Once more through Edmonton

So I made my way back to Edmonton once more, to volunteer at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, meet up with friends, make a bit of money, and tie up a few other loose ends.

I stopped in Leduc to visit a couple of friends I'd volunteered with at North Country Fair, Calvin and Terry. They're such a cute couple, extremely welcoming and generous. We had some food and roasted cat tails over a fire. I also got to meet their daughter Simone, who is a crested gecko afficionado, of which she has over a dozen, each one in its own enclosure. They are fascinating creatures.

I arrived in Edmonton on Tuesday morning and basically went straight to work. I spent a few days roofing, then I helped an old customer move to a new house, and I also put in a good number of hours helping my friend Jonathan who is in the final stages of preparing his new salt therapy clinic before it opens.

I got a chance to meet up with a number of friends during my three weeks in Edmonton, including my close buddy David, in front of whose house I camped out for a week.

The Folk Festival was not bad, though I wasn't very impressed with the artist lineup and I found myself being bored on the last day. This was my fifth and probably last year volunteering at the Edmonton Folk Fest.

Then, one day before my departure, I accomplished something which I'd had on my bucket list for over a year: in the company of two good friends, I took a canoe and we paddled from one end of the city to the other on the river. We did this in five hours, and it was a somewhat exhausting, though rewarding journey. Witnessing Edmonton from the perspective of the North Saskatchewan river is a completely new experience for me, especially seeing the End of the World, which is the site where several houses fell into the river a number of years ago and now only part of the foundation remains jutting out of the ground; this has become a popular spot for young people to sit and drink or indulge in other types of illicit substances. Access to the location is currently prohibited, but of course, that doesn't deter many people.

After saying my final goodbyes and picking up a last bit of Edmonton honey (go and try figuring that one out), I hit the road, leaving Alberta far behind me. New cities, provinces, and states await me.