Avenue September 2017

HAUTE COATS

Local models wear the looks you’ll love this fall

DEVELOPERS

GONNA DEVELOP

Why buildings go up when the economy is down

3RESTAURANTS

YOU NEED TO EAT AT NOW!

LEARNING TO SUCCEED

How post-secondary schools are meeting the changing needs of the city

Be ready for winter driving.

Talking Fire Training in Alberta

Innovation and client-centrism is at the heart of what we do. At NorQuest College, we incorporate new technologies and delivery strategies to provide optimal learning solutions. In 2015, NorQuest’s Fire Rescue Institute launched the first of a kind fire rescue online program. Three years later, the training is sought after across Canada, into the United States, and even overseas.

“When people think of firefighting, they think of their local fire hall and the red trucks racing to emergencies. It is less likely they realize how industrial sectors rely on the skills and knowledge of a fire fighter too,” says Ed Kohel, business development manager of public safety & health and Chief of Training.

Oil and gas, forestry, mining, and even indigenous communities require full fire crews that are ready to go 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Safety is the priority, and often these organizations turn to NorQuest to deliver.

Keyera, one of the largest independent midstream energy companies in Canada, was struggling to find cost-efective training, which was not available in Alberta at that time. NorQuest was there to help. Coordinating their training and supporting Keyera, NorQuest got them the training they needed and saved the company money.

Keyera’s emergency response technician, Ken Haeberle, is thrilled this opportunity exists in Alberta. “Working with NorQuest and using the job grant allowed my team to get the training we needed, where we needed it, and quickly.”

The Canada Alberta Job-Grant is accessible to employers meeting the eligibility criteria across many industries and sectors in Alberta.

Outft by OSKA

Jewellery by Vivah Jewellery

.” ,

INSPIRING POSSIBILITIES

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The Paramount Suites on the highest foors of the buildings feature over 1800 square feet of open living space, expansive balconies and panoramic views of the Calgary skyline and Rocky Mountains. Suites start at $1.4 Million.

LIKE

MEALS, THE SUB-ZERO AND

64 À la Mode

Mode Models, the Calgary-based international agency, is celebrating 30 years in business, while we celebrate fall fashion trends with three Mode up-and-comers.

p.

Designed in Calgary

Four Calgary designers, under the guidance of stylist Leah Van Loon, debut original pieces created for this issue of Avenue. Each design demonstrates the creator’s style while allowing them to forge new creative ground.

By Ricky Zayshley

FEATURES contents

82

Examining Calgary’s Post-secondary Schools

A look at how post-secondary institutions in Calgary are addressing new challenges in the job market, learning to accommodate mature students and fostering academic success for indigenous peoples in new and innovative ways.

By Shannon Cleary

89

Creative Living

Living a creative life is not only a Calgary Arts Development strategy, it’s also a mantra for the hundreds of companies and individuals who have signed on to take part. Avenue spoke to some of them to fnd out how they live creatively, and how you can, too.

By Andrew Guilbert

98

Growth in the Downturn Developers haven’t stopped building despite our high vacancy rates and recent economic woes. We asked them what keeps the cranes and construction crews so busy.

By Julia Williams

104

ON THE COVER KAYLEY, SHAYNA AND GABRIELLA OF MODE MODELS WEARING CHANEL

PHOTOGRAPHED BY JARED BAUTISTA

Domestic Violence

With the city reaching crisis levels of reported domestic abuse, agencies are coming together to facilitate access to necessary resources and cut the red tape around seeking help.

By Marzena Czarnecka

39 Detours

Meet Tom Brown, a local artist whose tiny functional kitchen has made a big impression. Plus, the group that wants to get more women into local politics, the numbers behind Beakerhead and a preview of the fall arts season’s must-see exhibitions and performances.

50 Good Taste

Bringing lunch to work shouldn’t mean a brown bag flled with bland-wiches. Here are some suggestions on how to pack a noontime meal that’s both tasty and satisfying.

STYLE

52 Mixer

Te Tiki Horse from the bar at Klein/Harris guarantees cocktail lovers a wild ride.

55 The Pour

Looking for grapes that go great with your grill? Tese picks for best barbecue wines can hold their own against bold, meaty favours.

59 Dining

Two

111 Getaways

Mild weather, great food, outdoor adventures and a stomping-good wine festival are just some of the reasons to visit the Okanagan during the harvest season.

124 Decor

A peek into the family home of Becky and Colin Feasby, designed by Jefrey Riedl of Robert Pashuk Architecture.

117 Mountains

Whether you want to see changing larch trees, view some world-class mountain cinema, or just cozy up in a cabin, here are some great ways to experience the mountains near Calgary this fall.

134 The List

Annie MacInnis of the Kensington BRZ on the things and places she loves most in her home neighbourhood and other parts of the city.

136 New & Noteworthy

Tree new items we love in Calgary stores.

WE’RE HOME!

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Contributors Calvin Alexander, Jared Bautista, Kara Chomistek, Elizabeth Chorney-Booth, Dan Clapson, Shannon Cleary, Andrea Cox, Marzena Czarnecka, Tom Firth, Jennifer Friesen, Jessie Li, Lisa Kadane, Brendan Klem, Kait Kucy, Karin Olafson, Dan Page, Lynn Scurfield, Brian Seaman, Julie Van Rosendaal, Shirley Vuong, Nickol Walkemeyer, Julia Williams, Katherine Ylitalo, Ricky Zayshley

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The Magic Realism of Real Estate

Earlier in the day it had rained heavily, but by the time the doors opened for the media event about Te Concord residential condo tower in West Eau Claire, the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. It was an apt metaphor for the local housing market — especially in the luxury niche that the Concord project is in. We have been getting soaked by the economy lately, but the future seems to be looking brighter, and there are always a few people ready to head out for an adventure in any weather.

Even so, we at Avenue were curious as to why developers continued to build condos, commercial space and suburban communities throughout the downturn. Vacancies are way up, employment is down and yet development continues. What we learned is that there is no one answer. In part, as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day — developers have to have a steady hand and long view of the market, building today for tomorrow’s economy. But we also heard from developers who felt that there was an untapped market for their particular niche. Others noted that there were opportunities to be gained from still-low interest rates and possibly lower labour costs. Many developers seemed to share a sort of Field of Dreams attitude — build the dream city that you want and you may be rewarded with an outcome that you couldn’t have even imagined.

In some ways, condo towers and suburban developments are very much like the baseball feld in W.P. Kinsella’s classic — the magic that develops isn’t ghostly baseball players but rather the sense of community created by the space. Builders aren’t the only ones trying to change the city. Companies that sign on to Calgary Arts Development’s Living a Creative Life strategy

aim to improve the city by promoting creative thinking, and we talked to several of them to fnd out more (page 98).

Fashion designers are among the Calgarians undoubtedly living a creative life. In this issue, contributing editor Leah Van Loon worked with four local designers to create pieces that took their creative processes to new heights (page 75).

Whether you are making the city better in ways small or large, each of us needs a combination of creativity and optimism and perhaps a little bit of magic to see our ideas become reality. September always seems like a time of renewal to me, and I hope this issue gives you the inspiration to start building something new.

Correction: our August issue incorrectly listed the address and phone number for Trive Health Centres instead of Trive Centre in a story about cancer self-care services. Trive Centre can be found at KNB 186, Faculty of Kinesiology, 2500 University Dr. N.W., 403-210-8482.

GET AVENUE ON YOUR TABLET!

To get the tablet edition, go to avenuecalgary.com/tabletedition.

TINY BUT MIGHTY

For a tiny taste of both creativity and magic check out the Little Gallery in Bridgeland (page 138).

Käthe Lemon Editor-in-Chief klemon@redpointmedia.ca

Doors D Diinner nner Doors for for

Accessible Housing’s Fundraising Evening

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

GREY EAGLE RESORT & CASINO

Buy your tickets today at http://dfd-2017.eventbrite.ca

Help open doors to accessible and affordable homes in Calgary and join us for an experiential evening. Your ticket to Dinner for Doors includes:

• Delicious buffet dinner

• Professional portrait photo booth

• Incredible silent auction

• Live art ....and more!

Presented by: Sustaining Sponsor:

Get your tickets today at http://dfd-2017.eventbrite.ca

Dinner for Doors Dinner for Doors

ACCESSIBLE HOUSING’S FUNDRAISING EVENING

KARA CHOMISTEK

Kara Chomistek is a producer, creative director and stylist based out of Calgary with a professional background in both engineering and the arts. As president and co-founder of PARK, a non-profit organization for emerging fashion designers and artists, Chomistek has gained a unique industry perspective honed through an independent sensibility, a keen knowledge of trends, and a dedication to collaboration with creative partners. Chomistek is part of Avenue’s Top 40 Under 40 class of 2016 and also sits on the nominating committee for the Canadian Art and Fashion Awards.

MARZENA CZARNECKA

Marzena Czarnecka is a Calgary-based writer. Her left-brain self has written about business, legal affairs and the stranger-than-fiction proclivities of entrepreneurs for, among others, The Globe and Mail’s Law Page and Report on Business, The National Post and The Financial Post, Canadian Business, Alberta Venture, Alberta Oil, Enterprise and WestWorld as well as Lexpert and various ThomsonReuters’ publications. Her right-brain alter ego M. Jane Colette is the author of the novels Tell Me, Consequences (of defensive adultery) and Cherry Pie Cure

BRIAN SEAMAN

Brian Seaman is a freelance writer/editor, legal researcher and recovered Facebook-aholic (“You don’t realize how much time is wasted until you get off it, for good,” he says), who enjoys travelling, good wine, good food and witty, intelligent people. His areas of interest include civil liberties, elder law, health, indigenous rights, immigration/ refugee law, environmental law and human rights. Seaman is currently working with Mariela Shaker, a Syrian refugee who fled war to pursue her childhood dream of performing as a classical violinist in the United States, on her autobiography.

LEAH VAN LOON

Leah Van Loon is an international fashion stylist and writer with more than 20 years experience. In 2015, after working backstage with fashion luminary Pat McGrath, Van Loon decided to evolve her connections and expertise into a fashion mentorship program in Paris, providing opportunities to meet and learn from working professionals in the world’s fashion capital each May. When she isn’t planning itineraries for her Paris tours, you can find her singing The Carpenters at karaoke. Check out her fashion tours at fashionexperiencetours.com or her styling/writing work at leahvanloon.com.

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WHY CALGARY IS A GEOMATICS HUB

Julie Van Rosendaal rounds up a mouth-watering feast in this annual feature.

TAYLOR CENTRE 17/18

Introducing the start of the 2017/2018 Taylor Centre for the Performing Arts Concert Season. SEPT. 27+28+29

TAYLOR CENTRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS mru.ca/Taylor

cityDETOURS

He’s Got the Whole Kitchen in His Hands

During an artist residency in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2014, Calgarian Tom Brown decided to do a performance-art project in which he would set up a mobile kitchen on a busy street known for its food vendors and make pancakes for passersby. As Brown’s pancake project attracted a crowd of curious onlookers, he drew the ire of another pancake seller who was worried about the impact free pancakes would have on his sales. Te vendor’s boss contacted the police, who came to shut down Brown’s operation. However, once they saw what Brown had going

Photo by Mike Tan

Working the Traps

DETOURS

on, the cops were very obliging, even suggesting new spots for him to set up shop. Tat’s because Brown was making pancakes about the size of a quarter in a functional miniature kitchen about the size of a small tool chest.

“ Tat’s the great thing that the kitchen does — it disarms people,” says Brown. “On the street, people will be skeptical of it at frst, but once they’re engaged in what’s happening and they’re watching, people have a tendency to start opening up to me.”

Brown has been making miniature items since he was a boy, when he would stay up late at night and mold wax into tiny sculptures using a bedside lamp. He has since graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD), and has been promoting his miniature movement through two projects: Feeding the Masses and Finders Keepers.

For Feeding the Masses, Brown installs himself on a street and prepares small foods with his tiny kitchen, which counts nearly 300 handmade kitchen tools, including cutlery, a pasta maker and even a functional stove. Tese he uses to make everything from sushi and soups to corndogs and mini-doughnuts.

Te other pint-sized project, Finders Keepers, involves Brown hiding tiny kitchenware around Calgary on Fridays, with clues posted to his Instagram account. He’s been stashing his creations since January of this year and says interest has only increased since then. “Now it’s gotten to the point where people watch on Friday and wait until I post, and there’s somebody there within 20 minutes,” he says. “To have something I’m doing causing a reaction out in the world is really cool.”

Brown says he makes miniatures to highlight the scale of our bodies in relation to the world around us. He cites Marshall McLuhan’s idea of art functioning as an “anti-environment” that exists as a refection of the everyday environment we take for granted, making us take notice of it. “[Te miniature environment] is a really obvious anti-environment, because it is literally a replica of the environment made diferent,” Brown says.

During the warmer months, Brown can be found performing in public areas of Calgary, something he enjoys in no small part thanks to the reactions he draws. “When something goes in the deep fryer and oil sizzles out the side and catches, shooting fre in the air, people love that,” he says. “Te best reactions I get are from people who want to stay and talk. Tey’ll stay for the whole hour-and-a-half that I’m there.”

Brown’s next addition to his mini-verse will be a series of cocktails in real glass cups about an inch-and-a-half tall. Other than that, he’s trusting his work ethic will yield interesting results.

“As silly as it sounds, I believe in this mystical idea of faith in hard work,” he says. “I don’t have any idea where this project will be in a year, but I know that if I continue to work hard on it, that natural evolution will continue to happen.”

—Andrew Guilbert

For more information on Tom Brown’s artistic endeavours, visit tombrowncreates.com.

Calgarian Lucy Hyndman encountered the fying trapeze for the frst time on a family vacation to Club Med three years ago. Encouraged by her daughter to give it a try, Hyndman, a family doctor with no gymnastics or acrobatic experience, was immediately hooked from her frst swoop through the air.

Hyndman’s family made return visits to the resort — and its trapeze — but eventually she went looking for options closer to home. With the closest trapeze rig to Calgary out in Vancouver, Hyndman saw an opportunity to introduce her newfound passion to southern Alberta. She opened Rocky Mountain Flying Trapeze in the summer of 2016 at the Wild Wild West Event Centre in Springbank.

Rocky Mountain Flying Trapeze teaches two-hour classes on how to swing through the air, hang from the trapeze and, for those who are ready, release and be caught by an instructor. While fying through the air can seem intimidating, Hyndman says the accessible nature of the apparatus means age and athleticism are no hindrance to learning to use the trapeze.

“Anybody with a sense of adventure can do this,” she says. “You don’t have to be excessively ft, an athlete or a gymnast, at all. All you need is a desire.”

Hyndman’s own current desire is to help others experience that same joy, excitement and adrenaline rush that she recalls from her frst swing on the trapeze, and appreciate the combination of ftness and artistry the practice presents. “It’s part sport, part art,” Hyndman says. “Tere is the physical aspect of it, but being a fyer, as you do it more and more, [it’s] about doing the moves gracefully.

“Making it look easy, that’s the hard part.”

Andrew Jefrey

Trapeze season runs through the end of September. For more information, visit rockymountaintrapeze.ca.

Tom Brown photos by Mike Tan; Trapeze photo by Timothy Huynh Photography

Mini-dinner is served.

Tom Brown holding his functional miniature kitchen.

Bringing More Women to the Table

Last year, four Calgary women started the non-proft Ask Her to encourage more women to run in the 2017 municipal election. Teir motivation can be aptly summed up by the political aphorism: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

Kara Levis, a lawyer and one of the founders, recalls discussions with women of difering political stripes at federal and provincial levels of politics. “We agreed to disagree about some things,” she says, “but on the issue of there being a lack of women on city council, we were of one mind.” With only two women on the current 15-member Calgary municipal council (Druh Farrell and Diane Colley-Urquhart), Levis and her colleagues set out to recruit women who are known community leaders to run. Teir goal was to recruit 20 (at the time this article was written 22 women had fled candidates’ papers).

“ Te personal is political” became the rallying cry of women’s equality advocates of the ’60s and ’70s. For Esmahan Razavi, one of the founders of Ask Her, personal experience was also the inspiration to step up and run in Ward 6. Razavi, a professional mediator, was born in Saudi Arabia and immigrated with her family to Canada when she was 13 years old, leaving behind a rigid theocracy where the lives of girls and women are restricted. “Having lived where democracy doesn’t exist profoundly shaped me,” Razavi says.

If elected, she vows to engage with residents as much as possible, identifying the mitigation of noise from the proposed ring road as being a major issue for the west-end ward.

On the opposite side of the city in Ward 10, anti-poverty advocate Salimah Kassam sees a need for a council voice that will fght for better economic opportunities for residents of the most ethnically diverse ward in Calgary. About 86 per cent of Ward 10 residents are immigrants or new Canadians, who Kassam says are not getting the representation they deserve.

By The Numbers

Every year, Beakerhead gives Calgarians the space to unleash their inner madscientist. Te fve-day festival marries art, science and engineering into bizarre and delightful spectacles such as Serpent Mother, an enormous fre-breathing metal installation coming to this year’s event. In the spirit of making science fun, here are a few interesting numbers about Beakerhead 2017.

Jennifer Dorozio

800

1

HIGHLAND GAMES ATHLETE CURTIS DUROCHER ON TOSSING THE CABER

This month, the 104th Calgary Highland Games will feature that most iconic of highland events, the caber toss. Competitors run and throw a nearly 20-foot-long “caber” — essentially a large, tapered log — so it turns end over end, aiming for it to land pointing straight at them.

5,700

27

Restaurants participating in Engineered Eats — an initiative in which restaurants will incorporate the theme ingredient, barley, into special menus to show how cooking is both art and chemistry.

15

170 Presenters. Giant teeter-totters.

5,000

“The caber mimics nothing,” says Highland Games athlete Curtis Durocher. “The hardest part is picking it up and feeling comfortable holding it and walking with it. When you run, the caber starts leaning forward and eventually the pressure comes off your collarbone. Then you plant. You have to pull and throw it as high as possible. Your speed will give it forward momentum, but you have to drive it straight up.

130,000

Brian Seaman

“I grew up in this area; I see good people having to fght for development. Te northeast doesn’t get the attention other wards get,” says Kassam. “I want to change that.” —

“The caber is going to go left or right; you don’t fght against it. You step to the left or right with it and balance it out. That took me two years — and I’m pretty good at caber. Some people never get it. Some athletes are terrifed of the caber. They want to get that event done as soon as possible.”

The 104th Highland Games are on Sept. 2. calgaryhighlandgames.org

Beakernight party.

Litres of propane firing up Serpent Mother over the duration of Beakerhead.

Space-travelling students through Calgary’s Municipal Space Station aka Calgary Tower.

Attendees in 2016.

White balloons bubbling out of the Royal Canadian Legion #1, on 7th Avenue S.E., downtown as part of an installation called “Nucleation.”

Bathrooms are an often misunderstood part of residential design. Like bedrooms, a count of the number of bathrooms is a standard real estate metric. Having a large number of bathrooms is a common way for unscrupulous developers to falsely infate the apparent value of a new house. Unfortunately, many of these bathrooms are not well-designed, wasting space at the same time that they fail to provide enough counterspace and storage. Master bathrooms are particularly susceptible to these problems, with many designed to be more marketing feature. Too often these supersized rooms with supersized fxtures end up being less functional and enjoyable to use than more conventional bathrooms half their size.

A FAB house approach to bathroom design begins with a simple common sense agenda. First, bathrooms should not dominate the foor plan, taking space away from other rooms in the house. This means keeping the number and size appropriate and modest. Second, they should be effciently and effectively laid out with an abundance of storage options and vanity counters. Finally, every bathroom should be a pleasant space with good lighting, ventilation, and the right combination of materials. A great bathroom should lift your mood and help make the daily rituals of getting ready a little easier and more enjoyable. To learn more about good bathroom design, visit our FAB Concept House.

John Brown is a registered architect. He is a founding partner in Housebrand and a Professor of Architecture at the University of Calgary where, through the Design Research Innovation Lab, he explores the future of age-in-place design.

SPONSORED EVENT

PARKLUXE 2017

Presented by Bankers Hall, is a luxury art and fashion show featuring some of Canada’s premier high end fashion designers and artists.

Designed to connect Calgary’s sophisticated fashion and art lovers with the amazing talent that produce it, PARKLUXE brings together a diverse and immensely talented group of individuals.

By attending PARKLUXE 2017, you will have the opportunity to shop our featured designers, learn about local Canadian talent and network with the city’s fashion elite!

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DETOURS this month do to

FOOD BBQ ON THE BOW FESTIVAL

SEPT. 2 AND 3

Show up to watch local barbecuemasters put their best meats forward for certified judges. In addition to the barbecue competition, the weekend includes cooking demonstrations, live music and, naturally, lots of meat. Montgomery Community Centre, 5003 16 Ave. N.W., bbqonthebow.com

THEATRE BLOW WIND HIGH WATER

SEPT. 5 TO 30

MUSIC

LA LA LAND IN CONCERT

SEPT. 21

Watch the Academy Awardwinning movie La La Land, about two aspiring artists who fall in love while trying to make it big in Los Angeles, as the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra performs the score live. This concert is presented in partnership with the Calgary International Film Festival, which runs Sept. 20 to Oct. 1.

Jack Singer Concert Hall, Arts Commons, 403-571-0849, calgaryphil.com

FESTIVAL DOORS OPEN YYC

MUSICAL THE SOUND OF MUSIC

SEPT. 26 TO OCT. 1

Broadway Across Canada’s stage presentation of the beloved movie-musical stays true to the source material about an aspiring young nun named Maria who is sent away from her convent to become governess for the seven children of a stern Austrian army captain. Set in the lead-up to the Second World War, Maria wins the hearts of the children and the Captain to the strains of songs like “Do-Re-Mi” and “My Favourite Things,” as the unstable political situation in Austria becomes a threat to their lives.

Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, 1-866-532-7469, broadwayacrosscanada.ca

Avenue is proud to support local initiatives in our community. Visit AvenueCalgary.com/events to find out more about upcoming events in the city.

Theatre Calgary launches its 50th season with a world premiere written by celebrated Canadian playwright (and former Theatre Calgary artistic director) Sharon Pollock. The new play is set in Pollock’s home of Calgary and features a multi-generational family attempting to keep from going under as a raging flood threatens to overcome the city.

Max Bell Theatre, Arts Commons, 403-294-7447, theatrecalgary.com

SEPT. 23

For one day each September, Calgarians are invited behind the scenes at a variety of facilities, institutions and businesses. More than 40 sites will open their doors and invite Calgarians in to learn more about how they operate. In past years, participating organizations have included the Olympic Oval, the Calgary Stampede and the St. Louis Hotel. Various locations, doorsopenyyc.org

The high density library at the University of Calgary opened its doors to the public in 2016.

The Sound of Music.

Openings

DUMPLING LAB

Get your dumpling fix at this new Chinatown eatery where you can order potstickers and steamed or boiled dumplings in meaty, vegetarian and even dessert flavours. Choose from traditional fillings like pork and shrimp, vegetarian fillings like spinach, tofu and carrot, and sweet fillings like butternut squash. You can also indulge in one of Dumpling Lab’s giant soup dumplings or take away batches to cook at home.

10, 303 Centre St. S., 403-265-3794, dumplinglab.com, @dumplinglabyyc

FERGUS & BIX

After nearly a decade of serving Calgarians at its West Springs restaurant, Fergus & Bix has opened a second location in McKenzie Towne. Expect a casual food menu that features locally sourced ingredients and a focus on Canadian craft beers from breweries such as Fernie Brewing Co., Village Brewery and Big Rock Brewery. On sunny days, grab a seat on the restaurant’s 25-seat, south-facing patio.

26, 500 McKenzie Towne Gate S.E., fergusandbix.com, @fergusandbix

MÖBIUS OBJECTS

This Calgary-based furniture company opened its new 7,000-square-foot showroom, design studio and workshop hybrid in Fairview this past May. Stop by to browse their collection of handmade, solid-wood tables, benches, chairs and other items. Möbius Objects can also design and create custom, modern furniture pieces to fit your space.

6812 Fairmount Dr. S.E., 403-837-3980, mobiusobjects.com

Urban Butcher.

URBAN BUTCHER

Formerly known as Second To None Meats, the newly renovated and revamped Urban Butcher is now part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts foodie family (Cilantro, Divino, The Lake House and others). Visit any of the three locations, including one at the newly opened Granary Road Market, to pick up cuts of meat from Canadian ranches and farms, or items from the new CRMR Kitchen line of sauces and condiments.

Various locations, urbanbutcher.ca, @urbanbutcheryyc

Southpoint is a one-of-a-kind community situated in southwest Airdrie that stands apart for its wide selection of homes and expansive green space. When complete the quiet, tree-lined streetscapes will feature a charming mix of detached singlefamily homes, townhomes, rowhomes, paired homes and condos – an option for every budget and lifestyle.

With 12 acres of parks and green space woven throughout the neighbourhood, great amenities like a tennis court, basketball court, playgrounds and BBQ pit, plus an elementary school planned for 2019, Southpoint is the ideal place to raise your family.

Urban Butcher

photo by Jeremy Fokkens

Arts Season Preview

With so many cultural productions vying for fnite amounts of your time and money, it can be hard to separate the must-sees from the moderately entertaining. We’ve taken the liberty of picking some of the highlights for the 2017-18 season so you can stop cross-referencing arts calendars and just enjoy your outing.

DANCE

36TH ANNUAL

ALBERTA DANCE

FESTIVAL: DANCING HOME

Te theme of this year’s Alberta Dance Festival, “dancing home,” draws inspiration from Canada 150 celebrations, with 12 choreographed performances, each based on a work by a Governor General Award-winning Canadian literary or visual artist. Look for dances inspired by artist Wanda Koop, photographer Edward Burtynsky and poet Lorna Crozier. Te performance pieces will also feature musical scores by 10 Calgaryarea composers.

Sept. 7 to 9, The Pumphouse Theatre, 2140 Pumphouse Ave. S.W., dswlive.ca

THE TANGO FIRE COMPANY OF BUENOS AIRES

Alberta Ballet will open its 51st season in fames as it hosts the Tango Fire Company of Buenos Aires. Te Argentinian dance company will perform tango to its own band, orquesta tipica, in a show that is meant to evoke the mood of a late night out in Buenos Aires.

Sept. 21 to 23, Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, 403-2454549, albertaballet.com

The Alberta Dance Festival has been presenting original works for more than three decades.

Dance Festival photo by Citrus Photography

BY Jennifer Dorozio, Andrew Guilbert AND Andrew Jeffrey

THEATRE THE LAST WIFE

King Henry VIII, famous for marrying six wives, meets his match in this political thriller focusing on his fnal spouse, Catherine Parr. Te frst in playwright Kate Hennig’s Te Queenmaker Trilogy, Te Last Wife’s incarnation of Parr is that of a clever, competent woman who dances around her husband’s tempers to forge a path for herself. Alberta Teatre Projects’ staging features a familiar face — Lorne Cardinal, the actor known for playing Davis Quinton in Corner Gas, as King Henry VIII. Sept. 12 to 30, Arts Commons, atplive.com

Sun and Earth is part of a showcase of work by Group of Seven painter Lawren Harris (1885-1970), on display this October at the Glenbow.

Alberta Theatre Projects’ The Last Wife

THE SANTALAND DIARIES

Lunchbox Teatre gives David Sedaris fans a real treat with this clever one-man show. Te Santaland Diaries, based of the essay of the same name that propelled Sedaris into the public sphere afer he frst read it on National Public Radio (NPR), follows the author’s brief stint as Crumpet, an elf at Macy’s in New York during the Christmas season, and the tribulations of being an adult in elf’s clothing. Starring Devon Dubnyk as David.

Nov. 27 to Dec. 23, 160 9 Ave. S.E., lunchboxtheatre.com

UNDERCOVER

While Vertigo Teatre’s mystery productions are known for putting you on the edge of your seat, this play will pull one lucky theatregoer out of theirs and up on stage to help solve a murder most foul. Directed by Rebecca Northan, known for plucking participants from audiences on previous productions including Blind Date and Legend Has it, this world premiere is a novel twist on the company’s bread-and-butter whodunit productions.

Jan. 13 to Feb.11, 115 9 Ave. S.E., vertigotheatre.com

VISUAL ARTS LE RÊVE AUX LOUPS

Te Esker Foundation contemporary art gallery, Calgary’s largest privately funded, non-commercial gallery, works through a number of educational and accessible programs to engage the community with the artwork it displays. Starting this month, Esker showcases the work of Mary Anne Barkhouse, a Vancouver artist belonging to the Nimpkish band of Kwakiutl First Nation. In her new exhibit, “Le Rêve aux Loups” (or “ Te Dream of Wolves”), Barkhouse situates her work between the natural animal inhabitants of the land and the famboyant, regal interiors of Louis XIV France with traditional sculptural materials.

Sept. 16 to Dec. 22, Esker gallery, 444, 1011 9 Ave. S.E., 403-930-2490, eskerfoundation.com

BEAKERHEAD EXHIBIT

Herringer Kiss highlights the work of recent and former Alberta College of Art + Design graduates and young artists on a local and national scale, creating a great opportunity for Calgarians to view the work of emerging artists. In September, the gallery will showcase an exhibition in conjunction with the Beakerhead arts and science festival, as well as a series of paintings by Calgary artist Curtis Cutshaw of deconstructed images on individual birchwood tiles.

Sept. 7 to Oct. 7, 709 11 Ave SW, 403-228-4889, herringerkissgallery.com

HIGHER STATES: LAWREN HARRIS AND HIS AMERICAN CONTEMPORARIES

As the most prominent and well-resourced member of Calgary’s visual arts scene, expectations are always high for the Glenbow’s fall lineup. Tis October, the museum will present “Higher States,” a showcase of Group of Seven member Lawren Harris’s more abstract work that sought “the spiritual in art,” alongside works by contemporaries such as Georgia O’Keefe and Raymond Jonson. Te Glenbow will also display Te Black Gold Tapestry, a 220-foot hand-embroidered illustrative work by Sandra Sawatzky about oil’s impact on human civilization.

Oct. 7 to Jan. 7, Glenbow Museum, 403-268-4110, glenbow.org

The Last Wife illustration by Micaela Dawn; Sun and Earth image courtesy of the Glenbow Museum

“Le Rêve aux Loups.”

MBA

‘‘I decided on the Alberta Haskayne Executive MBA for my education because of the local learning community created within the Haskayne School of Business. The ongoing face-to-face interaction with faculty and classmates was instrumental in the development my skills and knowledge. The Alberta Haskayne Executive MBA network has been a great resource for me to draw upon, both in and outside of the classroom.”

Rachel Moore, EMBA’15 Vice President, Human Resources Encana

DETOURS

haskayne-emba.ca

MUSIC PIAF! THE SHOW

Generations of French singers have come and gone but Edith Piaf reigns as chanteuse par excellence. Piaf! Te Show brings the talents of Anne Carrere, a dead ringer (vocally) for the “La Vie en Rose” singer, to the fore, as she recounts the life of the Swallow of Montmartre through her well-loved catalogue. Tis is quite possibly the closest you’ll get to seeing Piaf herself on stage — an opportunity not to be missed.

Oct. 4, Arts Commons, artscommons.ca, piaf-theshow.com

TRUE NORTH

In honour of Canada’s sesquicentennial, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra is putting on the True North Festival, a celebration of all things Canada. Taking place in October and November, the

lineup features acts including Corb Lund, Fred Penner and others, but the highlight is sure to be the performance of True North, a commissioned collaboration between fve composers from across the country, accompanied by dancers choreographed by former Alberta Ballet principal dancer Yukichi Hattori. Be sure to catch Te Road to True North the day before, an in-depth discussion with the composers and a documentary on the creation of this ambitious work.

Oct. 28, Arts Commons, calgaryphil.com

THE BARBER OF SEVILLE

Tis will be the frst season in 19 years Calgary Opera is not headed by former CEO Bob McPhee. Te company kicks of with a spin in the barber’s chair — Rossini’s comedic classic Te Barber of Seville. Tis show marks the temporary return of former Calgary Opera resident conductor Topher Mokrzewski and includes the Ofcer of the Order of Canada and Juno award-winning tenor Russell Braun as Figaro. Tis is your chance to see one of the best comic operas ever written with an ensemble to match.

Nov. 18, 22 and 24, Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium calgaryopera.com

Where Calgary connects.

Piaf!

photo by G. Marsalla; Barber of Seville photo by Trudie Lee Photography

The Barber of Seville.

Piaf! The Show.

GOOD TASTE

BY Julie Van Rosendaal PHOTOGRAPH BY Jared Sych

Lunch Break

Just because you’re eating at your desk doesn’t mean you should settle for humdrum brown-bag lunches, so make your midday meal something to look forward to.

ALL BEEFED UP SANDWICH FROM MADE FOODS

Specializing in healthy gourmet takeaway meals, Made Foods packs a flavour punch into the humble sandwich. With tender braised beef topped with barbecue sauce, spinach, red peppers, red onion and lemon aioli on focaccia bread, this sandwich is small but mighty — and healthy to boot.

Seven locations, madefoods.com

FRESH-PRESSED JUICE FROM CHONGO’S

Orange juice isn’t just for breakfast. The OJ that they press onsite at Chongo’s tastes like a concentrated version of the fruit it came from — and it’s more affordable than many fresh-pressed juices in the city. They also do an apple, carrot and beet juice that’s just as nice.

1235 26 Ave. S.E. (Crossroads Market), 403-921-4554, chongosmarket.com

@chongosmarket

ASIAN NOODLE SALAD FROM THE MAIN DISH

A tub of noodle salad with cashews, celery, red pepper,

carrots and ginger-soy dressing satisfies on its own, and also makes a tasty vehicle for leftover roasted chicken, pork, fish or veggies from dinner the night before.

903 General Ave. N.E., 403-265-3474, tmdish.com

ENERGY

BITES

FROM LITTLE TUCKER

These treats are perfectly portable and just enough to satisfy that afternoon sweet craving. Try the salted lucuma caramel made with a sweet Peruvian fruit that balances out the almond butter, coconut, cinnamon and pinch of pink Himalayan salt. Available at 30 retailers; for a full list, go to littletucker.ca, @littletuckeryyc

COOKIE DOUGH FROM BRIDGELAND MARKET

Keep this cookie dough loaded with oats, dried fruit, chocolate chunks and other good things on hand for fresh cookies anytime. Just slice, bake and pack. Because everyone needs a cookie to get them through the day.

1104 1 Ave. N.E., 403-269-2381, bridgelandmarket.com, @bridgelandmrkt

BY Lisa Kadane PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jared Sych

The Guild

Sessional cocktails to sip as summer morphs into fall.

Brass ducks fy over my head toward the trophy bull on the south wall. On the curved bar in front of me, an appetizer of steak tartare — presented in a hollowed-out cow bone alongside roasted marrow and served with bannock — beckons.

Lest you mistake me for some kind of carnivorous huntress, take note of my cocktail: a delicate rye sour made with bright lime, nutty pistachio syrup, frothy egg white and garnished with fecks of toasted pistachios and orange zest. It’s a splash of light inside a restaurant that is heavily meat-centric.

Te Guild has been open since last summer on the south-facing side of the iconic building that houses the downtown Hudson’s Bay. (Te Bay gave up part of its footprint to the restaurant.) Toronto-based restaurant group Oliver & Bonacini spent millions renovating the cavernous, bi-level space. It’s a study in plush black booths, brown leather chairs and a mix of marble and wood tables set atop the original terrazzo limestone tile foor.

Te bar bites match the setting with oferings such as escargots snuggled under a blanket of Alberta Wagyu brisket and wood-grilled squid swimming in a lemon-butter sauce.

Te cocktails, crafed by mixology specialist Austin Purvis, are equally as inventive. Purvis loves playing with herbs, less-common spirits and bar techniques such as smoking drinks under a bell jar (see: the burnt cherry Manhattan).

Te majority of his cocktails have a personal story behind them. My rye sour was born of Purvis’s love of pistachios, which inspired him to create pistachio syrup, and the drink evolved from there. He calls it Mason’s Secret Stash, named afer Charles Mason, who frst introduced pistachios to North America in the 1800s.

Another cocktail on the summer list is Te Gentle King, a twist on a Negroni. It’s made with Suze (a gentian liqueur from France) in place of Campari and is less bitter but just as complex as its muse.

My favourite, the Tyme-Sherr, marries Sherry with charred thyme, bourbon, lemon and honey. Te result is a slightly smoky summer sipper that’s perfect for people-watching on Te Guild’s huge covered patio that fronts Stephen Avenue. It’s a much brighter, lighter space than indoors and the cocktails refect this atmospheric shif — think “Calgarians on vacation.”

“I wanted to make a sessional cocktail, which is a drink with a lower alcohol content,” Purvis explains (one ounce of Sherry is actually more like a quarter-ounce of a distilled spirit). I love how the Sherry’s fruity notes play to the sweet bourbon, citrus and honey in the drink.

You’ll still have to watch your consumption, however — this is a fresh, lively libation that’s totally crushable during the days when summer turns to fall. In other words, you’ll want to check in to a Tyme-Sherr, or two.

Into a cocktail shaker add:

1.5 oz. Elijah Craig 12 Years Old bourbon +

1 oz. Alvear Fino medium dry Sherry +

0.5 oz lemon juice +

0.5 oz. honey syrup (1:1 honey-to-water ratio) +

1 oz. packed charred thyme (create the char by running a blowtorch over fresh thyme).

Shake with ice and strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice. +

Add a splash of soda water.

Garnish with sprigs of fresh thyme.

—Recipe courtesy Austin Purvis, The Guild restaurant

#DINNERSERIESYYC #EATTHELIST

6 MONTHS.

6 RESTAURANTS.

6 EXPERIENCES.

Reserve your seat at Avenue’s 2017 Dinner Series.

Dining experiences presented by Avenue’s Best Restaurants Award winners.

Sept 20

April 18

May 24

June 21

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit AvenueCalgary.com/dinnerseries

BY Tom Firth

PHOTOGRAPH BY Jared Sych

PAIRINGS

BOOKERS BBQ AND CRAB SHACK

Brisket and Merlot

There’s nothing like the tender, flavourful, stick-to-your-ribs deliciousness of a good brisket. Try matching Bookers’ brisket with Cedar Creek merlot ($48). The Okanagan is making some of the finest merlots out there with ripe fruits and just the right amount of table-pleasing tannins.

PAMPA

Meat skewers and Malbec

The skewers at Pampa Brazillian barbecue are a carnivore’s dream. It’s hard to pick a favourite, but the top sirloin (or the garlic rump steak) is always a treat, especially with a malbec from Catena ($99 by the bottle) — a classic that’s well-suited for a meaty dinner.

THE NASH

Flat iron Beef and Zinfandel

Zinfandel loves a juicy, well-seasoned, seared meat. Match The Nash’s flat iron with the Dry Creek old-vine zinfandel ($13 glass; $52 bottle). Older vines typically have greater complexity and Dry Creek’s deliver spicy, brambly fruit perfect for a nice cut.

Barbecue Wines

Awhile back, my best friend said he wanted a “big green egg” and my first thought was that he must’ve fallen asleep watching Game of Trones, only to later realize that what he wanted was a concrete, egg-shaped barbecue. The fact that he was willing to spend many hundreds of dollars for an additional outdoor cooking appliance that is neither simple nor convenient is somewhat perplexing to me (for the record, I am not an accomplished grill-master). But it does

illustrate that the noble art of barbecuing has progressed far beyond the humble charcoal briquette. And what good fortune that there is a wealth of good wines ready and waiting to be paired with grilled foods of all sorts.

Fall’s cool, mild evenings make grilling over a hot fre quite pleasurable, especially when the food is paired with the right wine.

To help narrow down what works, it’s best to focus on a few grapes and a few regions. In general, most wines for barbecue should be red ones. Te tannins that are responsible for that mouthdrying bitterness in wine actually enhance steak, sofening the fat in the meat to help release its favour. While the adage of white wine with white meat and red with red isn’t quite the hard rule it used to be, as a general guideline, it does work. While we Calgarians might like to think we have the barbecue down pat, it’s the Argentineans who are the real afcionados. Te Argentine barbecue, or asado, is an all-day afair of wood-fred grills and an assortment of meats suitable for a culture that consumes more than 50 kilograms of beef per annum. (By comparison, Canadians consume about 25 kg of beef per person per year.) Want to know what they drink at asados (besides beer)? Malbec. Argentina’s fagship grape variety is dry, full-bodied and with more than enough tannin to stand up to any cut.

Zinfandel is also a strong performer for grilled meats of all kinds, and especially shines with richer or sweeter sauces. Loaded with intense — ofen jammy — berry fruit and plenty of alcohol, it pairs very well with lean dishes, so if you’re one of those heathens that cuts the extra fat of your steaks, consider a zinfandel.

Other red grapes such as merlot, cabernet sauvignon and syrah are also well-suited pairings with grilled cuisine, though certainly keep an eye out for bottles from countries known for their carnivorous reputation, such as Portugal, the U.S., Australia, Canada and South America.

Which brings us to the age-old question: “I’ve been invited to a barbecue, what should I bring?” Well, you should know your hosts better than I do, but considering most barbecues are casual afairs, the wine should also be on the casual side. Now is not the time to bring a well-aged Bordeaux from the darkest corners of your cellar (unless that’s your thing). Rather, it’s the time to bring a well-thought-out bottle that’s ready to drink. Take heart that between $15 and $25, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of good wines, especially if you avoid overly commercial wines. Find a decent shop that sells wine, fnd a person on the foor who knows the diference between Hochtaler and Hermitage, and try something a little of the beaten path.

PICKS

PB HEIN 2014 CELEBRATION RED, CALIFORNIA

A dynamic blend of grenache and syrah with about 10 per cent zinfandel and a smattering of petit syrah, this is a perfect wine for special occasions when the grill is fired up. Raspberry and brambly berry fruits with cherry cola, spice, and a little gingerbread too. Great with ribs (glorious ribs!) drenched in sauce. $22

PIERRE HENRI MOREL 2012 SIGNARGUES CÔTES DU RHONE VILLAGE, FRANCE

France’s Rhone Valley is a terrific place to find well-made wines of excellent value. Based around grenache and syrah with generous fruits, a touch of spice and dried herbs, it offers good complexity on the palate and finishes with a slightly earthy tone. Should handle sausages with flair, or larger cuts of meat. $20

YALUMBA 2011 PATCHWORK SHIRAZ, BAROSSA, AUSTRALIA

Shiraz is about the best go-to wine for a barbecue, and Yalumba’s Patchwork is a cut above the rest. Ripe berry fruit with undercurrents of blueberry and plum under those jammy cherry characters. It’s big, naturally, but well-balanced with milder herbal flavours on the palate appearing and plenty of acid suitable for burgers, steaks or just relaxing on the deck. $29

FONTANAFREDDA 2015 GAVI DI GAVI, PIEDMONT, ITALY

The best things at the barbecue aren’t always red, like this little gem from Italy’s Piedmont region. Dry and remarkably intense, this mineral-driven, tropical and silky white would be absolutely perfect with seared scallops or garlicky barbecued shrimp. $21

DI ARIE 2011 CABERNET SAUVIGNON, EL DORADO, CALIFORNIA

Cabernet sauvignon is still the king of red grapes, known for showcasing the place it was grown, but also for its high quality when grown by skillful hands. Di Arie’s has the classic nose of cherries and plum with bell pepper, spice box and cedar. Serve with well-aged steaks grilled to perfection. $52

ZUCCARDI Q 2013 MALBEC, UCO VALLEY, ARGENTINA

One of the up-and-coming wine makers in Argentina, Sebastien Zuccardi is identifying new terroirs, soils and sites to make the very best malbec. Incredibly floral on the nose with deep layers of fruit and herb leaf, it’s chewy on the palate with muscular tannins, yet remarkably elegant. Bored of malbec? This might change your mind. Try this the next time you fire up the smoker. $25

IF YOU’RE ONE OF THOSE HEATHENS WHO CUTS THE FAT OFF YOUR STEAKS, CONSIDER A ZINFANDEL.

Meet Tanya.

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Tanya takes the time to listen; to understand your wants and needs. She doesn’t expect your trust, Tanya earns it by consistently remaining honest, accessible and tenacious. Tat’s what sets Tanya apart.

Te Tanya Eklund Group was founded on Tanya’s principles. Te professionals within her group don’t work for Tanya – they work for you, the client. Tey provide unparalleled expertise, skill and service to Calgary’s inner city.

And their clients know it.

WWW.TANYAEKLUNDGROUP.CA

Tanya@tanyaeklundgroup.ca

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SPONSORED EVENT

18TH CALGARY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

SEPTEMBER 20 –OCTOBER 1, 2017

Galas. Headliners. World Cinema. Local Productions. Action. Documentaries. Music on Screen. Late Shows. Shorts. Parties. Filmmakers. Licensed Screenings. Laughter. Sadness. Awe. Drama. Edge of Your Seat Cliffhangers. Popcorn. $15 Tickets. 12 Days. 40 Countries. 200 Films. #calgaryfilm

WHAT A SCENE.

Avenue is proud to support local initiatives in our community. Visit AvenueCalgary.com/events to find out more about upcoming events in the city.

DINING

BY Elizabeth Chorney-Booth AND Dan Clapson PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jared Sych

Tavernetta

Tis Italian tavern in Renfrew is all about big favours in a relaxed space.

ITALIAN-CASUAL

While speeding up Edmonton Trail, it’s easy to miss the Arts and Crafs-style home just of the corner of 9th Avenue N.E. that Tavernetta inhabits. Italian through-and-through, the restaurant — which is owned by chef Keith Luce (formerly of Corbeaux Bakehouse), Chris McKinnon (formerly of Cilantro) and Tony Migliarese (co-owner of

Frico and ceci snack at Tavernetta.

Proof) — ofers a comfortable dining experience that’s big on classic Italian favours and straightforward when it comes to wine, cocktails and service. Expect to just sit back, relax and enjoy yourself here.

Start of with Tavernetta’s spread of antipasti that includes house-made bread, meatballs and an especially tasty Alberta beef crudo (essentially a carpaccio) topped with enoki and oyster mushrooms, horseradish and cured egg yolk. Te “frico and ceci snack” may sound like an eclectic combination, consisting of Montasio cheese crisps, creamy Fonduta cheese, garbanzo beans, leeks and chili sauce, but it’s a perfect little vegetable dish to begin a meal.

Ten there’s the spiedini, which means “skewers” in Italian. Priced per skewer, it’s easy to try all of these charcoal grill-fnished bites, even if you’re only dining with one other person. Te tastiest of the bunch are the grilled beef, brightened up by a vibrant salsa verde, and the meaty calamari that rest in a tangy crema with fresh dill and crispyfried garbanzo beans for a little crunch.

Bowls of rigatoni, bucatini and gnocchi can also be found on the menu here, though warmer weather does lend itself more to the freshness of a ricotta and bocconcini salad or bagna cauda (think crudité platter with garlicky anchovy-based dip)

While the sun still shines, make sure to make the most of the cozy backyard patio, complete with “shed bar” and bocce court, all under strings of lights running from the house to the edges of the fence. Take in the sunset sweetly by biting into Luce’s dessert bruschetta, which is topped with roasted salted caramel hazelnuts.

Tavernetta may not be the most shiny and innovative restaurant to come along this year, but if quality Italian fare in a relaxed space is what you’re afer, then this is the spot for you. —D.C.

1002 Edmonton Tr. N.E., 403-250-8894, tavernettayyc.ca, @tavernettayyc

SMALL PLATES Ox Bar de Tapas

When the BMeX Restaurant group frst opened Ox and Angela several years back, it was conceived as a place to grab a cocktail while waiting for a table down the street at their other restaurant, the ultra-busy Una Pizza + Wine. Inevitably O&A became a thing of its own, thanks

to a selection of delectable tapas plates and other Spanish fare. But with the restaurant split into two sides with separate “personalities,” the concept proved a bit confusing to customers, despite the tasty favours being pushed out by both the kitchen and the bar.

Hopefully that confusion is fully quelled now that O&A has reinvented itself as Ox Bar de Tapas. Te location is the same, the menu is still tapas-driven,

Ox Bar de Tapas interior.

Tavernetta interior.

and BMeX is still involved (though now in partnership with general manager Nathaniel Krieger), but everything else has been overhauled. Gone are the two opposing sides — Ox is now a single cohesive room, with a design inspired by eateries in Barcelona.

Not only is the space more inviting, the kitchen has also upped its tapas game under the leadership of new executive chef Kai Salimäki. Tapas plates can be ordered à la carte or as part of the Spanish Table tasting menu — a holdover from the Angela days. Ox still makes what is arguably the best patatas bravas in the city, but Salimäki has revamped about 80 per cent of the menu, adding dishes like bacalao (salt cod and potato cakes) and pulpo frito (fried octopus tentacles). And, so as to not further eschew its origins, Ox still pours a respectable cocktail, with an emphasis on specialty gins and sherry. —E.C.-B.

528 17 Ave. S.W., 403-457-1432, oxtapas.com, @oxtapas

we love

PREPARING STUDENTS FOR EXCEPTIONAL CAREERS

Bacalao (salt cod and potato cakes) at Ox Bar de Tapas.

OVEN-FRESH PIZZA

Parm

There have been signifcant changes on 1st St. S.W. over the past several years, with places such as Ten Foot Henry, Bar Von Der Fels and Proof all contributing to the reinvigoration of an area that, even as recently as fve years ago, did not ofer much in the way of dining diversity.

One of the more recent eateries to open on said street is Parm, a casual Italian establishment, which ofers a mix of grab-and-go items, two levels of restaurant seating and a small gourmet food shop carrying imported dry pastas, trufe oil, Italian sweets and more.

Te focal point is the woodburning oven in the centre of the

room where you’ll see pizza being cooked Neapolitan-style. Housemade dough is made using 00 four, stretched and then cooked in an oven with a temperature exceeding 800 degrees. Te pizzas are constructed with classic combinations such as San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil or thin layers of prosciutto folded overtop of fresh arugula, fnished with Asiago cheese and trufe oil.

Don’t expect the pizzas here to have the droopy nature typical of traditional Neapolitan pizza. Parm’s crust has plenty of crunch to it, so it holds up well if you’re ordering a pie to-go or having lefovers boxed up.

Besides pizza, Parm ofers other flling plates such as their “meatball parm,” an open-faced sandwich featuring big, housemade meatballs smothered in tomato sauce and broiled with cheese, pastas such as spaghetti carbonara, and a just-like-nonnaused-to-make lasagna, layered with meat sauce, béchamel and mozzarella cheese.

Wrap things up with a fresh, house-made cannoli, a Sicilian staple of deep-fried pastry dough, flled with a slightly sweet ricotta mixture and dusted with icing sugar. —D.C.

1207 1 St. S.W., 403-232-6230, parmyyc.ca, @parmyyc

Parm’s crust has plenty of crunch to it, so it holds up well if you’re ordering a pie to-go or having leftovers boxed up.

Parm’s take on a pizza classic with San Marzano tomatoes, mozzarella and fresh basil.

The house-made cannoli at Parm.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jared Bautista | STYLING BY Kara Chomistek MAKE-UP BY Nickol Walkemeyer AND Calvin Alexander (VAULTE) USING M.A.C. COSMETICS

MODELS Gabriella, Kayley AND Shayna (MODE MODELS) STYLING ASSISTANCE BY Brendan Klem AND Jessie

à la

Mode

The world of fashion is always changing, but Calgary-based modelling agency Mode Models has managed to stay the course through 30 years. Having famously discovered supermodel-turned-actress Tricia Helfer and top models

Kim Renneberg and Heather Marks, Mode and its founder Kelly Streit have made their mark in the industry over the past three decades. In addition to Renneberg and Marks, Mode represents current sensation Meghan Collison, who was named 2017 Model of the Year by the Canadian Arts and Fashion Awards along with an impressive group of up-and-coming talent. Te three Mode models featured on these pages — Gabriella, Shayna and Kayley — are all rising stars destined to continue this fashion legacy over the coming decades.

FROM FAR LEFT

Li

ON GABRIELLA Etro top, $1,030, from Nordstrom; Gold Reign choker, $238; Konstantino dot necklace, $2,905, and John Blair frosted-quartz garnet and Sterling silver earrings, $825, all from Rubaiyat.

ON SHAYNA Etro kimono, $3,115, and See by Chloe crochet dress, $620, both from Nordstrom; gold choker, $120, Konstantino rhodolite Artemis necklace, $1,565, Konstantino onyx chain necklace with shield pendant, $1,000, Armenta diamond paisley lariat necklace, $8,900, and Armenta 18K gold mesh diamond earrings, $3,770, all from Rubaiyat.

ON KAYLEY Etro sweater, $2,095, Etro dress, $2,420, and black fringe earrings, $114, all from Nordstrom; gold choker, $120, John Blair necklace, $2,600, and Konstantino long necklace, $3,910, all from Rubaiyat.

THIS PAGE

Chloe cream dress, $2,145, layered over white-withblack-lace Jonathan Simkhai dress, $1,100, and Chloe turtleneck, $920, Chloe jacket, $385, and scarlet Celine bag, $4,750, all from Holt Renfrew.

OPPOSITE

ON KAYLEY Vivetta Niamey coat, $1,450; Vivetta Wellington sweater, $455, and Vivetta Bucharest skirt, $915, all from Simons; silver triple stud earrings, $190, from Malorie Urbanovitch.

ON GABRIELLA Kuboraum eyeglasses in Maske K5, $490 to $639, from Brass Monocle; Jacquemus white blouse, $885, and Jaquemus black high-waisted pants, $795, from Simons; silver double stud earrings, $160, and twist cuff, $320, from Malorie Urbanovitch.

ON SHAYNA Black studded sweatshirt, $350; Selma skinny leather pants, $695, and Iris long-hair faux-fur coat, $550, all Michael Michael Kors; earrings, $50, from Ooh La La Womenswear.

ON GABRIELLA See by Chloe top, $360, St. John gold trousers, $780; Kate Spade earrings, $78, and Sonix luxe-marble aviator sunglasses, $158, all from Nordstrom.

ON SHAYNA Burberry blouse, $500, Burberry

A-line skirt, $895, and Kate Spade earrings, $78, all from Nordstrom; Chrome Hearts Bella sunglasses, $2,025, from Brass Monocle.

ON KAYLEY Burberry sweater, $995, See by Chloe skirt, $475, Kate Spade earrings, $78, and Sonix luxe-marble sunglasses, $130, all from Nordstrom.

ON GABRIELLA

The Row ivory dress, $1,195, and jacket, $2,195, French Kande pearl necklace, $750, and medallion-tassel necklace, $750, all from Ooh La La Womenswear; freshwater strands scarf, $350, white-gold Makhlouf ring, $690; white-gold 59-diamonds ring $6,900, and white-gold 85-diamonds ring, $3,850, all from Carati.

ON KAYLEY

Hugo Boss red dress, $650; Hugo Boss jacket, $950; Shereene Rousseau hematite onyx necklace, $530, Shereene Rousseau pyrite necklace, $450, Shereene Rousseau long necklace, $370, and Shereene Rousseau earrings, $295, all from Blu’s; Celine sunglasses, $435, from Holt Renfrew.

ON GABRIELLA

Red/green fantasy-tweed coat, $14,250, pink grosgrain patchwork boots, $2,625, and pink flower garland, $7,650, all Chanel

Paris-Cosmopolite Metiers

d’Art collection from Chanel Boutique at Holt Renfrew.

ON KAYLEY Fantasy-tweed coat (with scarf), $11,150, frayed-tweed clutch, $4,700, golden crystal earrings, $3,050, navy/ black tulle headwear, $2,000, and black-mesh headwear, $775, all Chanel

Paris-Cosmopolite Metiers

d’Art collection from Chanel Boutique at Holt Renfrew.

ON SHAYNA Ecru dress, $3,450, scarf, $1650, and blouson jacket, $15,475, white patent calfskin laceup boots, $1,075, ivory headwear, $775, and ruthenium necklace, $1,250, all Chanel Paris-Cosmopolite Metiers d’Art collection from Chanel Boutique at Holt Renfrew.

ON SHAYNA Unttld red Rita coat, $3,500, and Unttld red June skirt, $350, from Shear Luxury; shooting star earrings, $595, and shooting star ring, $495, both from Birks; Gaucho Nero polka-dot pony-hair shoes, $220, from gravitypope.

ON GABRIELLA Sentaler long grey coat, $1,850, and Noel Asmar cropped trousers, $199, from Espy Experience; Muse choker, $495, Muse necklace, $1,195, Rock & Pearl collection necklace, $695, pearl and silver-ball necklace, $1,195, shooting star earrings (worn as single earring on model’s right ear), $695, shooting star earrings (worn as single earring on model’s left ear), $595, all from Birks; Gaucho Nero polkadot pony-hair shoes, $220, from gravitypope.

ON KAYLEY Unttld cream Stephan coat, $1,200, and Unttld cream Diane tunic, $585, from Shear Luxury; handmade cross necklace, $8,250, from Wong Ken’s Jewellery; Roberto Coin Princess Flower collection necklace, $15,240, earrings, $1,500, and ring, $3,900, Muse medallion, $1,695, and Roberto Coin Baracco diamond ring, $1,970, all from Birks; Gaucho Nero polka-dot pony-hair penny-loafer shoes, $220, from gravitypope.

For Sources turn to page 132

DESIGNED IN CALGARY

Four Calgary fashion designers create a custom piece for Avenue.

For the past three years, in our September issue, Avenue and contributing fashion editor Leah Van Loon have worked with selected Calgary designers to create custom pieces that allow their creative expression to bloom.

“Calgary designers ofen have to ignore what is fashion forward in order to serve their clientele, who ofen want something approachable or easy to understand,” says Van Loon. “I wanted to give our local fashion designers an opportunity to shine and the chance to express themselves in a way that their local clients might not have seen from them.”

Instead of ftting pieces by Calgary-based designers into a larger fashion shoot where they can get lost in the mix, Designed in Calgary focuses on the individual creations.

Tis year, we worked with four designers — Christina McFaddin, Irene Rasetti, Malika Rajani and Ellinor Stenroos. Each created something to be unveiled in this issue of Avenue that not only speaks to her aesthetic as a designer but also forges new territory creatively.

“Part of being a designer is having the ability to dream,” says Van Loon. “I have a requirement that the designers do that, and in as big a way as they can. Editorial pieces or exhibition pieces are meant to showcase a designer’s skills and allow them to create something without the constraints of making sales. It’s so great to see the designers respond to this challenge and discover some new inspiration, while also inspiring us.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jared Sych CONTRIBUTING FASHION EDITOR Leah Van Loon TEXT BY Ricky Zayshley

MALIKA RAJANI

malika-rajani.com

Malika Rajani lef a career in business and MBA studies to attend the school of fashion at Parsons in New York City. Afer working at two New York-based fashion companies, she returned to Calgary and opened Passioné, a womenswear boutique on 17th Avenue S.W., which she operated for four years.

While working at the boutique, Rajani would look at clothing by other designers and think, “I can do better.” So she did. She launched her own line in 2013 — a collection of silk dresses. But it wasn’t until Rajani was on the hunt for the perfect leather jacket that she found her true calling.

“I couldn’t fnd a leather jacket that I really liked — either the price point wasn’t right or the jacket wasn’t good enough. So I just designed one for myself,” she says. “And everybody started asking me where it was from.”

Rajani began designing leather jackets, skirts and pants with impeccable structure and tailoring inspired by her love of

architecture and by whatever type of leather she was working with. Her current line incorporates basket-weave leather made by an artisan group of senior citizens in China who use time-honoured traditional practices to make the material.

Here, Rajani continues to use architecture and materials

as a source of inspiration, but also charts new territory as a designer.

“I wanted to keep it really modern and edgy and very three dimensional,” she says. “I can just go into my creativity here. I don’t have to actually think about all the aspects of doing business.”

ELLINOR STENROOS, EVSTENROOS

evstenroos.com

Ellinor Stenroos’s childhood aspiration of becoming a princess, in a roundabout way, led her to a career as a jewellery designer. From her home in rural Finland,

she’d fip through publications about the royals of Europe and take note of the jewels. “I decided that this probably wasn’t in the cards for me, so I decided to make my own tiara,” she says.

Shortly afer graduating from high school, Stenroos enrolled in a one-year art program. At the end of the year she showed promise in metal-smithing and her instructor recommended that she continue her studies in the United Kingdom at what was then the Kent Institute of Art and Design.

Stenroos quickly discovered that her love of modern Scandinavian design and afnity for simple, clean lines set her work apart. “Jewellery is such an old-school profession; old-time techniques are still used today,” she says. “I always found it fascinating to see how you could push the boundaries and create better and further and smarter.”

In 2005, Stenroos fulflled another lifelong dream and moved to Canada when she landed a job in Calgary as a goldsmith. She eventually formed her own company, EVStenroos, where she creates minimalist, Germanicinspired jewellery from her bright, modern home studio.

Her creation for Designed in Calgary pushes Stenroos into a diferent style of jewellery design she doesn’t get to do very ofen, since she works mostly on commissions. “Tis is something completely different, very much toward the decadent baroque style, very Marie Antoinette,” she says. “It’s romantic, but diferent from my typical kind of sleek, Germanic fne jewellery.”

IRENE RASETTI

irenerasetti.com

When she was 20, the lure of a career as a fashion designer drew Irene Rasetti away from her hometown of Calgary to study at the famed Instituto Marangoni in Milan, Italy. Afer graduating, she worked at two luxury fashion houses, Gianfranco Ferré and Versace. At Versace she designed menswear for two and a half years. “My designer and fashion background taught me about how you put together a collection — the research, your mood board, your inspiration,” she says.

Afer moving back to Calgary, Rasetti thought she had lef the fashion world behind, but, eventually, it lured her back again. In 2005, she opened Shisomiso, a womenswear boutique she operated for four years in the former Art Central building downtown.

Now Rasetti creates whimsical women’s fashion using silk-wool fabric that she bundledyes using plant materials. “Te entire process of what I’m creating right now really is not only about making garments and things to sell, it’s actually quite healing and grounding, working with nature and being open to what I get,” she says. “I have to really let go.”

Here, Rasetti returns to her draping and pattern-making roots. “I’m my most uncomfortable in sewing and doing all the draping because I don’t do that as much anymore,” she says. “I want to create something that’s a little more interesting in terms of lines and free fow.”

HEALTHY, CONNECTED LIVING IN A VIBRANT FAMILY-FRIENDLY COMMUNITY

A fully master-planned community that embraces its natural surroundings, Carrington connects active, healthy living with beautiful home designs in one of Calgary’s most desirable NW locations. Within or adjacent to the community are ample green spaces, including the Rotary/Mattamy Greenway with paths connecting residents to the Green Corridor and amenities within the community. This inspiring collection of Townhomes and Detached homes is a unique community to live, play and grow.

CHRISTINA MCFADDIN, YEAR OF THE RAM yearoftheram.ca

Christina McFaddin’s childhood passion of sketching and drawing led her to study fashion design at Te Art Institute of Vancouver. Soon afer graduating she was

hired as a design assistant for a Los Angeles-based intimate apparel company.

Tere, she fell in love with the lingerie industry. But McFaddin says it was moving to Regina, Saskatchewan, in 2013 that allowed her to concentrate on her craf and gave her the time to start her line, Year of the Ram.

“I didn’t have any reason or any excuse stopping me from starting a brand,” she says.

McFaddin designs and produces each piece in the line from her bright-and-airy studio in Calgary. Year of the Ram’s fashion-forward line of bras, bralettes, bodysuits, robes and shapewear has garnered a devoted following in the prairie provinces. Tis past spring Year of the Ram began also selling pants, jackets and jumpsuits.

McFaddin’s piece for Designed in Calgary builds on this marriage of intimate apparel and ready-to-wear.

“I’m going for something that’s really deep, dark and moody,” she says. “With this, design, ft and structure are key. It’s almost like tailored lingerie, in a sense.”

EXAMINING CALGARY’S POST-SECONDARY SCHOOLS

BY Shannon Cleary ILLUSTRATED BY Dan Page

Calgary is home to fve public, two independent and several private post-secondary institutions and one of the most highly educated populations in Canada. As a new school year kicks of, we take a look at what our local educational institutions are doing to address the challenges of the current job market for new graduates, accommodate mature students who are upgrading or enhancing their skill sets and foster academic success for indigenous students.

EMPLOYMENT AFTER GRADUATION

When Haylee Sawchuk started her Bachelor of Science program afer graduating high school, her ultimate goal was to get a job in the medical feld. But while volunteering at Calgary’s South Health Campus, Sawchuk became more interested in the construction of the building than the hospital itself. She switched her focus to engineering and, afer two years of study at SAIT, earned a diploma in Civil Engineering Technology. “My plan is to work in the feld at a geo-technical level,” Sawchuk said. “I want to work with dirt.”

Before Sawchuk applied to her program at SAIT, she did her homework. She chose a feld of study with promising growth, low applicant-to-hire ratios, and a high graduate-employment rate. Sawchuk feels the skills she’s acquired match job postings in her feld and she hopes to fnd a position that ofers both permanency and career progression.

“I’m intimidated,” she said, “but I feel ready.”

It’s understandable why millennial graduates like Sawchuk might feel intimidated. Even federal fnance minister Bill Morneau publicly acknowledged at a speech in Niagara Falls last October that Canadians should get used to “job churn” and that high employee turnover and short-term contract work will continue in young people’s lives. Students are entering a job market that is trending away from permanent, long-term employment and toward temporary employment — a situation known as the “gig economy” — which requires nimble graduates who can fll multiple roles and efect change in a short amount of time.

Calgary’s post-secondary schools are evolving to respond. All institutions work closely with the local business community to narrow the gap between graduation and employment, and some use advisory councils, comprised of industry professionals, who identify the academic and non-academic skills employers are seeking.

According to David Docherty, president of Mount Royal University, today’s job requirements go beyond curriculum. “It’s not so much the knowledge of facts that’s going to prepare students for a lifetime in the workforce,” said Docherty. “It’s the ability to think critically, to communicate, and to problem-solve.”

Tese “sof skills” have always been symbiotic with academic coursework, but schools are now formally recognizing them through co-curricular records, which are ofcial records of volunteerism, student-engagement and student-leadership involvement, and “digital badges,” which demonstrate accomplishments in learning in ways that go beyond traditional credit coursework.

Institutions like Mount Royal are also increasingly recognizing the importance of internationalization in creating employable global citizens. Mount Royal has more than 60 partnerships with 26 diferent countries, and opportunities include international feld study, work-abroad practicums and internships.

Dru Marshall, provost at the University of Calgary, says fostering comprehensive student experience and enhancing employability by supporting achievements that go beyond academic classwork are key for preparing work-ready graduates. “I think institutions that are ensuring they put student experience front and centre are probably going to be more successful, and their graduates are going to be more successful,” she said.

LIFELONG LEARNING

Nicole Eitzen has worked in Calgary’s oil and gas industry for more than a decade. Since graduating with a commerce degree 20 years ago, Eitzen has pursued various certifcations linked to her career. “Tey always end up opening doors to new and different opportunities,” she said.

Eitzen is now enrolled in the Executive MBA program at the U of C’s Haskayne School of Business, a substantial investment of time and tuition for a mid-career professional such as herself. But Eitzen, who lef a supervisory role to concentrate on the program, said the investment is worth it to reach a job at the executive level and develop personally and professionally. “ Tese opportunities go a long way,” she said.

It’s perhaps no surprise that post-secondary enrollment increases during an economic downturn, as people like Eitzen upgrade while others are forced to change careers entirely. Whatever their reasons, professionals face a diferent set of barriers when re-entering the education system. “Typically, adults who need re-training ofen have other obligations like mortgages and kids,” said Brad Donaldson, vice-president academic at SAIT, “so they can’t necessarily embark on a fulltime study.

Like many Calgary intuitions, SAIT ofers a suite of credentialed programs for skill upgrading and post-degree training. Donaldson said short, specifc courses are available on campus and online to help address the demand for accessible, continuing education.

Schools are also incorporating new technologies and inter-disciplinary curriculum in response to the emerging requirements of Calgary’s workforce.

Bow Valley College ofers many full-time and part-time programs for adults — including those new to Canada — to address the challenges that immigrants face. According to Calgary Economic Development, immigrants account for 26 per cent of Calgary’s population; however, new Canadians do not always fnd work that matches their skills and education. For internationally educated professionals who meet the language requirements, Bow Valley College’s free Directions for Immigrants program helps address accreditation issues, provides career coaching and facilitates networking so professionals can secure jobs in their feld. Te college also provides a range of general programs for immigrants.

Elza Bruk is the dean of the Centre for Excellence in Immigrant and Intercultural Advancement at Bow Valley, which provides language and intercultural training and also works closely with local employers to help better integrate immigrants in the workforce.

“In order to build strong communities, you need individuals who have the opportunities to meet their career goals and to meet their aspirations for a good life in Canada,” said Bruk.

“ Tat makes all of us stronger.”

“IT’S NOT SO MUCH THE KNOWLEDGE OF FACTS THAT’S GOING TO PREPARE STUDENTS FOR A LIFETIME IN THE WORKFORCE. IT’S THE ABILITY TO THINK CRITICALLY, TO COMMUNICATE AND TO PROBLEM-SOLVE.”

— DAVID DOCHERTY, PRESIDENT, MOUNT ROYAL UNIVERSITY

INDIGENOUS ADVANCEMENT

Alisha Gordon, who is Dene and Metis, is entering her fourth year of a Bachelor of Arts program at the University of Calgary, but her path to post-secondary education wasn’t easy. Gordon did not fnish high school, but her grandparents eventually encouraged her to attend an outreach program where she could earn her diploma and position herself for higher education. While doing so, Gordon found another champion, her principal, who helped Gordon choose a transition program for indigenous learners at the University of Alberta. Gordon then transferred to the U of C to complete her undergraduate degree. She plans to eventually pursue a Masters of Education and work in policy.

“I feel like the education system sort of failed me,” said Gordon. “I want to make a more inclusive and meaningful education system here in Alberta.”

In its 2012 report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada outlined specifc Calls to Action for the kindergarten-to-grade 12 and post-secondary education systems to create meaningful, accessible experiences for indigenous learners. Te commission calls upon the federal government to work with Aboriginal peoples to draf new Aboriginal education legislation that incorporates culturally appropriate curricula. It also calls upon the federal government to provide adequate funding to end the backlog of First Nations students seeking post-secondary education and for post-secondary institutions to create university and college-degree and diploma programs in Aboriginal languages.

“ Tere is an appetite for universities to examine what they do and how they do it,” said John Fischer, director of Mount Royal University’s Iniskim Centre, which ofers programs and services to increase the engagement and success of indigenous students. Fischer, who is Cree and a member of the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan, says the “indigenization” of post-secondary institutes essentially means the “de-colonization” of our education system. “Historically, education has been something that has happened to us, not involved us,” he said.

Fischer notes that the advancement of indigenous learners begins with examining curricula and enhancing the connection to students and student support services. Several of Calgary’s educational institutions have implemented (or are in the process of implementing) strategies to further

these goals, which include providing safe gathering spaces, developing inclusive curricula and teaching methods, providing housing and support services and engaging with Elders.

Tere have also been initiatives to incorporate visual representations of art on campus and honour traditional lands. “It’s such a simple thing to have that symbolism, but it means a lot,” said Gordon. “It shows that they recognize where they are.”

While the U of C is currently fnalizing its Indigenous Strategy, university provost Dru Marshall, who also serves as co-chair of the strategic committee, said the process has been guided by input from an Elder advisory council

and includes indigenous co-chairs at every level. “It was important for University of Calgary to do this right,” she said. “ Te Calls to Action are fundamentally about resetting the relationship with the indigenous community, and that’s the way we’re viewing our strategy.”

Gordon said she has attended on-campus “dialogues” at the U of C and is eager to learn how students ft into the implementation. She said it’s important for indigenous learners to have a community of support. “Our whole system of values is in community,” she said. “We want to be learning with everybody else, but to have that support [on campus] is the most important thing.”

“I FEEL THE EDUCATION SYSTEM SORT OF FAILED ME. I WANT TO MAKE A MORE INCLUSIVE AND MEANINGFUL EDUCATION SYSTEM HERE IN ALBERTA.”

—ALISHA GORDON, BACHELOR OF ARTS STUDENT (FOURTH YEAR), UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

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September 1, 2017

SCHOOL NEWS

Creative Tech

Bow Valley College’s new School of Creative Technologies is a response to the “creative revolution” said to be sweeping Alberta’s industries. The interdisciplinary school combines technical skills with design-driven application in a range of subjects such as interior decorating, kitchen and bath design, digital marketing and software development.

Fall Break

Mount Royal University has added a second reading week to its academic calendar, making it the first post-secondary school in Calgary to incorporate a week-long break in its fall term. The break allows students to prioritize well-being as well as academic success and is one of several mental-health initiatives taken by the administration and Students’ Association.

World Class

Last November, the Alberta College of Art and Design (ACAD) announced that its Substantial Equivalency designation from NASAD (National Association of Schools of Art and Design) had been renewed, this time for the maximum period of 10 years. ACAD received the presitgious designation for the first time back in 2009, making it the first post-secondary institution to receive Substantial Equivalency outside of the United States. Currently, it is the only independent art, craft and design postsecondary institution in Canada to have this designation. Substantial Equivalency means ACAD degrees are fully recognized in the U.S., making it easier for graduates to pursue graduate school or work in the U.S. and around the world.

A New Market

SAIT launches its newest downtown culinary campus this month. The Tastemarket is a 9,000-square-foot open kitchen and retail space that will serve as an incubator for culinary entrepreneurs to create and market their products to the public. Tastemarket will also feature stations for charcuterie, patisserie, flatbreads and other creations.

REMOVING BARRIERS

St. Mary’s University’s Humanities 101 is a free program for low-income adults. Students in the program have often experienced barriers or interruptions to their education, such as poverty, abuse, addiction or homelessness. Humanities 101 provides a safe space where students and staff meet two days per week for four months to study literature, history, music, culture, philosophy and art history with the goal of improving learning, communication, analytical skills and confidence to pursue further education. The program also provides free child care, books, transit and meals. It receives no government funding and is paid for with private donations.

Going Global

The University of Calgary’s International Strategy aims to bolster international diversity on campus by increasing the number of international students, which currently accounts for seven per cent of its undergraduate population and 29 per cent of its graduate-student population. The U of C also has a goal of getting 50 per cent of all its Canadian students to travel internationally as part of their program of study. These goals are in line with the university’s Eyes High 2017 to 2022 strategic vision.

Further Education

Ambrose University, a Christian university and seminary in Calgary that offers accredited degrees in arts and science, education and business, launched an afterdegree program in education in the fall of 2010. The after-degree is designed for mature students with an undergraduate education who wish to teach in elementary schools. The program honoured its first round of graduates in spring of 2012. Since then, Ambrose reports that 95 per cent of students who complete the after-degree program in education have found teaching jobs.

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BY Andrew Guilbert

While everyone pays lip service to creativity, there are a number of Calgarians who’ve taken it upon themselves to live lives guided by it. Whether it be in the arts, education or service industry, here are some of the people who make Calgary a more creative place to live.

Photo by Jason Stang

ver the past year, Stephen Hunt has come to know a lot of interesting Calgarians. Te freelance writer has been interviewing dozens of locals, from 12-year-old robot builders to lifelong street musicians, and writing profles of them for Te Storytelling Project, which spotlights people who are forging their own path in new and creative ways.

Te Storytelling Project is part of a larger initiative, Living A Creative Life (LCL), created by Calgary Arts Development Authority (CADA) in 2014. So far, Hunt estimates he has written more than three dozen profles for CADA’s website. “You always sort of wonder if we’re going to run out of people to write about, and then you come up with a whole bunch of new people who live their lives in unconventional, creative ways,” he says. “Calgarians keep surprising me.”

Among Hunt’s favourite profles is Karen Anderson, who started Calgary Food Tours in 2006 afer more than two decades working as a nurse. Her journey to become an advocate for Calgary’s food scene paralleled Calgary’s emergence as an up-and-coming food city, says Hunt. Another person he loved writing about is Lori Beattie, author of the books Calgary’s Best Bike Rides and Trails and Calgary’s Best Walks, who encourages people to explore the city with the kind of adventurous spirit that they would have for the mountain areas.

Te people Hunt profles for CADA aren’t necessarily artists — but their approach to life

is in and of itself creative, which is what the LCL tries to promote. “ Tey’re defning how they want to live their lives according to their own preferences and passions, rather than trying to adopt a template that they saw on television or in a magazine,” says Hunt.

LCL doesn’t give out grants, sponsor artists or create projects (aside from Te Storytelling Project). Instead, according to CADA’s Patti Pon, it seeks to galvanize the multitude of creative resources already out there by raising awareness of them, so that the creativity of everyday lives can serve as inspiration, helping people to realize that everyone can contribute to the vitality of the city by living their own creative life. “Part of living a creative life is actual, intentional awareness that you are an example,” says Pon. “We all have our role to play in contributing to building this city.”

One way LCL raises awareness is by asking local businesses and organizations that embody its principles to become signatories to the initiative. Tese signatory organizations agree to contribute in their own way to making Calgary a more connected place through their creative endeavours, hopefully inspiring others to follow suit.

Calgary’s Village Brewery counts itself among the LCL signatories and has since been inspired to dust of its Village Radio program. Te brewery had shelved the podcast, in which local celebrity host Dave Kelly interviews inspiring Calgarians over beers, in 2015. “Signing and having the conversation with [CADA] reminded us that we have the responsibility to bring that thing back,” says Village co-founder Jim Button. Te episodes

now pull double duty as a Village initiative as well as adding to Te Storytelling Project. At the time of writing, the podcast had more than 75 episodes and 200,000 downloads. “Its purpose is to fnd, share and celebrate those great stories of people doing things in the city,” says Button. ”It’s important that other people say, ‘Wow, that’s in Calgary? I’m inspired by that. I’m going to do that.’”

According to Button, creativity is an essential ingredient in Village’s brews. “Beer is just ingredients, time and temperature, but if you took the exact same ingredients and gave them to 100 brewers, they could come up with hundreds of thousands of styles of beer,” he says. “It’s a very creative process — not only in the course of making it, but in how you distribute it, how you package it, how you sell it and how you use it to support the arts community.”

Button says he believes the arts are the backbone of society and he wants to live out that belief as much as possible, which is why Village signed the LCL. “It’s a reminder of why we are a brewery and why we do what we do every day. Being a signatory is yet another one of those things you put on a wall, so that people go, ‘Right, that’s who we are, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing,’” he says. “Without people living their creative lives, [the city] would quickly become stagnant, boring and a lousy place to live.”

Village also has a stake in the arts community through sponsorships of events like Reggaefest and Blues Fest, in addition to co-founding an annual gathering of food trucks with musical performances and other live entertainment. (Formerly known as the Circle the Wagons Festival, this year’s event on Sept. 9 will include the announcement of a new name for the festival, to be more inclusive of all communities.) Village also created a gallery space at its Calgary production headquarters and each year invites artists in to display and sell their work.

While Village Brewery exemplifes the breadth of the term “creative” in its processes, community outreach and side projects, other signatories to the LCL are more traditional in their approach.

One of the frst groups to sign on to LCL was the Calgary Board of Education (CBE). At the time the group signed on, Julie Barton, a fne-arts of-campus specialist with the CBE, co-chaired a fne-arts advisory committee within the CBE. Barton says at that time some sections of the arts curriculum hadn’t been updated in nearly three decades. “Tere was no flm studies, there was nothing digital, and dance didn’t exist, except as a sport. Tere were some real concerns.

“THEY’RE DEFINING HOW THEY WANT TO LIVE THEIR LIVES ACCORDING TO THEIR OWN PREFERENCES AND PASSIONS, RATHER THAN TRYING TO ADOPT A TEMPLATE THAT THEY SAW ON TELEVISION OR IN A MAGAZINE.”

–Stephen Hunt, The Storytelling Project

photograph by Jason Stang; Circle the Wagons Festival photograph No. 7 by Breeze Photography; CTWF photograph No. 8 by Britt Rose

“WITHOUT PEOPLE LIVING THEIR CREATIVE LIVES, THE CITY WOULD QUICKLY BECOME STAGNANT, BORING AND A LOUSY PLACE TO LIVE.”

–Jim Button, co-founder, Village Brewery

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1. Living a Creative Life’s photo of the month for April 2017 (selected from the pool of Instagram shots with the hashtag #yycLCL) by Rachel Rose. 2. Photo of the month for November 2016 by Andy Nichols. 3. Photo of the month for January 2017 by Dillon (Ding-Chao) Huang. 4. Village Brewery’s Jim Button and host Dave Kelly recording for Village Radio. 5. A Village Brewery-sponsored event in downtown Calgary. 6. Village Brewery’s gallery space. 7, 8. Scenes from the Circle the Wagons Festival. 9. Festival organizers with Mayor Naheed Nenshi.

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Te [provincial] government asked us to prototype what arts education might look like, so one of our frst actions was getting our arts community together with CADA. Tey brought us together in a summit and we started to ask ourselves, ‘What is arts education?’”

One of the conclusions drawn from the summit was that students needed hands-on programs where they could create their own art and interact with artists in authentic ways rather than just by listening to them. Tis realization, says Barton, was a huge turning point for both the CBE and its art partners.

Barton points to new collaborations with groups such as the Royal Conservatory of Music, Calgary Opera and Alberta Teatre Projects, where they have partnered to develop a model of learning based on students being participants, rather than spectators. “One of the great things about this is our community has learned the great capacity of our kids,” says Barton. “In the past, where [the students] would have sat and watched, they’re now actually writing scripts, they’re producing productions, they’re working with and alongside people in the creative industries.”

One of the CBE’s goals afer signing the LCL was to pursue research in related areas of

interest. One such area is socially empowered learning, which is group-based learning that allows students to take a hands-on approach, creating videos or writing plays, for example, that address weighty subject matter such as environmental and human-rights issues. One example of this is Kids Go Global, a partnership between schools, non-government organizations and local children’s theatre company Trickster Teatre. In the program, kids from kindergarten through grade 12 have an opportunity to learn about everything from disaster relief to the importance of water and create media about what they’ve learned.

Research into socially empowered learning conducted by the Rozsa Foundation found that there is an increase in intellectual engagement, social empowerment and entrepreneurial spirit when arts are integrated into a program. Te research also found that English-as-secondlanguage learners scored higher on intellectual engagement in arts-based programs than children whose frst language was English. Similarly, creative approaches have greatly beneftted the kids at the Autism Aspergers Friendship Society of Calgary (AAFS). Te AAFS is dedicated to helping those with autism

and Asperger’s syndrome lead fulflling lives through its programming.

AAFS founder Dean Svoboda believes that creative outlets like flm and music can provide kids with ways to engage with the community.

“A lot of folks with autism, they just think diferently, and sometimes through therapies some of those creative ways of thinking or being can be limited, taken away or prevented,” says Svoboda. “We really encourage our kids to think for themselves, express themselves, be creative and go with their ideas.”

At AAFS, creativity is used all the time in trying new approaches to engaging kids, such as getting them involved in martial arts or creating a space for them to hang out and plan activities on Friday nights. Some of the ways AAFS encourages the kids in its programs is through workshops such as a journalism program, where participants create the MagAAFSzine, an in-house publication that includes everything from short stories and interviews to comic strips. Another successful endeavour, which began in 2010, is AAFS’s movie program, where members learn about storytelling, collaborate on making movies and express themselves through flm.

Te society also has programs covering visual arts, parkour, tae kwon do and new media. “It’s

1. Representatives from Alberta Theatre Projects working with students from the Calgary Board of Education’s Fresh Prints playwriting program. 2. A former participant in the AAFS movie-project program who went on to a career in sports broadcasting.

CBE photograph by Neil Flemming

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“WE ALL SHOULD BE LIVING CREATIVE LIVES TO OUR FULLEST CAPACITY, WHETHER THAT ’ S BEING A PROFESSIONAL ARTIST, OR LEARNING HOW TO PUT LEGO BLOCKS TOGETHER TO MAKE A SCULPTURE.”

–Dean Svoboda, founder,

Autism Aspergers Friendship Society of Calgary

about diferent environments, diferent people, diferent experiences and being open to those things” says Svoboda. “A lot of what we do is teaching our kids to engage in new environments, which can be difcult for a lot of them.”

Te advantage of working with the arts, says Svoboda, is that the communities are very accepting of diferences. Being a signatory to the Living A Creative Life strategy means they can provide an example to others of how to better integrate creativity into their lives. “Being able to express each individual’s idea of living a creative life, and to get that idea out there [is vital]. We all should be living creative lives to our fullest capacity, whether that’s being a professional artist, or learning how to put Lego blocks together to make a sculpture. Everybody needs that creativity.”

One of Svoboda’s favourite AAFS success stories features a boy named Anton. “He was told throughout life he would never graduate, he would never really write, he probably wouldn’t drive,” Svoboda says. Growing up, Anton loved sports and going to the Saddledome. He was particularly fascinated by the bank of cameras at the arena and took in every detail of how they worked. He was able to take his interest in cameras and flming further through AAFS’s movie-project program, and parlayed that into a spot in Mount Royal’s broadcasting program. Anton has since graduated from the broadcasting program and now works for the Calgary Flames on their cameras.

“One of the big inspirations for our youth is to say, ‘At one time, Anton was just a guy like you, with a lot of these challenges; he’s overcome them and so can you,’” says Svoboda.

While it may not be immediately clear, LCL proposes that there is a through line from the experience of someone like Karen Anderson to Anton. Tey are each one of a multitude of Calgarians whose lives have been changed thanks to creativity and creative approaches to living, and those changes in themselves have a positive efect on others as well.

From CADA’s perspective, this ripple efect is one of the more important results of living a creative life — inspiring others in the community and helping them dip their toes into living a more creative life. Says Button: “You’ll be amazed at how that one step of creativity opens up your mind to a whole pile of diferent activities, thoughts, emotions, people and opportunities.”

HOW TO START LIVING YOUR CREATIVE LIFE

Paying lip service to the importance of creativity is easy. Following through is more difficult, especially when you don’t know where to begin. Here are a few ideas to help kick start your creative streak.

DIY your new terrarium

Want to combine creativity and your budding green thumb? The terrarium workshops at Plant will place you in a group of eight to 12 people and teach you how to decorate a beautiful glass home for your newest flora. They provide all the supplies (though you can bring your own container, if you so choose), you just have to register and show up. 1327 9 Ave. S.E., 403-585-4226, plantterrariums.ca/workshops

other people are already doing it and some of them have formed a Meetup group based around that activity or hobby. There are groups centered around writing, learning new languages, board games and ball games, so sign up and discover your latest passion in a welcoming, likeminded environment.

meetup.com/cities/ca/ab/calgary/

Borrow an instrument from the library

Mix

paint

and pinot at Vin Gogh

If you’ve never put brush to canvas, painting class can be an intimidating space. To take the edge off, try one of Vin Gogh’s paint-and-sip nights. Patrons are provided with all the materials (and liquid courage) they need, and an instructor provides stepby-step guidance during each session, ensuring you’ll come out with a beautiful painting to call your own.

118, 7004 MacLeod Trail S.E. 403-475-4644, vingogh.ca

Try improv Calgary is home to a number of improv groups, most of which offer classes. The grand-daddy of the local improv schools, Loose Moose, is recognized worldwide for its techniques. You can also check out Calgary Improv, which offers courses co-produced by local performing groups The Kinkonauts and Obviously Improv. Whether you’re looking for a foundations class or complete mastery of all things funny on the fly, they’ve got a class for you. calgaryimprov.org/school, loosemoose.com

Volunteer with an arts group

Many arts organizations in Calgary rely on volunteers to keep everything running. Vertigo Theatre, Calgary Opera, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and others have volunteer positions such as ticket taker or usher, that you can take on in exchange for the opportunity to experience their productions for free. It’s a great way to experience the performing arts if you’re on a tight budget.

Join a Meetup group

Odds are that if there’s something you’re interested in doing,

One of the biggest hurdles to learning a new instrument is the cost of the instrument itself. This past summer, the Calgary Public Library introduced a number of instruments to its collection, which patrons can borrow for three weeks at a time from the Memorial Park Library branch. The collection includes guitars, banjos, violins, keyboards and various percussion instruments. While you’re at it, borrow a book or DVD on learning to play the instrument and maybe teach yourself some new tunes.

calgarylibrary.ca/ borrow-a-musical-instrument/

Plant

photo by Alysa van Haastert

LEFT Paint-and-sip night at Vin Gogh. ABOVE Components for Plant's terrarium workshop.

GALLERY WATCH

Contemporary Calgary

Never the Same is a two-day art writing symposium featuring 20 Canadian and international artists and writers in an exploration of new, expanded and critical writing in contemporary art. With distinguished keynote speaker, Chris Kraus

Engineered Air Theatre

234 9 AVE SE, Calgary, Alberta, T2G 5C4

For tickets: 403 294 9494 neverthesame.ca

Transformation Fine Art

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Specializing in Masterworks of Inuit art, the intimate experience of Canada’s first Inuit art gallery owned by an Inuk, Sophia Lebessis, edifies the refined Inuit imagination for art enthusiasts.

www.transformationfineart.com

403-615-2038

Grain Exchange Building

#202 - 815 1st Street SW

Calgary, AB, T2P 1N3

Esker Foundation

Mary Anne Barkhouse

Le Rêve aux Loups

Guest curated by Jennifer Rudder

Postcommodity

A Very Long Line

September 16 - December 22

Free Admission - Complimentary Parking

Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 11am - 6pm

Join us for Esker Evenings -Thursday & Friday nights open till 8pm

Esker Foundation

4th floor, 1011 9 Ave S.E.

Calgary, Alberta, T2G 0H7

403 930 2490

eskerfoundation.com

@EskerFoundation

Image credit: Mary Anne Barkhouse, Treats for Coyote (detail). Courtesy the Koffler Gallery. Photograph Rafael Goldchain.

Turn glass into art

At Artopia Studios, you can turn old into new with kiln-fired glass — the process of fusing glass at high temperatures. Melting multiple bits of colourful glass together creates a piece that is completely unique. Mold anything from bowls to wine racks, or take a shot at crafting a glass clock. The class includes equipment, tools and an endless supply of glass. Drop-ins are welcome anytime the studio is open and no previous experience is required.

106 61 Ave. S.W., 403-238-5055, artopiastudiosinc.com/ glass-fusing.html

Sing your heart out with an amateur choir

If you’re looking to find your voice but don’t have a lot of confidence, you can join one of the city’s many amateur choirs for camaraderie and encouragement. Groups like Vocal Latitudes, Up2Something and Second Chants (the adult recreational division of the Calgary Youth Singer) are all non-audition choirs that accept beginners as new members and hold regular rehearsals.

vocalatitudes.org, up2something. org, youthsingers.org/programs/ second-chants/

Learn to knit or crochet

If soft and cozy is your style, then a knitting or crochet class could be the perfect way to indulge your creativity. At Stash Needle Art Lounge, knitters and crocheters of all levels are welcome. Take the Learn to Knit class if it’s your first time picking up needles, or get hooked on the Learn to Crochet class. Once you've mastered casting on, purling and cabling, there are more advanced classes available as well.

1237 9 Ave. S.E., 403-457-0766, stashlounge.com

Make your own jewellery

Are you missing a staple piece in your jewellery box? Stop searching through etsy and make it yourself at Beadles Beads & Jewellery. With thousands of beads to choose from, you can be as outlandish or minimalist as you please. Design bracelets, necklaces, earrings, or any jewelled piece your heart desires. They offer free daily drop-in classes you can take when you purchase your supplies from the store, as well as hour-long classes where you can learn to bead, make Mala necklaces or create bead looms.

1606 7 St. S.W., 403-245-1562, beadlesbeads1.ca

Find a space to create

If you’re a creative type but don’t have a space to pursue your projects, spacefinder.org is worth a visit. The international site lists available spaces, classified into sections such as performance, exhibition, rehearsal and screening, to help you find the right space for whatever you want to do.

alberta.spacefinder.org

—Andrew Guilbert and Ashley King

Stash photograph by Hero Images; Up2Something choir photo by Buhler’s World Photography

1. The Learn to Knit class at Stash Needle Art Lounge. 2. A fused-glass bowl created at Artopia Studios. 3. A performance featuring the Up2Something and She’s Up2Something amateur choirs.

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GROWTH IN THE DOWN TURN

BY Julia Williams ILLUSTRATIONS BY Shirley Vuong

During the summer of 2014 a barrel of Western Canada

Select oil cost $86.56 US. By January of 2016 it was down to $17.88 US. Te drop, sudden and brutal, knocked the wind out of the whole city.

By the fall of 2016 Calgary’s unemployment rate had climbed to 10.2 per cent, the highest of any city in Canada at the time, and 6,527 more people moved away from the city than moved in that year. Layofs and shutdowns hollowed out more than 10 million square feet of ofce space in the downtown core, lifing the commercial vacancy rate from around eight per cent in 2014 to 25 per cent in 2017. Te city’s apartment vacancy rate climbed to seven per cent last fall, the highest in 25 years.

Yet, through this whole time, ofce space has been under construction downtown, new communities continue to lace the city’s edges and multi-family condos are multiplying on Calgary’s streets like white-tailed jackrabbits. Why, if we’re in a recession, do we keep building new places to live and work?

One explanation is that development is a big-picture game. A three-year decline, no matter how steep, is just a pothole in a very long road. Much of the digger, cement-mixer and crane action we’re seeing around Calgary today got rolling years ago, long before the price of oil began to fall.

Guy Huntingford, CEO of BILD Calgary Region, a group that advocates on behalf of builders and developers, says most people don’t understand how long the development process is, particularly when it comes to new communities, or what the industry calls greenfeld development.

“If you’re in the middle of that cycle you can’t just turn it of,” Huntingford says. Te process of securing fnancing, planning and getting approvals can take six years or more. A project like Telus Sky, a 60-storey mixed-use tower expected to open downtown by 2018, would have been securing leases four year ago.

Andrew Davidson, vice-president of sales and marketing at Cardel Homes, says that while it’s possible to slow down on future phases, it’s not just difcult to switch of and stop selling an inprogress project — it’s bad business. “You’re shelving millions of dollars in consulting, time, fees, approvals, City time,” he says. “ Tink of it like a factory. Te factory takes too long to produce the widget for you to sit back and say, well, it’s not a busy time right now, so let’s just stop.”

Why does the factory take so long to produce the widget? Well, it’s a complicated widget. You can’t build any sort of structure

without thinking about how it will interact with the land it sits on. You defnitely can’t plan a new community of 11,000 homes without wading into the details of land-use bylaws, zoning regulations and infrastructure requirements.

Allan Klassen, senior vice-president of homes at Brookfeld Residential and past chair of BILD Calgary Region, says developers can’t just plan communities however they want, nor can they change plans instantly when market conditions shif. “Te reality is that development and planning is very heavily policy-driven,” he says. Te relationship between the building and development industry and City Hall is therefore deeply — and necessarily — collaborative. And that collaboration takes time.

Stuart Dalgleish, general manager of planning and development for the City of Calgary, says the public and private sides of the building sector have more in common than people might appreciate. If you put the vision statements for the City and for BILD Calgary Region side by side, they’re practically identical — both are concerned with making good places to live.

For builders and developers, this means aligning projects with the goals of the Municipal Development Plan, a 182-page document (with many supplementary documents) that provides a framework for the next 60 years of growth and development in Calgary. It also means working with the City on an ongoing basis to keep projects on track. For the City, it means fnding ways to support and accelerate such projects, as well as development-friendly City-built infrastructure projects such as interchanges, road improvements, parks and utility infrastructure.

In August 2016, as a response to the downturn, the City of Calgary came up with the Capital Infrastructure Investment Strategy, which allows “shovel-ready” public projects — those projects ready to launch as soon as they secure public funding — to move ahead without waiting out the usual funding approval process. As of March 2017, the strategy had helped push 21 projects forward, including an interchange at Glenmore Trail and 68 Street S.E. that will open land supply for industrial development. Without the strategy, these projects could have been in limbo for up to four years.

If it seems odd that City Hall would respond to a downturn by accelerating major development projects, keep in mind that Calgary’s economy depends on construction. According to Dalgleish, construction accounts for about 10 per cent of the total number of Calgary economic region jobs, and province-wide, construction employs almost twice as many people as the energy sector. Putting construction projects on hold during periods of economic strife would make a bad situation worse.

Another factor driving building and development right now is that an economic downturn makes money cheap to get. Todd Hirsch, chief economist for ATB Financial, says the current lowered borrowing rates make this a great time to secure money for residential investment or fnancing. Labour is slightly more afordable and available during the downturn, too, says Robert Duteau, senior vice president for Grosvenor Americas, an international real estate development company that recently completed two new condo towers in the Beltline (Smith and Drake) and is in the construction phase for a two-tower condo development in the west end of downtown.

Despite headlines screaming about the highest vacancy rates this city has seen in decades, the cranes keep turning and the bulldozers keep moving dirt. We asked developers and the City what keeps buildings going up during a downturn.

Why, if we’re in a recession, do we keep building new places to live and work?

Land is also more afordable during a downturn. Lamb Development Corp. is currently at work on two major developments in the city (6th & Tenth and Te Orchard) and is in the process of acquiring land for two more projects in Mission and Victoria Park. President and CEO Brad Lamb says a downturn is an excellent time for a developer to invest in land, or for an individual to invest in a home. “Te best time to buy is when people don’t want to buy,” he says. So development continues for several reasons, but it’s not business as usual — the downturn has taken its toll. According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, single-detached housing starts in Calgary declined by about 36 per cent in 2015 and another 16 per cent in 2016. Dalgleish says the City of Calgary saw a decline both in building permit applications and in the value of those applications in 2016, and the 2016 Calgary Census report shows that 3,490 fewer dwellings were under construction in 2016 than in 2015.

Davidson of Cardel Homes says the home-building sector (the side of the industry that designs and creates buildings) works on a shorter time line than the development sector (which designs and creates neighbourhoods) — six to nine months rather than six-plus years. He says the building sector has seen a 30- to 40-per-cent decline during this downturn. “We’ve defnitely built a lot less houses than we did pre-downturn,” Davidson says, noting that staf reductions have happened industry-wide, as have “price corrections” — a euphemism for lower overall house prices. Indeed, the Calgary Real Estate Board reported lower year-over-year benchmark prices on every type of housing product in every corner of the city in 2016. Even so, downturn or no downturn, people are buying homes. “ Tere are communities that are selling like hotcakes still,” says Huntingford. Northeast communities like Genstar’s Savanna and Brookfeld’s Livingston are selling well, possibly because of pentup demand for product in that quadrant.

Builders who have managed to perform well in a solid market niche are thriving, too. Rockwood Custom Homes, which focuses on high-end, bespoke products like the Residences of King Edward in South Calgary and high-end single-family boutique homes, increased its growth by 100 per cent in the last year and a half. Company president Allison Grafon says the middle of the housing market has been hit hard by the downturn, but those same conditions have brought better-qualifed clients to the luxury market. “Te upper end of the sector is educated and knowledgeable about what they want and what they’ll pay for. Most people that come to us, they move ahead.” Grafon says.

Lamb says no matter the economic circumstances, there’s always a market for property. “People need and want to own a home. You can stop them only for so long,” he says. When Lamb Development held an April 2017 sales event for Te Orchard, a pair of 31-storey condo towers in Victoria Park, it sold 20 units in three hours. Far from being concerned about the future of Calgary’s housing market, Lamb is convinced we’ll see a land value boom by 2019, and that the economy will thrive again — and soon. “Right now I’d qualify the Alberta market, if 10 out of 10 is insanity, right now we’re a fve. By the end of this year we’ll be a seven. And by the end of 2018 we’ll be a 10,” he says.

BILD Calgary Region’s Huntingford is more cautious in his optimism. He views the downturn as a natural, if severe, market oscillation that will recover in time. Economists and analysts support this point of view: Richard Cho, principal Calgary market analyst for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, says it’s not the frst time Calgary’s housing market has survived a slowdown; during the fnancial crisis nine years ago, the numbers were no more promising. “Total housing starts had declined by about 15 per cent in 2008 and about 45 per cent in 2009,” Cho says.

“

Tis time around housing starts had declined by about 24 per cent in 2015 and about 29 per cent in 2016.”

Hirsch says what we’re seeing is a severe price correction, but not an unusual one. Nor is it, from a purely dispassionate economic standpoint, a wholly undesirable one. In 2014 the market was overheated and wages were artifcially high. Industries other than the oil and gas sector found it hard to do business here. Te downturn will hopefully help to diversify the economy and attract talent to the province. “It is a recalibrating of wages, employment and expectations in this city and this province that are, in fact, going to put this city and this province in a healthier economic space,” Hirsch says.

Another upside of the downturn is that it forces developers and builders to get creative about afordability — it’s a great time to

The middle of the housing market has been hit hard by the downturn, but those same conditions have brought betterqualified clients to the luxury market.

come up with new ideas for housing product. Te process, which involves proposals, approvals and zoning changes, takes time, but Davidson says some afordability-driven innovations are currently making their way through the industry — a “29-foot, zero-lotline” product, for example, which takes a standard 32-foot-wide lot, narrows it and pushes the property to the edges. “Any downturn forces you to re-evaluate your product oferings,” says Davidson.

Ryan Boyd, senior vice-president of communities for Brookfeld Residential, says a downturn ofers an opportunity to reconsider factors that have been static for the last generation, such as lot depth and site coverage (the percentage of a lot that has a house on it). Currently, Calgary’s maximum site-coverage allowance is 70 per cent, but Boyd says some U.S. communities have houses that cover up to 95 per cent of their lots. Increasing coverage could allow for new products not currently on the market. It also promotes densifcation, one of the goals of Calgary’s Municipal Development Plan.

Te downturn is also having an efect on the funding model for multi-family projects. Duteau of Grosvenor says most developers are required to pre-sell 40 per cent of a condo project’s units to secure fnancing. Now, some developers are opting to create apartment buildings instead, which allows for diferent funding models. Several new apartment projects entered the market in 2016, including Torode Realty’s 54-unit building in Inglewood, Maple Projects’ 1215 tower in the Beltline and One Properties’ Versus, also in the Beltline. Duteau says that despite being spawned by market uncertainty, these new units are meeting a real market need. “Calgary has had hardly any rental apartment buildings built for over 30 years,” he says.

Taking an optimistic approach to riding out a slump is great in theory, if you’re sure the market will right itself. Fortunately, that expectation is proving reasonable as the worst of the downturn appears to be over. Te CMHC has forecast stronger housing markets in 2018. Housing starts were up in the frst quarter of 2017, driven by the improvement in the economy and the stabilization of oil prices at around $50 USD. Employment rates are also slowly climbing. Te City of Calgary anticipates positive net migration of 1,600 in 2017, a modest number compared to the decade-long annual average of more than 14,000 people, but still, these small shifs can drive housing demand and improve market confdence.

As for the commercial sector, its recovery will not depend exclusively on the fortunes of the oil and gas sector: Calgary is marketing itself as an ideal place for many types of corporations — including green energy and technology — to set up headquarters. Calgary Economic Development is actively luring U.S. and Chinese companies to Calgary’s empty ofce space; in May 2017 the organization claimed it had 250 leads and had signed 10 non-disclosure agreements. Huntingford says there are solid, fscally responsible reasons for a company to relocate here. “When we say we think it’s volatile here, [non-Calgarians] just laugh,” he says. “Tey look at this as an amazingly stable, developed, well-run, politically stable city.”

Hirsch believes the city is on a path to recovery and that it’s going to be a more resilient place with a more diverse and healthy economy. “Calgary is a diferent city than it was 30 years ago. It’s a lifestyle and destination city,” he says. “Developers realize there’s more than just jobs keeping people here.”

MORE NEW DEVELOPMENTS

In addition to those mentioned in the story, here are some other buildings of note rising in the city.

Alt Hotel

The $40 million Alt Hotel by Groupe Germain is projected to open in 2018 in the East Village. The 11-storey building will feature 155 rooms and 5,000 square feet of meeting space.

Brookfield Place

At 247 metres, the 56-storey east tower of this downtown office complex will be the tallest building in Western Canada. The tower is set to be completed this year and will have Cenovus Energy as a primary tenant.

The Concord

Vancouver-based Concord Pacific’s luxury condo project in West Eau Claire has private garages, a water garden and a seasonal skating rink.

The Hat

This 28-storey tower will be the first new residential rental development in the revitalized East Village with 123 two-bedroom and 32 three-bedroom units and child care on the main level.

Radius in Bridgeland

This seven-storey, 201-unit condo development welcomes its first residents this fall. Amenities include a rooftop terrace with urban garden and private yoga and training studios.

Rocky Ridge Recreation Facility

Set to open in early 2018, this complex on the city’s northwest edge will have an eight-lane competition swimming pool, multi-purpose ice rink, 300-seat theatre, skateboard park and the city’s first self-service branch of the Calgary Public Library.

Sky Pointe Seniors Community

Located in Skyview Ranch, this residence for aging seniors is a twophase project: the 352-suite assistedliving building is set to open in 2018, and the 89-unit independent-living phase in 2019. —Andrew Jeffrey

“When we say we think it’s volatile here, non-Calgarians just laugh. They look at this as an amazingly stable, developed, wellrun, politically stable city.”

— Guy Huntingford, CEO, BILD Calgary Region

Unsafe at Home, Lost in the System

BY Marzena Czarnecka ILLUSTRATIONS BY Lynn Scurfield

For survivors of domestic abuse, simply leaving is harder than it sounds. With the city reaching crisis levels of reported abuse, agencies are coming together to try to clear the fnancial and legal barriers that stand in the way.

he looks just like you. She shops at your grocery store, works in your ofce — maybe lives next door. What’s happening in her home … it might even be happening in yours.

Tat’s the terrifying reality of domestic violence in Alberta, historically, and even more so now during the province’s economic downturn. In 2015, the Calgary Police Service (CPS) received 19,000 “domestic confict” calls. Tat’s an increase of about 10 per cent over 2014 and a 24-per cent increase over the average number of calls in the previous fve years. In 2016, the situation was even worse: the CPS responded to more than 20,000 domestic disturbance calls by October. Te percentage within those 20,000 calls that involved suspected violence, rather than the more ubiquitous “confict,” was up 36 per cent over the fve-year average.

Tragically, domestic violence is not something that happens at the margins of our society. It’s pervasive, a phenomenon too aptly illustrated by the “heat” map released by Calgary’s HomeFront in November 2015, which visually plotted the distribution of six months’ worth of HomeFront’s clients. “Calgary is in crisis,” says Maggie MacKillop, executive director of HomeFront, the collaborative non-proft organization that works hand-in-hand with the CPS and other partners to connect survivors to resources.

Te victims of the crisis are, predominantly, women and children, and their path to becoming survivors is full of fnancial, legal and emotional barriers. Te most efective responses to Calgary’s — and Alberta’s — domestic violence crisis focus on eliminating specifc barriers survivors face between living in an abusive situation and getting themselves and their families to safety.

In mid-2014, the Alberta SPCA began a pet safekeeping program for families feeing violence, taking that load of survivors’ minds. Te Calgary Humane Society ofers a similar program. Te SPCA’s program is notable because it is an unlegislated and unmandated grassroots initiative by an organization that looked at the challenge presented by domestic violence and asked itself if there was any concrete action it could take. It found it, and took it.

Deborah Drever, MLA for Calgary-Bow, followed a similar approach when she brought forward the Residential Tenancies (Safer Spaces for Victims of Domestic Violence) Amendment Act as a private member’s bill that allows victims of family violence to end a residential tenancy agreement without fnancial penalty.

“Domestic violence has always been an issue I was passionate about, and when I had the chance to present an [independent member’s bill], I wanted to address that issue in some very real way,” Drever says.

Te Safer Spaces amendments were proclaimed into force in August 2016, and by the end of October had been used by 41 Alberta women, according to records from the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters (ACWS).

“Considering that people are still getting their policies and processes in place in response to this new piece of legislation, that’s great,” says Jan Reimer, ACWS’s executive director. “It’s a piece of what we need: it’s making systems more friendly to women, and that’s important.”

Safer Spaces hasn’t solved the problem of domestic violence in Alberta. But every small act, every step helps — especially when it pulls diferent stakeholders and institutions into more collaborative and creative conversations.

“ Te signifcant thing about Safer Spaces was that it was a provincial government-level initiative, but [government representatives] came out and did community consultations. Tey spoke to the people who are the boots on the ground,” says MacKillop. “It really opened up the conversation around the idea that it takes a community, everyone, from government to boots on the ground, to end domestic violence.”

Tese are conversations HomeFront has been fostering since it was frst created in May 2000 as the Calgary Justice Working Project, a grassroots organization of community and justice coming together because they knew they had to address domestic violence better. “At that time recidivism was of the charts, victims had no voice before the courts, and trials were set years in advance,” recalls MacKillop. “We had to change that. We had to move families from crisis to safety faster.”

One of HomeFront’s key partners is the Calgary Police Service, which has long recognized that police response is just one piece of the approach needed to combat domestic violence. “Te reason we have domestic violence is a large socioeconomic issue,” says Paul Clarke, acting sergeant with the CPS’s Domestic Confict Response Team (DCRT), which works in partnership with HomeFront and other agencies. Te DCRT was created as a pilot project in northeast Calgary in 2009, and expanded to cover all areas of the city in 2013. “ Te reality is that these are complex social issues and these are families. Going in and laying charges and walking away doesn’t solve the problem … and the police are not capable of dealing with a lot of the sub-issues involved in a domestic violence situation.”

Survivors agree.

“Te police came to my house, six, seven times,” says one survivor, who lived in an abusive relationship for several years, and has been in safety now for three. “But each time they came, by the time they arrived, I didn’t say anything. He had calmed down, and I was scared, and I just wanted it to be over. And they just asked some questions, and then lef.”

Tey lef her with a pamphlet with numbers to call. “Do you think I could even look at that? I threw it in the garbage. I couldn’t have him see me looking at that,” the survivor says.

Te DCRT and its partnership with HomeFront activates afer those frst 9-1-1 calls are made. Te patrol ofcers who respond to the call fle a report, which DCRT’s risk assessors evaluate and refer to HomeFront if they think follow-up is necessary.

Te DCRT/HomeFront program has yielded some impressive results. “About 80 per cent of the families who get involved with DCRT have no further confict post-intervention,” reports Clarke. “And 80 per cent of families reported aferwards making signifcant changes in their lives as a result of intervention.” Tose changes include leaving the abusive situation, or fnding a way of resolving the confict without leaving.

Te assessment process means DCRT does not follow up with every domestic violence fle reported to police. It chooses where

THERE ARE INDIVIDUAL POLICIES THAT STAND IN THE WAY OF CLIENTS BEING ABLE TO ACHIEVE FULL PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY AND SAFETY ... HOW LEGAL AID IS FUNDED, WHAT THE LEVELS ARE FOR CUTTING OFF THAT SUPPORT — THAT IS A HUGE ISSUE THAT RESULTS IN BOTH PEOPLE GOING THROUGH DIFFICULT SITUATIONS WITHOUT ADEQUATE REPRESENTATION.”

–ANDREA SILVERSTONE, CALGARY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE COLLECTIVE

to focus resources based on data provided by the police ofcers who respond to the original 9-1-1 calls. A survivor who lef her situation without the intervention of DCRT and HomeFront points out one of the problems of this approach is many people who would beneft from active intervention don’t get it. “I think if a female social worker had showed up on my doorstep instead of a police ofcer I would have lef sooner,” she says. “I think there should be a woman on every domestic-violence call. It was very hard to talk to a male police ofcer afer what had just happened.” She notes that as a victim she felt the same issue of authority and control with the police that she had felt with her abuser.

Clarke sympathizes. “Te biggest issue we face in DCRT is that prevention programs are severely underfunded,” he says. “It’s a struggle year afer year to get the money to ensure we have the people on the team who provide these types of supports.”

Every agency involved with domestic violence experiences funding struggles, especially when the economy tightens. “With the economic downturn, we’re in a double-bind,” says Andrea Silverstone, co-chair of the Calgary Domestic Violence Collective (CDVC) and the executive director of Sagesse, CDVC’s “backbone” agency. Te CDVC is a group of about 60 community partners that provides a coordinated response to domestic and sexual violence prevention and intervention. “We have greater need, but the same dollars or fewer dollars stretched further,” Silverstone says.

Changing policy and practice in a time of crisis is a challenge, and Alberta has been going from crisis to crisis for several years now. Te province has long had one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the country. Te rates rose in Calgary and southern Alberta in 2013 in the afermath of the foods, followed by a spike in 2015 in Northern Alberta afer the Fort McMurray fre. Tey rose again through 2016 as the economic downturn continued to put Albertans under fnancial stress and out of work. “With every crisis that happens; numbers go up, and they never go [all the way] back down,” says Silverstone. “What does that tell us about how people react to crisis, and how long it takes them to recover from it? And, if those numbers are not going to go down, what are we going to do?”

For Silverstone, that’s not a rhetorical question, but a broad social call to action. “Every policy should have a lens that includes a consideration of how this policy will afect those who experience domestic violence,” she says.

Every policy. Because domestic violence does not occur in a silo — or only in the home in which it is perpetrated. It spills over into communities, schools and workplaces, long before people try to extricate themselves from the abusive situation.

“ Tere are individual policies that we have identifed that stand in the way of clients being able to achieve full participation in community and safety,” Silverstone says. “Legal aid and access to legal services is one of the biggest barriers. How legal aid is funded, what the levels are for cutting of that support — that is a huge issue that results in both people going through difcult situations without adequate representation.”

Beth Carlson, herself a survivor and now an activist who works with the Women’s Community Advisory of the Innovative Systems Response Project, a collaborative group of survivors afliated with the Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter and funded through the Status of Women Canada, agrees.

“One of the challenges with legal aid for survivors is that you get who you get,” she says. “And it may be a wonderful lawyer with a lot of experience with family violence. Or it may be someone with no experience at all. For a traumatized survivor, to work with a lawyer who doesn’t understand abuse or trauma can be re-traumatizing.”

Survivors face a similar policy challenge in the court system. If the police are involved and charges are laid, the legal path isn’t easy but it’s fast-tracked, and takes place within a system focused on and experienced in domestic violence. Survivors who leave without criminal charges being laid fnd themselves in the long queue of the provincial family court system, arguing custody issues before judges, many of whom have little understanding of domestic violence and abuse.

“I was told we were a high-confict parenting custody issue, and we should go into mediation,” says a survivor of her experience in attempting to efect a legal separation and get full custody of her child afer leaving an abusive relationship. “It was awful. I had an emergency protection order against my ex, my child had disclosed abuse by him, and I was supposed to go into mediation over custody? I couldn’t believe it.” Te experience felt unethical, she adds, and the courtroom situation created a new trauma in itself.

Feeling re-traumatized in the courtroom is common for survivors, says Carlson. She’d love to see psychologists in every domestic violence courtroom, providing support to survivors and guidance on psychological issues to judges and lawyers. “Physical abuse is ultimately a symptom of psychological abuse, which is the root of the problem,” she says. “And not enough people in the judicial system are trained to deal with that.”

For immigrants and new Canadians, legal issues are compounded. “Some of our clients have had refugee status or sponsorship status broken because of violence,” says Silverstone. In these cases, they can fnd themselves dealing with threat of deportation in addition to violence.

Te federal government recently addressed this particular issue, amending a section of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to allow spouses who experience and report abuse to separate their application for permanent resident status from their abusive partner and continue the process independently. Previously, a sponsored spouse immigrant needed to live with their sponsor for two years. If they lef before that time they could face deportation. Te amendment eliminated that time requirement and broadened the defnition of abuse. “Tat’s been a signifcant, helpful change in policy,” says Rekha Gadhia, manager of the Family Services Department at the Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association (CIWA). “We’ve seen a lot of cases of sponsorship-based abuse, where the abuser is the Canadian citizen or permanent resident who brings a spouse over. Ten there is abuse, accompanied by the threat: ‘If you report this, they will take your immigration status away.’”

Even though that threat is no longer real, not all immigrants or refugees know their rights and, if language is a barrier, may have limited means of learning about them. Or, of learning about any of the services and supports available to them. A survivor who asked not to be identifed by name, for whom English is a third language, and who additionally faces a physical communication disability, agrees. As she sought help from the police, the Calgary Women’s Shelter and other systems, she struggled with poor communication. “I did not understand what they were going to do,” she says. “ Tere were rules and expectations, and I guess they would explain them to me. I would think I understood. But then it was diferent. Tere were many difculties as a result. Tey were helpful, and I know they wanted to help me. But it was difcult.”

Finding stable housing for herself and her children was a key challenge, as it is for many families feeing abuse. Emergency shelter space is at a premium and not always available when victims fee — and it’s not a long-term solution. For immigrant women, the concept of a shelter is “an alien one,” says Gadhia, and it can multiply the trauma involved in feeing abusive situations. “Clients have lef shelters [because of lack of cultural sensitivity] and nothing has been done for those clients by the shelters.”

Te wait lists for Calgary Housing and other non-market housing can take up to two years — longer for larger families. Tat is, for those who do qualify. “It works on a scoring mechanism, and it’s based on a rent-to-income formula,” explains Reimer. “Well, if you have no rent because you are in shelter and no income because you lef, you don’t score anything.”

In some rural communities, rules around social housing require residency in the community for a period of three or four months. For families feeing abuse and relocating to a new community as a means of achieving safety, that standard isn’t met either.

Neither shelters nor social housing are anyone’s frst choice when looking for a safe home. But for many families leaving situations in which the abuser was the main or only wage earner, market housing is not an option. Although Alberta Works provides income supports, helps out with the damage deposit, and provides $1,000 to allow the set-up of a new home, “the existing levels of income support are just not enough,” says Silverstone. Tey max out at $627 per month for a single person and $1,284 a month for a family with three children (plus up to $533 per month for each child under six and $450 a month for each child six to 17 from the federal Canada Child Beneft).

Ironically, more afuent families feeing violence may fnd themselves in the bind of being unable to access the supports because the joint family assets — always entangled in a marriage or common-law relationship — are too high. “Alberta Works is aware of the problems and is working with the domestic violence sector to address that, but those are all examples of things that make it difcult for victims to leave and to access services,” says Silverstone.

Carlson is an enthusiastic advocate of the guaranteed annual income program, currently being rolled out as a pilot program in Ontario and previously tried in Canada in Manitoba, in the 1970s. “Tat would make such a diference to so many women,” she says. “So many women don’t leave because of fnancial fears. In many cases, the abuser controls the fnances.”

Too true. “Since physical abuse is ofen coupled with fnancial abuse, the victim may fnd that the bills are in her name while credit cards, bank accounts, or other assets are in the name and under the control of the abuser,” note authors Lois Gander and Rochelle Johannson in Te Hidden Homeless: Residential Tenancies and Issues of Victims of Domestic Violence, a report published June 2014 by the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta and the University of Alberta.

Given Alberta’s current economic situation, not even an NDP government is likely to suggest a guaranteed annual income. Nor are the Alberta Works income supports likely to go up. So, even though domestic violence cuts across all sections of the economic spectrum, as always, it is the poorest families who are most vulnerable and facing the fewest options.

Ofen, even when there are good policies in place, “there is a disconnect between the ofcial policies and the ground truth,” says Silverstone. Or, as Reimer puts it, “Sometimes when policies are in place, they’re not processed properly because of attitudes.”

Tese “attitudes” are most in play for immigrant, indigenous and queer people — people about whom the service providers may hold active prejudices or unconscious preconceptions. “Tere were a few occasions, with police and in particular with Child Services, when I felt … I don’t know, maybe this is what happens to everyone … but I wondered, is it because I’m Native?” an indigenous survivor says. She describes calls to the police when she felt in danger, and then did not feel taken seriously. “And with Child Services, the frst response was to take my children away. Again, I question. Was it necessary? Or was that the thing that happened because when you’re Native, they assume the worst?”

Reimer is blunt. “For indigenous women, racism is a huge issue,” she says. “If I could change one thing, ironically, it wouldn’t be any specifc policy. It would be behaviours and attitudes about women who are experiencing violence because that’s what hampers policy response. A woman’s economic circumstances, her gender orientation, racial and cultural issues — those sometimes mean you experience prejudice and bias when you access services.”

Te expectation of that prejudice may keep some people from reaching out and asking for help in the frst place. Beba Svigir, CEO of CIWA, sees this all the time with abused immigrant women. “ Tey are always afraid of being judged,” she says. “Tey’re already in this place of being seen as Other, and that fear is paralyzing. Tey are afraid they will not be believed.” And if they are dealing with what they know is a culturally unique issue — honour violence, for example — there are additional layers of fear and shame, and reluctance to tell a story that casts a culture they belong to in a negative light.

CIWA provides what supports it can, including multi-language translation support. It also invests heavily in prevention programs such as cross-cultural parenting programs, men’s support groups, and youth groups for boys and girls in Calgary’s schools.

“Prevention is more powerful than intervention,” says Svigir. Te literature on family violence is unanimous on this point: family violence begets family violence, and the best way of stopping the cycle from repeating in the next generation is to stop it from happening

IF I COULD CHANGE ONE THING, IT WOULDN’T BE ANY SPECIFIC POLICY. IT WOULD BE BEHAVIOURS AND ATTITUDES ABOUT WOMEN WHO ARE EXPERIENCING VIOLENCE.”

–JAN REIMER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ALBERTA COUNCIL OF WOMEN'S SHELTERS

in this one. Te most efective interventions are the ones that take place before abuse happens.

But, investing in prevention targeted at children and young people (dating violence in youth is an excellent predictor of family violence in adulthood) when there aren’t sufcient resources to address the immediate crisis is tough. So is spending money on diagnosing and supporting ofenders struggling with their own issues of trauma, addiction, and, in some cases, mental illness — even though it is well documented that helping ofenders work through their traumas is a critical component in stopping future abuse.

“I know my ex is going to do what he did to me to someone else,” says a survivor. She’s probably right. Untreated and unsupported — and, in the many cases in which neither the victims nor the police press charges, never held accountable — ofenders fnd new victims, repeat old patterns and perpetuate the cycle

While many of the agencies that help families fee violence have ofender-directed services, funding these services is a politically and socially tough call. If you have $1 to spend on a crisis that demands $100, who do you give it to? Te person feeing the violent situation … or the person who caused it?

Tere is no easy answer, especially in a cash-starved environment. Tat means collaboration between service providers and systems, on all fronts, is even more essential.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, call 1-866-606-7233 to get connected with resources.

“We try and help and be creative and come up with whatever we can do to help the families that we are serving,” says MacKillop. “Te better we come together and collaborate, the better that we connect all the multiple touch points that are out there and coordinate our eforts, the stronger and greater our reach is.”

As HomeFront, CDVC and their partners implement this philosophy locally, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) is acting nationally. In March 2016, CACP issued a National Framework for Collaborative Police Action on Intimate Partner Violence that frontline respondents such as Reimer applaud. “It’s excellent,” she says. Te framework highlights barriers faced by indigenous, immigrant, LGBTQ, older and disabled people, as well as sex workers. It takes a trauma-informed approach to abuse and violence, recognizing that people experiencing abusive situations come to the police in a state of trauma or ongoing PTSD.

Most importantly, the framework sets the role of the police response to domestic violence in the wider context of inter-agency collaboration. “It’s the only way to address such a complex issue,” says Clarke. “And, this is key for us as a city and government and organizations, when we look at numbers and stats, it is very easy to forget these are families we are talking about: mothers, fathers, children. We’re talking about our friends, our co-workers — we’re talking about people.”

We’re talking about her.

Your neighbour, friend, sister.

She looks just like you.

What can you do to help her be a survivor?

PREVENTION IS MORE POWERFUL THAN INTERVENTION.”

–BEBA SVIGIR, CALGARY IMMIGRANT WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION

GETAWAYSlife

Autumn in the Okanagan

With mild weather, fantastic food, outdoorsy adventures and a festival that’s a grape-stomping-good-time, the harvest season just might be the best time to visit the Okanagan.

BY Andrew Guilbert

Photo by Andrew Strain

Cycling on the Kettle Valley Rail Trail near Penticton, B.C.

The Okanagan probably brings to mind scenes of summer vacationing, but this southern B.C. wine region has just as much to ofer in the autumn. Here are some of the amazing things to do in the fall in and around the communities of Penticton, Summerland and Oliver.

What to Do GET ACTIVE IN THE OUTDOORS

Penticton-based outftter Hoodoo Adventures ofers a range of cycling and kayaking adventures to get you out into nature and enjoying the mild autumn weather. Te kayaking experience on Okanagan Lake includes views of Munson Mountain, an extinct volcano adorned with a selfe-worthy sign that spells out “Penticton” in large white letters. Hoodoo also does biking tours on the Kettle Valley Trail, a former railroad corridor that features tunnels and rock ovens that early 20th-century railroad workers used to bake bread. Be sure to stop at the Trail Store, a momand-pop shop nestled in an orchard along the trail, for one of their ambrosia apple slushies.

Hoodoo also ofers a Spirited Brews Cruise bike-and-tasting experience that includes stops at Maple Leaf Spirits, the oldest B.C. craf distillery still run by original owners, and Bad Tattoo Brewing where you can pair beer with unique pizzas such as the “black and blue” with blue cheese and blackberry compote. hoodooadventures.ca

PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN AT THE OLIVER FESTIVAL OF THE GRAPE

Te town of Oliver declared itself the “Wine Capital of Canada” in 2001, a moniker made ofcial by the Queen when she visited in 2002, so it makes sense that Oliver would be home to the annual Oliver Festival of the Grape. Since 1997, this one-day festival (this year it’s on Sunday, Oct. 1) has brought Okanagan oenophiles together to celebrate the fruit of the vine. An assortment of food trucks means you can do more than just drink (a wineglass-holder necklace is a must, as you’ll want both hands free to eat). Te cornerstone event is the grape-stomp competition, which pits 24 amateur teams of stompers against one another to see who can make the most juice. If you and three friends have got what it takes, sign up soon, as the spots fll up quickly. oliverfestivalofthegrape.ca

GO CIDER TASTING

Te Okanagan is well known for its wine but Okanagan cider is making a name for itself as well. Summerland Heritage Cider Company, located 10 minutes north of Penticton in Summerland, grows its own European cider apples, whose high tannin content makes for robust, complex favours. Summerland Heritage’s fve blends vary from bone-dry to sweet. Make sure to try the Woodland Hopped, a cider blend that incorporates hops grown on the tasting-room patio. Also in Summerland, about a 10-minute drive from Summerland Heritage, is Dominion Cider Co. Named afer the Dominion Experimental Farms that once studied and developed new heritage apples in the region, Dominion grows the majority of its apple varietals on site and hand-picks, crushes, blends and bottles everything themselves. A tasting on their farm is as fresh as cider gets. Should you fall in love with its rural charm, you can rent Dominion’s cozy, one-bedroom carriage house, which lists on Airbnb for $110 a night. summerlandcider.com, dominioncider.com

STROLL THE PENTICTON FARMERS’ MARKET

Every Saturday morning from May to October, vendors with names like Harry’s Cherries, Ogopogo Meats and What the Fungus take over a few blocks of Penticton’s Main Street to sell everything from farm-fresh produce and warm pastries to handmade jewellery and crafs. Rows of brightly coloured harvest vegetables and friendly merchants make for a pleasant stroll while you snack on a brioche or meat pie. pentictonfarmersmarket.org

Kayaking

photo by Andrew Guilbert; Summerland Heritage Cider Company photo by Moniquie Wiendels Photography

OPPOSITE Kayaking on Okanagan Lake with Hoodoo Adventures; Summerland Heritage Cider Company’s tasting room.

THIS PAGE Grape-stomp competitors at the Oliver Festival of the Grape.

Where to Eat

VILLA ROSA RISTORANTE

Tis low-lit Italian restaurant in Penticton has been serving locals and tourists alike for more than 20 years. Tey’ve achieved this longevity thanks to dishes like their petti di pollo alla Villa Rosa — tender chicken served with tiger prawns — and desserts made with seasonal ingredients such as fall’s creamy pumpkin cheesecake. As with any good Okanagan restaurant, Villa Rosa’s wine list includes 120 local vintages as well as an impressive selection of Italian bottles, while their “Sicilian mule” cocktail, a mix of New Amsterdam vodka, Fentiman’s ginger beer and lime juice served in a copper mug, has just the right amount of kick.

795 Westminster Ave. W., Penticton, 250-490-9595, thevillarosa.com

CRAFT CORNER KITCHEN

As evidenced by the display of their motto “community sourced, community driven,” Craf Corner Kitchen is the place to go to eat local. Chef and general manager James Holmes prides himself on his menu being as regional and seasonal as possible, sourcing ingredients from a nearby farm that supplies his restaurant exclusively. Te handcrafed cocktails created by co-owner Jonathan Côté also have a local bent, using components from regional producers such as Dubh Glas Distillery and Cannery Brewery. Even the sodas are a hometown afair — small-batch pops from Penticton-based Peoples Craf House made with local fruits, herbs and fowers. Ask locals about what they like to eat in Penticton and you’ll get an earful about Craf’s poutine, made with apple fries and sweet vanilla salt.

557 Main St. Penticton, 250-493-2368, craftcornerkitchen.com

LIQUIDITY WINES

Located 25 minutes south of Penticton, the restaurant at this 20-year-old winery boasts one of the fnest patio views in the region, looking out over an ornamental infnity pool to row upon row of hillside vineyards. Beautifully plated dishes pair perfectly with Liquidity’s wine list, which includes their own creations as well as vintages from other makers. Te tasting room also serves as a contemporary art gallery.

4720 Allendale Rd., Okanagan Falls, 778-515-5500, liquiditywines.com

TOP Penticton Lakeside Resort.

MIDDLE The tasting room at Liquidity Wines doubles as a contemporary art gallery, displaying works such as “Feasts of the Fields” by Jeff Burgess.

BOTTOM Beef tenderloin tataki at the Liquidity Wines restaurant.

Where to Stay PENTICTON LAKESIDE RESORT

As the name suggests, this 273-room resort gets you a lakeside view if you’re in a north-facing room, though the scenic mountain vista to the south means there’s really no bad views to be had here. In-house amenities include three restaurants — the morning-enhancing Bufehead Cappuccino & Wine Bar, the contemporary lake view-endowed Hooded Merganser and late-night hot spot, the Barking Parrot — as well as a juicery, gym, pool and boutique. All this being a mere fve-minute walk from downtown Penticton means there’s never a dull moment. 21 Lakeshore Dr. W., Penticton, 250-493-8221, pentictonlakesideresort.com

WATERMARK BEACH RESORT

Located just south of Oliver in Osoyoos, the Watermark is the ultimate crash pad for your grape-stomping team. All of the 123 suites feature private balconies and well-equipped kitchens, but for the height of luxury book one of the 30 beachfront townhomes that are just a sliding door away from Osoyoos Lake — you’ll feel like you’ve just moved in to your own beachfront property. Te Restaurant at Watermark features award-winning tapas, which you’ll be able to work of in their on-site yoga and Pilates studio where they also ofer spin classes as well as yoga on the beach.

15 Park Place, Osoyoos, 250-495-5500, watermarkbeachresort.com

Penticton Lakeside Resort

photo courtesy of Pentiction Lakeside Resort; Liquidity photographs by Andrew Guilbert

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MOUNTAINS

BY Shelley Arnusch AND Andrew Guilbert

GREAT fall experiences IN THE MOUNTAINS

Whether you want to look at bright yellow larch trees, see some mountain flms or just curl up in a cozy cabin, here are some of the best things to do in the mountains near Calgary during the fall months.

Baker Creek Mountain Resort near Lake Louise.

MOUNTAINS

SEPTEMBER

Do the Tamarack Ridge Walk at Panorama

Panorama is known as a quintessential skier’s getaway, but the resort provides diferent diversions in the autumn when swaths of alpine larch trees brighten its slopes. Like their leafy cousins, the needles of these distinctive coniferous trees turn shades of yellow, gold and amber in the fall, creating a stunning spectacle.

To make the most of larch-spotting season at Panorama, the resort has started doing guided walks to the summit of Mount Goldie during the month of September. Along with breathtaking vistas, the Tamarack Ridge Walk experience includes chairlif access to a point just below the summit, a prepared lunch and snacks and an après-hike drink at the T-Bar and Grill. It can also include the unique experience of several seasons in one day, as the still-summery scene at the resort base can morph into early season snowfall at the peak.

Although there is a hiking trail up the mountain, the succession of chairlifs (Mile 1 Express, to Champagne Express, to Summit Quad) allows you to skip the two-to-three hour ascent and enjoy morning on the mountaintop. Hot chocolate awaits you there, a fnal fuel-up before the 3.5kilometre walk to the summit of Mount Goldie (an elevation gain of 267 metres).

Te hike starts out along Outback Ridge, the same path that provides access to the expert-level skiing in Taynton Bowl during the winter. Guests then have a choice of routes ranging in difculty. Te easiest is the walk to Goldie Plateau, just beyond the end of the Outback Trail. Energetic hikers can continue on from there to the summit of Mount Goldie. Tere is also a detour trail to picturesque Goldie Lake that’s suitable for intermediate-level hikers.

Te descent includes a walking portion to the top of the Champagne chairlif. From there,

you’ll ride the rest of the way down on the Champagne and Mile 1 lifs. At the base, you’ll be happy to cash in your drink ticket and share photos with your fellow mountaineers.

If you can, plan your walk weekend to correspond with the Panorama Gourmet BBQ Championships on Sept. 23, a culinary showdown that pits teams of staf from the resort’s eateries against each other in a battle to create the best chicken and ribs using ingredients from a “mystery basket” presented that morning. Te barbecue feast includes a variety of sides and salads with the day’s champion decided by audience vote. Te ticketed event is set to happen outdoors in the upper village, relocating to the resort’s Great Hall in the event of poor weather. Afer that, you’ll be more than ready to hit the hot tub, provided you don’t lapse into a food coma frst. —A.G.

panoramaresort.com

Panorama’s Tamarack Ridge Walk has scenic fall vistas (and the possibility of early season snowfall).

Panorama

photo by Andrew Guilbert

OCTOBER

The charming and cozy log cabins at Baker Creek Mountain Resort near Lake Louise on the Bow Valley Parkway make a great getaway for Calgarians any time of the year, but heading there in the mid-fall means signifcant cost savings. Te same cabin that goes for $475 per night during peak summer season is $250 the day afer the Tanksgiving long weekend.

While it’s true that the weather in Banf National Park can be unpredictable in October — you could just as easily encounter a blinding snowstorm as a brilliant, blue-sky day — should you be blessed with the latter, you’ll be able to enjoy the tail end of larch season with fewer crowds. Provided there hasn’t been signifcant early-season snowfall, mid-fall is an opportune time to hike the Lake Louise trails. Baker Creek general manager James Hague recommends the Saddleback Pass hike, a 7.4-km loop through terrain Hague describes as “just flled with larch trees” that sets out from the Lake Louise parking lot. From the top of Saddleback, a short scramble (doable by anyone of any age who made it that far) gets you to the summit of Fairview Mountain where you’ll be rewarded with incredible views.

Baker Creek’s on-site restaurant is open for dinner only during the fall season (they stop serving breakfast in mid-September and lunch following the Tanksgiving weekend) though the individual cabins are equipped with full kitchens.

Later in the month, over the weekend of Oct. 20 to 22, Baker Creek will be hosting a yoga and wellness retreat led by Canmore-based instructor Sarah Harvie, whose training in cranio-sacral massage therapy infuences her yoga teaching, creating a practice that’s invigorating and restorative and well-suited to the alpine locale. —S.A. bakercreek.com

NOVEMBER

Take in the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival

The Banf Mountain Film and Book Festival is basically the Cannes of the alpine world, a nine-day smorgasbord of adventure stories and awe-inspiring feats and the human drama behind them. Te flm screenings are a mix of shorts and mid-length features, with the shorts ofen providing unexpected highlights.

Just like Cannes, there are celebrities galore here — 2016 brought in big-mountain snowboard visionary and climate-change activist Jeremy Jones and rock-climbing legend Lynn Hill — though the stars tend to blend in with the rest of the audience in their down jackets and knit toques. Tat lack of pretense is one of the most refreshing parts of this festival. Here, being “seen” in the Hollywood sense takes a backseat to having visited places that have never been seen before.

Te festival hub is the Banf Centre for Arts and Creativity, located just up from the heart

FALL DRINK: PUMPKIN PINTS AT THE GRIZZLY PAW IN CANMORE

Grizzly Paw Brewing Company’s seasonal Jack O’Lantern Pumpkin Ale is a fall tradition in Canmore. Reappearing each year in mid-September, the rich, aromatic ale is made with pumpkins from Broxburn Farms near Lethbridge, which are prepped and oven-roasted by the kitchen team at the restaurant, then transferred to the brewery where they add a secret spice mixture. A round of pumpkin pints on the Grizzly Paw patio is the perfect way to top off an invigorating fall hike on the local trails. Don’t wait too long, though, as this small-batch beer is usually gone by Halloween. —S.A. 622 Main Street, 403-6789983, thegrizzlypaw.com

of Banf on Tunnel Mountain. To get there from the centre of town (the intersection of Banf Avenue and Caribou Street) it’s a short — albeit uphill — walk, but if you’re not feeling it, a free shuttle service runs regularly and ofen.

Te flm screenings are popular events so buying tickets in advance is a must, particularly if you intend on taking in the showcase screenings on opening or closing weekends. Pre-screening, make time for a beer or glass of wine at the oncampus Maclab Bistro, which has comfy seating and large windows where you can enjoy the incredible views of the surrounding Rockies and plan your own mountain adventure. —S.A. banffmountainfestival.ca

Banff Centre photo by Paul Zizka; Grizzly Paw photo courtesy of Grizzly Paw Brewing

Stay at Baker Creek Mountain Resort

TOP Baker Creek Mountain Resort. ABOVE Aerial view of the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (left side of image), site of the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival.

Celebrating the recipients of the 2017 Emerald Awards RECOGNIZING ALBERTA'S ENVIRONMENTAL LEADERS

The annual Emerald Awards recognize and celebrate outstanding environmental achievements across all sectors in Alberta. From classroom curricula to large, corporate initiatives, the program recognizes a variety of projects. The award categories celebrate those who demonstrate commitment to the environment and take

the initiative to make quantifiable, sustainable changes, educate others about the importance of sustainability and lead the way for other individuals and organizations to adopt their own environmentally friendly practices. Read on to learn more about the people and groups who are greening Alberta, one project at a time.

EMBRACING FUTURE INDUSTRIES

NAIT Alternative Energy Technology Program –Education: Post-Secondary

With numerous companies across the country developing and distributing alternative energies and related technologies for consumers, it’s become equally important to be able to maintain and repair these technologies to keep them sustainable and operational. Recognizing this, NAIT’s Alternative Energy Technology program was launched in 2011 with the goal of developing highly skilled and specialized workers to fill roles in Alberta’s growing renewable energy and energy-efficiency industries. The interdisciplinary, two-year diploma program focuses on technical design, project development and energy management in renewable energy sources including solar electric, solar thermal, hydro, wind, geothermal and cogeneration. The program includes everything from understanding the environmental conditions of a worksite to creating hybrid systems to business fundamentals.

“The value proposition is that we’re training people to understand how to deploy technologies that are pretty well known and understood already,” says the program’s chair, James Sandercock. “It’s a matter of deploying them effectively and helping customers understand what they are, and what the opportunities and advantages are.”

The skills the students learn are so in-demand that 79 per cent of them are employed in their field after just one year post-graduation and 13 per cent of graduates have started their

own companies in a related field. Along with the staff and current students, the program is helping to shape the future of the industry in Alberta through education, outreach, innovation and collaboration. The renewable energy industry is at a turning point in Alberta and the NAIT Alternative Energy Program is supplying the highly-qualified experts required to meet Alberta’s present and future workforce needs in the growing alternative energy sector.

As consumer demand for alternative energy sources in new and retrofitting projects grows — including electric vehicles, solar panels and net-zero housing — so has the demand for skilled workers to knowledgeably install, service, sell and maintain the technologies. An influx of skilled alternative energy workers

AWARD SPONSOR

in Alberta’s workforce will encourage the growth of alternative energy products and businesses — for instance, automotive dealerships are only able to stock electric vehicles if they have someone on staff who is trained to service electric vehicles. The program also provides the opportunity for students to develop and/or participate in proprietary research projects. Such research projects have included the building of a solar photovoltaic (PV) reference array to study the effects of snow loads on solar panels.

ConocoPhillips Canada has been a long and recognized supporter of the Alberta Emerald Foundation and the Emerald Awards and sponsored the Education: Post-Secondary category this year. Ω

James Sandercock, Chair, Alternative Energy Technology Program, NAIT

A GREEN HOTEL AMONG THE MOUNTAINS

Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise – Large Business

Visitors and locals flock to Banff National Park to enjoy its pristine natural environment — including awe-inspiring mountains, clear lakes and exciting wildlife — though tourism amenities have long been a part of that scenery. So it’s important for the team at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise (FCLL) to keep its 552-room hotel as sustainable as possible, and to educate guests about environmentally friendly habits.

Some of the initiatives at the FCLL include: an extensive recycling program of everything from electronics to tires to mattresses, using recycled paper in the offices, recycling kitchen grease into biodiesel, purchasing

50 per cent of its electricity from green sources, providing reusable water bottles in the guest rooms and infrastructure and amenities to reduce food and water waste. FCLL donates gently used amenities to the Clean the World program, which distributes those items to homeless shelters, senior citizens and struggling families throughout Canada. FCLL uses reusable bags in its departments, including laundry/ dry cleaning.

These efforts have had exceptional results: FCLL diverted 355 tons of waste from landfills in 2016 and decreased its electrical consumption by four per cent between 2014 and 2016. Ω

GREENING AND LEARNING

Alberta Council for Environmental Education (ACEE) –Public Education and Outreach

Being passionate about the environment and wanting to share your knowledge with others is one thing, but it’s another to actually have the tools and resources to teach that knowledge effectively.

AWARD SPONSOR

That’s the goal of the Alberta Council for Environmental Education (ACEE) — to make those tools accessible to professional educators. Its mission is to “work in collaboration with others to advance environmental education in Alberta” and does so by working with preschool and secondary school educators to incorporate environmental literacy into their courses, as well as with businesses so they can work together with employees to make their workspaces more green and sustainable. In addition to creating

a database of resources and developing the Get Outside and Play program for preschoolers, ACEE hosts an annual provincial environmental education conference, where teachers can access thousands of professionals to learn about and develop environmental programming for their students. ACEE has proposed new content for the Alberta K-12 curriculum that would include more focus on environmental, energy and climate literacy, and have a significant effect on the next generation of learners.

Alberta Environment and Parks is one of the founders of the Alberta Emerald Foundation and continues to support environmental achievements and stewardship in Alberta, sponsoring the Public Education and Outreach category this year. Ω

Mortimer Capriles, Director, Sustainability, Canada’s Western Mountain Region, Fairmont Hotels

Gareth Thomson, Executive Director, ACEE

WHERE THE WILD FLOWERS ARE Ann Smreciu – Individual Commitment

While construction projects may signal growth in an industry or community, they can cause a lot of harm and damage to the existing environment if not planned carefully. With an interest in saving some of the smallest, most vulnerable parts of the ecosystem — Alberta’s native plants and wildflowers — Ann Smreciu took it upon herself to study these species so she could effectively work to preserve them. Now, for more than 30 years, she has promoted their reclamation and restoration in areas where the environment has been disturbed, such as damage from dams, utility corridors, landfills and mine spoils.

Her work is significant because ecosystems are naturally well-balanced, and losing any component of an ecosystem can throw off that balance and in turn harm other species. At the beginning of her career, relatively few species

could be considered for such projects because supplies of viable seed were non-existent or extremely limited, and little was known about their requirements for germination or seedling establishment. Smreciu’s early work with prairie wildflowers saw her collect substantial quantities of seeds from a wide range of native species from southern Alberta. She would then conduct experiments concerning viability and pre-treatments required for germination and run greenhouse and field trials that established seedlings often by planting on disturbed sites. The flowers’ field performance was monitored over several years and was deemed successful.

This success led to similar work with more central and northern species in the province, culminating in significant contributions to regrowth at sites located at the Oldman River

Dam, Cloverbar Landfill in Edmonton, along pipelines and in the oil sands. She continues to work with government and industry to develop standards about working with native plants. She also teaches post-secondary courses related to forest reclamation.

Smreciu’s lifelong ambition has been to see native seeds banked for use in reclamation in the province and this was realized in 2009 with the creation of the Oil Sands Vegetation Cooperative (OSVC) in partnership with five oil sands companies. The OSVC works to harvest and preserve seeds in order to be able to revegetate an area after it has been used by other industries. Smreciu has been able to work with these companies to preserve seeds from 43 different species to be used in reclamation projects to build self-sustaining ecosystems in the Athabasca and Cold Lake oil sands regions. Ω

Ann Smreciu

DECORstyle

BY Andrea Cox PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jared Sych

Inside Out

A unique family home carves a woodland oasis out of an urban address.

A VISION IN THE TREES

On a late afernoon, Becky and Colin Feasby and their two daughters, Claire and Katie, are gathered around the stone kitchen island in their family home chatting about the events of the day. Teir two labradoodles, Magic and Larry (named afer the basketball greats) lie peacefully on the white-oak foors, watching for rabbits in the forest-like backyard. Te home is warm and comforting, flled with light and surrounded by mature trees and greenery.

Eight years ago, this scene — the family enjoying life in a light-flled, architecturally designed space — was a distant vision. Te Feasbys had lived in Kensington for years, but as the girls grew into teenagers, their century-old Victorian home had become too confned. So when they found a larger home on a third-of-an-acre lot in the established northwest neighbourhood of Briar Hill, they jumped at the opportunity. “When we bought the home, we really bought it for the lot. It was a nice 1960’s house, but it was shockingly dark,” says Becky Feasby.

Te couple had plans to upgrade and renovate the existing home, but wanted to live in it for a while to uncover its quirks. “As time went on, we began to discover more and more things that were wrong with it in terms of plumbing and so forth,” says Feasby. “And Colin really wanted to build. He essentially talked me into it.”

To help with the design on the new build, the couple brought on architect and designer Jefrey Riedl of Robert Pashuk Architecture Inc. “When I met him, we just clicked. He is super calm, which I like and value,” says Feasby, adding that she took up knitting during the build to keep her nerves at bay. “Building can be stressful. Your mind is always whirring. Knitting is very meditative.” (Riedl also beneftted from Feasby’s knitting therapy as the recipient of a toque.)

Pressed bark is used to striking effect as a wall covering and backdrop for the homeowners’ art collection.

RIGHT A line of floor-to-ceiling glass accordion doors, called a NanaWall, creates indoor-outdoor flow between the kitchen and patio.

BOTTOM The jade-green oven in the kitchen exemplifies use of colour for artistic impact.

AN ARTIST’S TOUCH

When it came to the architectural design of the Feasby home, Riedl called upon his skills as a designer and artist to achieve a feel that was urban, but not too urban. “We were really going for this contemporaryfarmhouse look,” he says.

Te Feasbys’ must-have list included a streetlevel entry, which was a challenge because of the terraced lot. Te solution was to create a walkout front, unique to the street, which infuenced the design. “We [built] a plinth (base) and then a home that sits on top. Essentially it is a three-storey home that was made to look like a two-storey home,” says Riedl.

Te home features integrated levels and a steeply pitched roof that provides stunning ceiling heights and vaults. A sculptural staircase fows from the foyer to the third level, winding through the centre of the design and creating a focal point. “ Te home really tells a story, connected by the staircase. We created sight lines between places that you might not be in, but that you might want to go to — [for example], a view of someone working at the desk on the top level or exiting a room on the main foor,” says Riedl.

A three-sided freplace on the second level bridges the kitchen, the dining room and the stairs, its fames ofering a warm welcome to guests entering the home’s communal spaces.

Classic lines and rich materials create a sophisticated balance, which is enhanced by the natural environment that surrounds the home, and which informed many of the design decisions.

Certainly for Feasby, one of the home’s best qualities is that it creates a miles-away feeling. From the beginning, she approached the design with an artist’s eye, incorporating beauty and colour. In the kitchen she held out for a gorgeous jade-green oven and sourced a collection of industrial-style fxtures from artisans in California. “ Tey were working out of their boat in Santa Monica. I went down to check it out — it was amazing,” she says.

Te dining-room light fxture she found online from a Toronto designer who salvages diseased ash trees and creates functional art from them. In keeping with the wood theme, pressed-bark wall hangings create the backdrop for the Feasbys’ treasured art pieces.

Furnishings throughout the home are a blend of well-worn and loved wooden farmhouse pieces with contemporary European designs.

“ Tis is our forever home, at least until our knees get sore and we can’t do the stairs anymore, so we really designed it thoughtfully,” says Feasby. “We really like every room and the house totally works for our family.”

LET THE LIGHT SHINE IN

Becky Feasby loves to garden. It’s one of her passions. So when it came to her home, the beauty of nature had to be an inherent design element — one that spilled into the interior spaces, creating indoor-outdoor synergy.

Feasby envisioned a secret outdoor garden, hidden away and yet visible from many angles and places inside the home. “I wanted this tantalizing space that you could peek into as you walked up to the house, and a pretty garden that you could look down over when you were in the house — one that was tucked away. I can grow lots of things in there. It is probably a zone warmer than the rest of the garden and I put artifcial turf in there to make it look a bit kitschy,” she says.

Troughout the home, the architecture bridges the inside and outside spaces. “ Te NanaWall (a line of accordion-style folding glass doors that runs the length of an entire wall) was a big thing on the must-have list,” says Feasby. “I didn’t know what it was called at the time, but I knew that I wanted the whole inside corner of the home to open to the backyard; it is such a phenomenal property. We have it open all of the time as soon as it gets to be 10 or 12 degrees.”

Riedl explains that the vision was to create a home that was open and connected but still had private areas. “We wanted the inside to become the outside and for it to all fow into one. Tat can be a bit tougher to do in Calgary because of the weather, so ofen we rely heavily on visual techniques.”

To do this he used natural light to blend everything together. A skylight in the pitched ceiling allows ambient light to fow from the top foor to the main level of the home. “Now it feels as though the house is on an entirely diferent lot,” says Feasby. “In the old house we had to have the lights on all the time, and now we never turn them on.”

LEFT The home’s outdoor space was designed to make the most of the lot’s mature trees.

ABOVE The homeowners’ love of nature and gardening inspired the indoor-outdoor synergy of the design.

The dining-room light fixture is a functional art piece created from wood salvaged from diseased ash trees.

RIGHT Designer Jeffrey Riedl leans over the dramatic central staircase that serves as a focal point for the home’s common areas.

DECOR

KEY ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN ELEMENTS OF THIS HOME

1. To make the most of the sloped lot, the volume of the home was set upon a plinth (base) and differentiated from the plinth through materials and massing, with the upper levels designed in a T-shape.

2. The commanding seven-footby-five-foot front door on the ground level is crafted from rolled steel and pivots to open.

3. The exterior materials — sawnface rundle stone, metal and wood — were sourced in neutral tones to create a peaceful, countryside feeling.

4. Inside the home, a backdrop of wood and white allows for personal items to bring colour to the space.

5. Walk-in closets with plenty of built-ins in each bedroom free up space for furnishings and create room to breathe.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

The home’s unique design was an answer to the challenges presented by the sloped lot.

The intimate “secret garden,” visible from the window of the home gym.

The commanding steel front door on the ground level of the home pivots to open, revealing artwork hung on a backdrop of pressed bark in the foyer.

Jeffrey Riedl of Robert Pashuk Architecture Inc.

Riddell Library and Learning Centre now open

Let the Mount Royal University Library be your gateway to a world of information and lifelong learning.

You are invited to join us for special events and exhibits throughout the year.

or visit our children’s literature collection.

Check us out. Hours and services at mru.ca/RLLC

THE SOURCE

FASHION

PAGES

64 TO 73

Birks, The Core, 403-260-8700, and CF Chinook Centre, 403-255-6696, maisonbirks.com

Blu’s, Bankers Hall, 403-234-7971, and Southcentre, 403-225-8315, blus.com

Brass Monocle, The Core, 403-269-7616, and Mount Royal Village, 806 16 Ave. S.W., 403-228-9191, brassmonocle.com

Carati, Bankers Hall, 403-264-5557, carati.ca Chanel Boutique at Holt Renfrew, The Core, 403-232-6240, chanel.ca

Espy Experience, 1009 9 Ave. S.E., 403-4573779, espyexperience.com

gravitypope, 1126 17 Ave. S.W., 403-209-0961, gravitypope.com

Holt Renfrew, The Core, 403-269-7341, holtrenfrew.com

Malorie Urbanovitch, urbanovitch.co

Michael Kors, The Core, 403-264-4981, CF Chinook Centre, 403-537-0093, and Southcentre, 403-225-1943, michaelkors.com

Nordstrom, CF Chinook Centre, 587-291-2000

Ooh La La Womenswear, 1575 7 St. S.W., 403-245-6900, oohlalawomenswear.com

Rubaiyat, 722 17 Ave. S.W., 403-228-7192, rubaiyatcalgary.com

Shear Luxury, 1412 9 Ave. S.E., 403-455-2010, shearluxury.ca

Simons, The Core, 403-697-1840, simons.ca

Wong Ken’s Jewellery, 570, 10816 Macleod Tr. S.E. (Willow Park Village) 403-271-9267, wongkens.com

DECOR

PAGES 124 TO 130

Living room couches from Maria Tomás 6051 Centre St. S.W., 403-454-6051, mariatomas.com

Living room wing chairs and pillows from Pomp & Circumstance, 1204 12 St. S.W., 403-244-4211, pompandcircumstance.ca

Cedar tree living room tables designed by Brent Comber (Vancouver), 604-980-4467, brentcomber.com

Living room artwork (on pressed-bark backdrop) by Bewabon Shilling, purchased through Rod Schuhart of Art Connection Calgary, 403-2307266, artconnectioncalgary.com

Hanging scupture-chandelier over dining room table by Brothers Dressler (Toronto), 416-910-5892, brothersdressler.com

Refinished dining room table and chairs originally purchased from Ethan Allen, ethanallen.ca Dining room artwork from Pomp & Circumstance Pendant lights over the staircase designed by Crash Industrial Supply Co., Santa Monica, Calif. (no longer operating)

Carpentry throughout the home (including staircase) by Prime Millwork, 135, 10550 42 St. S.E., 403-404-7427, primemillwork.ca

Garden furniture from Barbecues Galore, two Calgary locations: north, 403-250-1558 and south,

403-258-4440, barbecuesgalore.ca

Outdoor plants (including trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals) and planters purchased at Plantation Garden Centre, 2408 4 St. N.W., 403-277-4769, plantationgardencentre.com

THIS PAGE

Bedroom chandelier from Urban Outfitters, urbanoutfitters.com

Tin ceiling tiles from The Home Depot, multiple Calgary locations, homedepot.ca

TOP Daughter Katie’s boho bedroom is topped with tin ceiling tiles. RIGHT Clean lines and artwork create a serene space for bathing.

Annie MacInnis

It’s clear to anyone who meets Annie MacInnis that her heart belongs to Kensington. Te innercity area has been the site of many milestone moments: her husband proposed on 10A Street N.W., she bought her 1950s wedding dress at Peacock Boutique, she raised her children there and now it’s where she works. As the executive director of the Kensington Business Revitalization Zone, MacInnis does everything from pick up garbage on the street to advocate on behalf of local businesses at City Council. “Kensington was my frst home when I came here,” says MacInnis. “ Tat’s why I’m so pas sionate about it. Te whole neigh bourhood is an experience.”

2 Rosemary Polenta Loaf at Sidewalk Citizen Bakery

It’s like a banana-bread loaf, but with polenta and rosemary and this incredible icing on top. They only make it a few days a week, so it’s a mission to get some.

7

We’ve been going to this family-run business since we moved here. They’re such nice people and the donair is amazing. I always buy my pita bread, feta cheese and black olives from them, as well.

Zoe’s Store

If I’m anywhere in the vicinity I’ll go to Zoe’s thrift store for a while, even just to visit. They have high-quality stuff, and every Christmas they have a rack of ugly Christmas sweaters they make themselves.

Kensington’s Eye Health Centres

Dr. Diana Monea is a rock star at her job — she saved my sight. She’s also always dressed in amazing outfits and she has fantastic eyeglasses.

8

Festival Hall

This Inglewood venue is such an intimate place to listen to music. You end up talking to the people beside you and everyone’s excited because they’re just there to see the musician.

9

Sunnyside Off-leash Dog Park

It’s a special little treasure of a spot. You’re just a couple of blocks from Memorial Drive, but you feel like you got out of the city for a half-hour.

1 Salt and Pepper Squid at the Golden Inn Restaurant

The salt-and-pepper squid with hot-and-sour soup has been my family’s celebration meal since 1981. It’s the best salt-and-pepper squid in the city, with almost no batter but tons of flavour.

3 Los Chilitos Taco & Tequila House

6 Adults Only Night at Telus Spark

I went with my family of four to this and it blew us all away. It’s great for a date night, too. There’s so much to see and talk about that you won’t have a moment of awkwardness.

10

Coffee Milkshakes at Peters’ Drive-In

My favourite Mexican hot spot. I especially love their churros. I’m usually too full for dessert, so it’s a recent discovery for me, but, oh my god, they are amazing. Annie

Coffee milkshakes were a big thing when I was growing up in Nova Scotia. The ones at Peters’ are like a taste of my childhood.

Jimmy’s A&A Deli

MacInnis photo by Jennifer Friesen; Los Chilitos photo by Jared Sych

Title Sponsors:

Pat Dahnke lace ruffled dress with a hand beaded clutch

BY Kait Kucy

Local Finds

co|create co.

Ideal for storing small objects or as a pinch pot for your favourite spices and salts, these handmade concrete dishes ($20) are very practical and stack nicely in multiples with their solid wooden lids. Based in Edmonton, co|create is a husband-wife design duo with a background in architecture who now focus on designing fun and minimalist homewares.

Seed Yoga

Does your yoga flow need a little work? Perhaps the answer to finding your Zen lies in your yoga wear. Designed and ethically made right here in Calgary, Seed Yoga’s Antidote pants (starting at $150) are made with natural hemp fibres that allow the skin to breathe while practicing yoga, walking or just lounging. The unisex harem-style pants will be your new go-to garment as the hemp, organic-cotton and spandex fabrication gets softer with every use. theseedstore.ca

The Remastered Herman Miller Aeron Chair

Herman Miller has been known for its exceptional office furniture for decades. Since its debut in 1994, the company’s Aeron Chair has been one of its staples. Applying fresh technology to the time-tested design, the Aeron was recently remastered. The new features include better stability and comfort through smarter pressure distribution, adjustable sacral and lumbar support and new colour options for modern office environments.

The Aeron Chair (starting at $785) can be purchased at Herman Miller’s Calgary distributor, Contemporary Office Interiors (COI).

2206 Portland St. S.E., 403-265-1133, coi.bz

6Streets

Available at Greater Goods, 8, 606 Meredith Rd. N.E., greatergoodsco.ca

Locally designed in downtown Calgary, 6streets is a men’s streetwear brand that proves that comfort can still be stylish and that even simple items can have a story. Case in point is the company’s York Crewneck ($100). The soft, marled-fleece pullover is adorned with a single tiny white rose — a reference to England’s historic War of the Roses between the House of Lancaster, which was represented by a red rose, and the House of York, represented by a white rose. The cozy pullover is perfect for transitioning into those chilly autumn evenings.

Available at Modern Menswear, 2500 4 St. S.W., 403-457-3377, modernmenswear.ca

WORK OF ART

CURATED BY Katherine Ylitalo PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jared Sych

Machin

On the inside, the miniature, cutaway home of Alexis Kondra’s Machin might suggest a dollhouse, with its teeny pearl-white teapot (smaller than a dime) and four tiny cups set for teatime on a tiny table that doubles as a child’s blanket fort. Te furnishings in this cozy space are a comfy mix, the kind a family might accumulate over many years: china cabinet, bookshelves, record stand and a dresser that might be referred to as “antique.” But the exterior, an amalgam of a storefront, house and shed, belies any preciousness. Weatherworn, fragmented and slowly being overgrown with plant life, it’s a memory in a casing that is gradually disintegrating.

Kondra’s work mines her childhood memories while exploring the nature of memory and spatial relationships. She credits the iconic artist, Gordon Matta-Clark, who sliced buildings open, and Chicago-based Krista Svalbonas, who creates photographic architecture, as her inspirations. Kondra presents herself with extra challenges of working at 1:24 scale and using authentic materials — wooden cofee stir-sticks for barn-board siding, for example. She crafs almost everything by hand, ofen with dental tools, and procures any metal parts she can’t fabricate herself from fellow Calgary miniature artist Tom Brown.

Kondra moved to Calgary in 2009 from the small rural town of Eagle River, Ont., to attend the Alberta College of Art + Design. She graduated in 2014 and had her debut solo miniature exhibition in 2015 in Te Tinier Gallery in Bridgeland, a street-side glass-box gallery enjoyed by neighbourhood passers-by. Its success and popularity led to an invitation to show this year in Te Little Gallery, an ofspring of the Tinier Gallery, also in Bridgeland.

Kondra started to build Machin during her residence with the Calgary Board of Education Studio Artist Program at Sam Livingston

School — to the delight of the kindergartento-grade four students. Te nature of the living plants in Machin will warrant repeat trips to Bridgeland to see how it changes over the course of its display.

TITLE: Machin, 2017

ARTIST: Alexis Kondra

MEDIUM: Coffee stir-sticks, popsicle sticks, “craft” wood, oven-bake clay, acrylic, India ink, recycled jewellery, plastic laminate, turban cotton, mirror film, plants.

SIZE: Seven inches-by-15 inches-by-10-and-a-half inches.

LOCATION: The Little Gallery, 732 McDougall Rd. N.E., until Oct. 31, 2017.

French Art de Vivre

Bubble. Sofa in Techno 2D fabric, design Sacha Lakic. Silver Tree. Cocktail table, accent table and end table, design Wood & Cane Design. Cercle. Rug, design Eric Gizard. Manufactured in Europe.