Edmonton People Vs Edmonton Places

Whilst preparing for my essay for this class (originally planned to be written about the Charles Camsell Hospital) I realized that a large amount of Edmonton places are completely unrelated to the people. For example, we learnt about how Frank Oliver was (pretty much) a racist, and that has nothing to do with the square that is now named after him. Charles Camsell was a geologist and a mineralogist, and he got a hospital. In terms of honouring people, I just think Edmonton has had some weird methods of doing it. Then again, Laura Secord got chocolates, so maybe it's normal... just a thought!

Father Leo Green!

I just wanted to note that I found it interesting that he talks about Father Leo Green elementary at the end of the novel. First of all it IS a real school, in fact I went to the mandarin immersion public school correspondent Kildare down the street. Either way, I liked how he describes the school with such a disappointing light, without any excitement for how the school might turn out when it finished. That, to me, is hilarious because the school was a dump when I would walk past it (during my later junior high days at londonderry walking to Kildare to tutor). So yeah, just letting you all know Neil's gut instincts were right, the school kind of sucked.

Back to the Ghost Stories

Afore we all got into our delicious debate about racism, we looked at that small passage about the ghost stories and it did make me think about how ghost stories really develop a sense of place. Much like previous posts about owning a little part of the city or pretty much about sense of place in general, ghost stories seem to really bring this idea to the forefront albeit in a different way. While all the former residents really wanted to just get the heck outta the place, it (for me anyways) almost endears the place and makes one want to go, just to know. I don't know if that was articulated well enough for understanding... so in short
Ghost Stories = good sense of place
-Cheers