you can’t be serious by Michael Bussière
The sheer lunacy of endorsing coal mining in the Rockies of all places T
here is no more glorious drive in this vast country than that which heads west from Calgary along Highway 1. I’ve done it many, many times over the years and it never fails to make my heart sing to leave the rambling suburbs behind and enter the Foothills with the white-capped Canadian Rockies looming on the horizon. It has long been the landscape of great songs. Song is being deployed to rally opposition against metallurgical coal mining in the Rockies, as approved by
ABOVE: Award-winning musician Corb Lund, an 8th generation Albertan with roots on the family
ranch, is fighting Premier Kenney’s plan to allow coal mining in the Canadian Rockies. (PHOTO: GLEAN PRODUCTIONS)
the ever-popular Jason Kenney and the United (in name only) Conservative Party of Alberta, which ended a 1976 moratorium issued by the Lockheed government. Leading the tuneful charge is the multi-award and Junowinning Corb Lund. Recorded together with some of Alberta’s finest, including Brett Kissel, Terri Clark, Paul Brandt, Armond Duck Chief, Nice Horse, and Sherryl Sewepagaham, Lund’s new recording of “This is My Prairie,” a song from earlier in his career, is offered as an anthem in solidarity with “ranchers, urban and rural Albertans and First Nations communities in strongly opposing coal mining in 29 OTTAWALIFE FALL 2021
