The Pulse: Jan. 21, 2021

Farrow Sandwiches opened its fourth Edmonton location on Jan. 18 in the former Wishbone space downtown. The new outpost joins existing Farrow locations in Ritchie, Garneau, and on 124 Street.

Owner Brayden Kozak thinks Farrow will be a good fit for downtown Edmonton.

"Downtown appreciates a good grab and go for lunch and even breakfast," he said. "I don't think the business crowd will ever tire of tasty and fast options that work within their lunch hour."

Kozak, who along with business partner Brian Welch also owns Three Boars and High Dough on 109 Street, said Wishbone had been struggling due to restrictions on dine-in service.

"We were unable to fill the gap with takeout," he said. "It just became unsustainable to keep the doors open so we took the opportunity to use the space for Farrow and called it quits."

The downtown location also provides Farrow with space to expand pastry production, something they had already been looking to do.

• Premier Jason Kenney held a press conference following President Joe Biden's cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline permit on Jan. 20. He called the decision a "gut punch."
• Coun. Mike Nickel and former natural resources minister and city councillor Amarjeet Sohi are both thinking about running for mayor, according to the Edmonton Journal.
• Some Albertans who have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine are confused about when they might be able to get their second injection. "Dr. Richard Bergstrom, an anesthesiologist at the University of Alberta Hospital, said he was told he could not be booked for his second dose appointment," reported Global News.
• The city is helping out tenants of The Orange Hub, "home to a number of non-profit groups in the arts, recreation, wellness and learning", with financial assistance to make it through the duration of the pandemic.

An earlier version of this item incorrectly stated Amarjeet Sohi is the former national defense minister. He is in fact the former natural resources minister.

Last fall Northern Light Theatre (NLT) opened its 45th anniversary season at the Arts Barns last fall with We Had a Girl Before You, an actual in-person play, perhaps one of the last we'll see for the foreseeable future. 

The NLT season was programmed to feature stories about women "of a certain age" — that is, mature beyond their 20s and 30s. Though artistic director Trevor Schmidt was initially reluctant to pivot online, as told to your correspondent in an early 2020 interview, NLT is now shifting to digital delivery for its upcoming production of The Look by Australian playwright/screenwriter Alexa Wyatt. It is set to stream Jan. 22-31.

Mayor Don Iveson officially introduced new city manager Andre Corbould to the media on Jan. 20.

• "Corbould said he doesn’t see any major hurdles to adjusting to municipal governance and he plans to move forward with all of the major projects underway in the city, including the Metro and Valley Line LRTs," reports the Edmonton Journal.
• Corbould started his new role on Jan. 18 and "one of his first points of business was meeting city staff at a transit garage," wrote CTV Edmonton.

Watch the full event here.

On this day in 1911, real estate agent John R. McIntosh ran this ad for Calder, more formally known as the Village of West Edmonton, which had been settled by employees of the roundhouse, shops, and yards of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.

The ad claims that a customer dubbed Calder "the town with a future" because of "the remarkable conditions prevailing there at the present time, combined with the future prosperity that appears on the horizon for this rapidly growing sub-division." And it was indeed a hot property at the time, with lots selling quickly.

Calder's future as an independent municipality was short-lived, however. The village lacked modern conveniences like electricity and running water, and it ended up joining Edmonton, which had grown to surround it, in 1917. "Even so, urban amenities were many years away; main roads were finally paved in 1950 and the sewage system became fully operational in 1953," writes Lawrence Herzog.

The present-day neighbourhood of Calder, bounded by 127th Street to the west and 113A Street to the east, between 127th and 132nd avenues, is located in Anirniq (formerly Ward 2).

This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist @revRecluse.

• Northern Light Theatre is streaming The Look by Alexa Wyatt, starring Linda Grass, from Jan. 22-31.
• Tim Mikula's surrealist portraiture of provincial politicos from his controversial ABLegGiftShop is on display at The Paint Spot through Feb. 6.
• Metro Cinema is running a retrospective showcasing the films of visionary Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai until Feb. 19. Buy a pass for all seven films, or catch them one by one.
• Pandemic University is offering online writing classes for a variety of projects and formats.