"Darby's Edmonton, Alberta Page" a Edmonton Travel Page by Darby2

The field of golden canola pictured above (from which canola oil is extracted used in cooking and the manufacture of margarine ) is typical of the area surrounding Edmonton with other crops being wheat, barley, oats, flax , pulse crops and potatoes. Incidently, canola oil can also be used in a refined form to operate diesel engines. (bio-diesel) There are plans underway to build a very large bio-diesel plant near Edmonton. When a vehicle burns biodiesel, the exhaust gases have an aroma of french fries!

I live just outside of Edmonton, Alberta near the town of Stony Plain about 30Km west. (Read about Stony Plain in my Travelogue)

Current Edmonton Weather

CBC Radio Edmonton

Edmonton Sun newspaper

Current Edmonton gasoline prices

East of Edmonton are many towns and villages with persons of Ukrainian origin.
The most well known is Vegreville, home of the world's largest pysanka.
Visit the Vegreville web page
In addition, Alberta boasts the world's largest kubassa in Mundare, the world' largest perogy in Glendon! Those Ukranians! Now they need some other town to have the biggest cabbage roll!
OH, one more thing-- Smoky Lake, another Ukranian community is the Giant Pumpkin capital of Alberta- (1029 Pounds)

If your head down the Badlands in the Drumheller area, you'll come face-to- face with the largest DINOSAUR as well!
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I've tried to give some variety to my pages here including a look at Alberta's Oil patch around here and in Fort McMurray.
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Edmonton is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in Canada.

In fact 74% of Edmontonians have ethnic roots other than aboriginal, English, or French, and this percentage is growing. Based on Statistics Canada figures and additional information from the sources listed below, the estimated number of persons in the Edmonton area who speak and/or understand other major ethnic languages are as follows:

German - 85,000 Ukrainian - 65,000
Chinese - 50,000 + Polish - 35,000
Indian languages - 35,000 Italian - 23,000 +
Arabic - 22,000 Spanish - 18,000
Dutch - 15,000 Filipino - 12,000
Vietnamese - 11,000 + Russian - 6,000
Portuguese - 5,000 Romanian - 5,000
Croatian - 5,000 + Serbian - 5,000 +
Greek - 3,000 Korean - 3,000 +
Hungarian - 2,500 +

NOTE: Immigration to Edmonton and Calgary from 1984 to 1998 was 206,063 persons, 50%-60% of which had no prior knowledge of English. Sources: Alberta-Adv. Education & Career Development, Italian Vice Consulate, Consulate of the Netherlands, Chinese Community Services, German_Canadian Association of Alberta, Ukrainian Canadian Congress- Alberta Provincial Council, Edmonton Journal, Community Organizations.

Barley is one of the principal crops grown around Edmonton. Much of the best barley is used to make malt for beer, while lower grades are used for animal feed.

What makes Edmonton hum...the businesses and industries

Edmonton is a good place to set up and do business. Centrally located, on all major transportation routes it's a hub of international activity. A skilled workforce of more than 400,000 with very low unemployment, some of the main industries include:

1. Oil and gas exploration, refining, petrochemicals, plastics, metal fabrication, steel, cement, pipelines.

2. High- technology research centre for all branches of science. There is currently the first centre for Nanotechnology in Canada builng built at the University of Alberta.

3.Transportation related industries, rail, air, road.

4.Agriculture and related industries. Grain, cattle, dairy, mushrooms, honey, market gardens.

5. Business and financial centre.

6. Medical research. Numerous companies have set up R&D facilities in many branches of medicine. One has recently made a breakthrough in the treatment of psoriasis.
Isotechnika

7. Forest products and wood processing

8. Manufacturing and construction

I shall be adding more pics of the industrial and commercial facet of Edmonton and the surrounding areas soon.

EDMONTON REAL ESTATE If you're looking for a place to buy or thinking of moving here.