Edmonton

Our last stop on our recent Canadian visit was Edmonton, the centre for Alberta's oil and gas industry, a city which has sprawled out in every direction across miles of flat and fairly featureless land. It's a city dominated by the internal combustion engine, so it connects up through an impressive network of roads to which the city constantly adds - the Anthony Henday Drive, Edmonton's equivalent of London's orbital M25, has just been completed. It should be an ugly city, and some parts of it are about as shabby as any North American city we've seen, but it's saved by being built on either side of the winding North Saskatchewan River, along which the city has developed....

....parks of which it should be very proud. This is a small one, Gold Bar Park, which has absolutely the right mix of play areas for small children, seats for those getting on in years, and barbecue areas for the whole family; and, in winter, it has a network of tracks maintained for those who enjoy Nordic skiing.

The city parks along Edmonton's river are connected by miles of trails which, every time we visit, we walk with great pleasure. All this green space isn't quite wilderness but we've seen beaver, coyote, musk rat and a wealth of other mammals, birds and insects.

If an Edmonton resident wants something just a little bit wilder....

....they only have to drive east along the Yellowhead Trail for half an hour or so to reach Elk Island National Park where there are herds of both forest and plains bison and, if one can find them, a pack of wolves. These are plains bison in the north part of the park; the herd numbered around 200.

The park has well-maintained paths, campsites and recreational areas for those that want them but much of its area is true wilderness. This is typical of the many lakes within the park with two beaver lodges visible. Better still, when we were there in June, the lakes...

....teemed with dragonflies. This is a pair of Whitehouse's Emeralds, Somatochlora whitehousei: just look at those eyes!