Edmonton

The Spamalot tour of state capitals continues! This time, we visited the provincial capital of Alberta: Edmonton. Edmonton is the northern-most city in North America with a population of more than a million people. Its as far north as I've ever been and the latitude is noticeable in the amount of daylight we were getting: official sunrise was around 6 AM with sunset well after 9:15 PM meaning there was light in the sky shortly after 5 AM and until we were walking out the stage door after 10 each night.

The Alberta Legislature Building

Recently, Alberta has become quite a prosperous place. With the spike in energy prices, Alberta's vast deposits of oil and natural gas have propelled the economy skyward. Including the oil trapped in the oil sands deposits north of Edmonton, Canada has oil reserves second in size only to Saudi Arabia! With all this oil money flowing in, I expected Edmonton to feel wealthier than it did. Granted, I spent my whole week downtown, but I never saw the sort of flash that Houston's oil money generates. In fact, the whole town was rather low key.

We flew from Vancouver directly to Edmonton. Upon arrival at Vancouver International, I learned that air travel is equally frustrating North of the border. The line-up at the WestJest counter was insane. The line snaked around the terminal and doubled back on itself. A roving gate agent only served as a place for frustrated people to vent. Fortunately, once we got through the initial line, events at security went more smoothly and we all made the flight with time to spare.

Confusion at the WestJet Counter

When we arrived in Edmonton we were greeted with this sign at baggage claim:

The capital of Alberta and one of Canada's most well-to-do cities welcomes visitors with pictures of wilderness, a combine harvesting wheat and an oil derrick. It was the perfect set-up for Edmonton.

I had done next to no research on what to see, do and eat in Edmonton, so I was glad when Christopher Gurr invited me to dinner. Gurr scouted out a pub with an outdoor patio and Guinness on tap. Several of us gathered for a relaxed evening under the still bright evening sun. Surprisingly, several crew members showed up at Sherlock Holmes while we were there. An accident in a mountain pass along the highway from Vancouver to Edmonton closed the road entirely. Only two of our eight trucks made it through the pass before the road was closed. The remaining six trucks were stuck in British Columbia. This meant an abbreviated load-in on Monday (things had already been pushed back to accommodate the long drive) and an uber-early call of 5 AM on Tuesday to get Spamalot into the theatre and ready for an opening on Tuesday night.

Chris Gurr and Michael Gribbin bend an elbow at Sherlock Holmes Pub.

Spamalot's home for the week was the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium. Situated on the campus of the University of Alberta (home of the Golden Bears -men's' athletics teams - and Fighting Pandas - women's' athletic teams, I'm not kidding) the theatre was one of two built to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Alberta becoming a province. The two theatres are twins, with exactly the same layout. Both are administered by the government of the province and are equally endowed. Our set, once it was finally loaded in, looked great in the auditorium. The auditorium is decorated in dark wood and framed our set beautifully. The crew did a great job getting us in the door and ready to go in time for a smooth opening night.

The Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium

The view from the stage into the auditorium.

You can take a virtual tour of the building here.

It rained most of the day on Wednesday, so I took the opportunity to sleep in, read and generally laze about my hotel room. (You didn't think all the stops on the tour would have 18 mile bike rides and steep mountain hikes, did you?)

TVFMHRW - Edmonton

This part of Alberta is known as part of the "Prairie Provinces" - it's as flat as Kansas - affording me a seemingly endless view from the 26th floor. The building with the peaked green roof was a small casino which was right across the street. I came out $10 ahead for the week!

Edmonton's minor league team, the Cracker Cats (the name comes from the process of "cracking" larger crude oil molecules into smaller gasoline molecules), was out of town so I thought this would be another baseball-less week on tour. Turns out, the Cracker Cats were away so their home field could be used for an international baseball tournament! The International Baseball Federation 2008 World Junior AAA Championships were played in and around Edmonton over two weeks. The payers were 17 and 18 year-olds representing 12 different countries. On Friday, several of us caught a double header. In the first game South Korea defeated Chinese Taipei in a close game and in the second we cheered for the USA as they crushed Puerto Rico in a rout. It turns out that we saw both the gold and silver medal winning teams: South Korea defeated the USA in the title game.

The USA takes on Puerto Rico

Neither of the games we saw drew a very big crowd, but there were obvious partisans. The Taiwanese brought drums and horns while the Koreans sang songs and danced in support of their team!

Patrick rejoined us mid-week fresh from his guest stint on Gossip Girl. As glad as we were to see him, it also meant that we had to say goodbye, again, to Brian O'Brien. As he did in Greenville, Brian hosted a game of flip cup in the green room as his farewell to the Spamily.

Jen Mathie says goodbye to Brian.

(My camera won't be repaired until we're back in the States, so thanks to Francesca for this photo!)

The theatre was a ways from our downtown hotels, so we all rode Edmonton's light rail train to and from work. Getting to work felt almost New York-like. Getting home, however, was strange. We all were on the train together every night. It was a little too much togetherness.

The Edmonton LRT in one of its above-ground stations. For much of its length, though, the LRT ran underground only emerging at either end and to cross high above the river.

This sign on the train made me laugh every time.

The Spamily enjoys some extra together time (and Nigel enjoys a left-over beer from the flip cup game).

The week in Edmonton rushed by - the uninterrupted month in Vancouver almost made me forget how quickly the time goes on a one weeker. I didn't get out and see much of town, but I did take advantage of one sunny afternoon to walk to work and see the Legislature up close and to take in a bit of the park that lines both banks of the North Saskatchewan River. The river is beautiful and has carved a bit of a canyon through town. The whole length of the river is lined by parks that make up the largest connected system of parks in North America (22 times larger than Central Park). The North Saskatchewan River Valley Parks System came into being as a flood control measure (the river carries snow melt from the Rockies and occasionally becomes quite violent) but is now an amazingly varied green space with amenities ranging from tennis courts to primitive camping right in the heart of the city.

The North Saskatchewan River

Sunday night we packed up the show for the short hop over to Calgary and the twin sister of the theatre we had just left. We'll be traveling southward for the next couple of moves, bringing us back to the US and giving me a brief opportunity to visit home and my wife in NYC!

JV