photo gallery with the full-size images)

High: a bridge-level map of edmonton (installment 8)

High: a bridge-level map of edmonton (installment 7)

High: a bridge-level map of edmonton (installment 6)

High: a bridge-level map of edmonton (installment 5)

High: a bridge-level map of edmonton (installment 4)

High: a bridge-level map of edmonton (installment 3)

High: a bridge-level map of edmonton (installment 2)

High: a bridge-level map of edmonton

For our creative cartography assignment, I created a map of the highlevel bridge. It's an old-school paper map, but I've decided to post the panels in installments here, on this blog. So, here's the first two:

Alberta Avenue

For my CSL (Community Service Learning) assignment as part of this course, I’m doing some work with the Nina Haggerty Centre, located at 9225 118 Ave. On Monday morning, I ventured over there for the first time, google map and notebook in hand.

On the bus from the Coliseum LRT station, I passed several pawn shops, a couple thrift stores, and in every shop window, a colourful sign reading:

We Believe in 118

Working together towards a safer community

I don’t know much about this part of town, mostly because it’s been designated as sketchy, risky, dangerous. 118^th Ave. is where the prostitutes work, that’s all I know. That’s all I’ve been told. Nobody ever mentioned that I might also find “Mama Afro Beauty” across from the “Kasoa Tropical Food Market,” and nearby, an intriguing little place called “The Carrot Community Arts Coffeehouse,” which has bright canvases displayed in its front window. It’s closed, but I read the signs on the door, and find that they have open mic on Saturday nights and Thursday afternoons, as well as live music on Friday nights. I’ll be coming back here, I can already tell.

The Nina Haggerty Centre itself, far from being the hole in the wall that I had expected, given the area, has a brand new storefront with big, welcoming windows. Already, this is a place where I’m excited to be.

View Larger Map

The Nina Haggerty Centre, under construction in this image, is now a beautifully finished building. Click the arrows to take a “walk” around the area.

Another thing I learned about the 118^th Ave. area: it has a name. Alberta Avenue. That sounds like a part of the city we ought to be proud of. And I think that it really is going that way – I’ve never been in a neighbourhood where its residents are so visibly trying to make their part of town a better place – not just safer, but more vibrant. The arts community is growing there, and I wonder if, ten or twenty years down the road, Alberta Avenue might be comparable to Whyte. 

X Marks the Spot

When I think of Edmonton as a city, generally, I’m not. Not thinking of it as a city, that is. I have my own places that constitute Edmonton for me. Not a city, but rather, for lack of a better word, a home. My places are clustered along lines – the line of the river, the line of the LRT. I visualize those lines in perpendicular intersection – perhaps because that’s how they run at their points closest to my house, or perhaps just because it’s simpler that way. In reality of course, the river winds as rivers do, and the LRT line is jagged to accommodate destinations and existing roads. Somewhere though, at the middle of this map, that imaginary perpendicular intersection does exist, as the train and the river both cross with my life.

I said that my Edmonton is clustered along those two lines, but I should be more specific. If you look at the cross on the map, the southwest section, just by that perpendicular intersection, that’s home. Or my house at least. Home extends to the right of the yellow line too – Whyte Avenue, Garneau, Old Strathcona. On the other side of the blue line, to the north, is my downtown – the Citadel, Winspear, City Centre Mall, Churchill Square, the Legislature.

Edmonton is not only that central intersection though – even though I may leave much of the city unexplored, those lines still define the breadth of the city for me. I’ve ridden the length of the LRT in one go: south to north to south again, and at least twice in my childhood, I’ve gone the length of the North Saskatchewan by canoe. So I suppose I have a sense of a broader Edmonton, an Edmonton as a city. But that broader Edmonton is not where I live – I live in the crook of river and LRT, a fictional perpendicular zone that’s real enough to me.