The Edmonton West Star, November 23rd, 2012,The Edmonton West Star

In a whirlwind turn of events, a local St. Albert ex-pat has come clean with their true feelings about this infamous Alberta community. An Edmonton West Star exclusive interview. “Well, uh, guys, I want to start out by saying, well, I’m sorry for any misery or injustice my small but growing bedroom community has served the greater Edmonton area,” says the suburbanite, looking to restart their life anew in a ‘real’ community.

For those readers who don’t know, St. Albert is Alberta’s oldest recorded European living settlement. It was founded by Father Albert Lacombe one snowy day back in the 1800’s. His mission was to create the foundations of an exclusive, conformity riddle society built on the pride of feeling better than thy neighbor.  Lacombe’s overtly racist mandates still live on today, in every vapid smiling, expensively corrected St. Albert face. Located conveniently north of the city, St. Albert relies extensively on Edmonton to provide for its families, but the population’s desire to stay separate from the masses prevents the high income status-quo from contributing to anybody but themselves.

“You know those horribly perfect suburban towns they always show on television and pulp fiction? The ones that are so tidy on the outside you just can’t believe that it could be that way without there being some sort of external force controlling everybody? That’s St. Albert. And you know those movies the make about horrible preppy and snotty girls and jock boys who seemed like they’re made up they’re so typical and arrogant? That’s St. Albert High. Picture ‘Riverdale’ from the Archie comics with more out and out racism and less genuine enthusiasm for others. Way more drugs too. Way more. And all the teenagers think they know how to be successful.” This is how our correspondents describes his birthplace.”Honestly? Looking back on ages one to twenty-one, I’d say I was living in a movie. Or some sort of advertisement. Something like I had no control over, was mind-numbing, and wasn’t a hundred percent reflective of life.”

Surprisingly, St. Albert continues to attract many bright and ambitious moneyed types to its ever growing and extremely car reliant neighborhoods. The population continues to make a statistically thirty percent more on average then the rest of Canada. It uses this fact to shelter itself from the hard truths of Canadian life, creating a sort of naive bio-dome for the Albertan newly rich.

“Which is a weird situation growing up, because like, you know somethings off, very off, but all the adults are pretending like its supposed to be that way. Maybe if they want to live in there childlike stupor, but don’t raise a person in that, it’s just setting them up for personal failure. Especially when they grow up and realize that St. Albert doesn’t encourage apartment or rental living, on account that it might attract criminals.” the young person looks somewhat dismayed at the thought of more St. Albert citizens considering the lifestyle to be of good social measure for their eerily similar offspring.

“Like this one time, and this is a hundred percent true, like actually true in real life, I was walking down by the train bridge, where it’s all nature and stuff, and the Sturgeon river was freezing, but because of all the development in the area, it was really shallow. Except that up the stream, in the old wildlife reserve, Big Lake, that now has a ring road going through it, a bunch of jackfish had spawned. They were freezing into the shallow river, all collected under the bridge, gasping for air. They had nowhere to go. They were freezing alive. I wanted to help them, but there were like thousands of them. Some of them were like two feet long. And then, the worst part, I expected it to be noticed in the local news paper and brought up as an issue. It wasn’t, just high school girls volleyball. “

Obviously a situation like this would turn anybody heads about the supposed integrity of such a perfect place. The ex-pat adds one last true account:

“ My friends and I, growing up, well, we turned into the angriest, most undisciplined, most cynical people you would ever meet. One my friends threw a Halloween pumpkin through a car windshield just because it looked expensive. At least five of my friends had eating disorders in junior high and high school. The first time I learned about a girl with an eating disorder was in grade five. I think that’s like nine years old. My boyfriend’s brother use to pawn the stuff his brother saved up for when he was a kid for drugs. All of this is also a hundred percent true. Stay away. Stay far away.”

23/11/2012