The Pulse: July 20, 2021

Geoscapes, the brainchild of co-founders Kris Harvey and Trevor Lipton, is returning for a second series of special events.

Featuring guest chefs who prepare multi-course menus served up in transparent dining domes, the series runs from July 15 to Aug. 28. This time, Geoscapes has partnered with Snow Valley which is not only hosting the domes, but also a separate full-service patio and bar.

Geoscapes will highlight the food from eight chefs this summer. While there are some returning chefs from the previous event, including Shane Chartrand and Lindsay Porter, others are new to Geoscapes.

"We really wanted to represent Edmonton as best as possible," said Harvey. "We made sure we had representation from different communities and backgrounds, including women – we have amazing women chefs in Edmonton."

Chefs Mai Nguyen of Gourmai Dumplings and Eric Hanson (formerly of Prairie Noodle) are participating in Geoscapes for the first time; neither are currently working at restaurants, and Harvey is excited that guests will be able to enjoy their exclusive menus. Chefs Tony Le and Troy Griffith from Century Hospitality Group are also new additions and will be bringing their cuisine to the domed environment.

Harvey was also happy to invite Rub'd chef Calvin Tuefeld to the event. "We wanted to create opportunities for young chefs who are doing interesting things," said Harvey. "This event can also open doors for future generations (of chefs)."

Tickets for the event are $125 for adults, with a minimum of four people per dome. While Geoscapes did introduce the chance to purchase tickets for children at a discounted rate of $25, Harvey admits that the cost may exclude some diners. For this reason, Geoscapes worked with Snow Valley to create two more approachable outdoor experiences in Tito's Patio and Botanist Garden.

• The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) has released 61 policy recommendations ahead of a national summit on Islamophobia which begins Thursday. The NCCM report calls for street harassment bylaws like those being considered in Edmonton, as well as other actions aimed at all three levels of government.
• Edmonton-born NHL prospect Luke Prokop announced that he is gay on social media. The 19-year-old Nashville Predators draft pick is the first active player under NHL contract to come out as gay. The Alberta hockey community applauded his courage.
• The Alberta Council of Women's Shelters launched a multi-lingual domestic violence awareness campaign to better connect with newcomers and refugee women. The You Are Not Alone campaign is being rolled out in English, Arabic, Punjabi, Tagalog and Urdu.
• The city is looking for input on the Rossdale portion of its Touch the Water Promenade design. The project, which will transform the river valley, has been in the works for nearly 10 years and is in its third phase of public engagement.
• The Edmonton International Airport welcomed the federal government's decision to lift border restrictions at five Canadian airports in early August. EIA can begin receiving international flights as of Aug. 9.
• Former NAIT soccer player Kelsey Mitchell will be competing at the Tokyo Olympics in track cycling. Edmonton resident Eric Wah will travel to Tokyo to referee the Taekwondo competition and Edmonton-born, three-time Paralympic champion Patrick Anderson will compete on Canada's wheelchair basketball team.
• The Alberta Aviation Museum is looking for volunteers to help restore a rare World War II fighter plane that made its way through Edmonton from the U.S. to be used by the Soviet Union.
• The NDP opposition is calling for urgent plans to address the recent rise of emergency bed closures across Alberta. On Monday, the Grey Nuns Hospital became the most recent hospital to reduce services due to staff shortages.

AltaML has announced a new collaboration with Microsoft Canada and the University of Waterloo to provide training and mentorship to students participating in the artificial intelligence stream of the Waterloo Experience (WE) Accelerate program.

The 10-week program offers students the opportunity to tackle real-life projects supplied by partners. AltaML will lead a six-week module under the Microsoft Azure artificial intelligence stream for 80 students.

"Often, students don't get exposed to real-world AI projects and data sets until, in many cases, their first job," Celia Wanderley, chief customer officer at AltaML, told BetaKit. "AI isn't the future anymore; it is part of our everyday lives and AI literacy will be increasingly needed in jobs across all sectors."

With partners like Rogers and Health Canada, students will work on one of four projects, such as hockey analytics using computer vision or exploring digital public forums to measure sentiment using natural language processing.

Edmonton's restaurants have consistently seen more business this month than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This chart shows the difference in seated diners each day in 2021, starting in February, compared to the same day in 2019, before any public health restrictions related to COVID-19 were introduced in Canada, using data from OpenTable that tracks the number of seated diners based on both reservations and walk-ins.

The industry has seen an average 27.8% increase in customers so far in July, compared to 2019. On July 1, the busiest day this year, there were 59% more diners than July 1, 2019.

At the start of February, restaurants were only allowed to operate for curbside pickup, takeout, and delivery, per a set of restrictions introduced by the provincial government towards the end of 2020. On Feb. 8, the government eased these restrictions as part of Stage 1 of its reopening plan, allowing people to dine in but with limitations.

This visibly coincides with a spike in seated diners on Feb. 8, though the numbers still remained below pre-pandemic levels.

Amid rising new COVID-19 cases, the province reintroduced some restrictions at the beginning of April, including a ban on indoor dining effective April 9, though patios were allowed to stay open. On April 8, the change in seated diners over 2019 was -5%, while on April 9, it was -83%.

In May, the provincial government changed its approach by targeting municipalities with high case counts, while relaxing restrictions for those with low case counts. Since Edmonton had more than 50 cases per 100,000 people, a ban on patios was introduced for the city effective May 9, effectively prohibiting all in-person dining once again.

These restrictions were partially lifted on June 1, narrowing the gap between 2019 and 2021 to -21%.

However, it was not until the province entered Stage 2 of its reopening plan on June 10 that restaurants started to see pre-pandemic levels of customers. The change in seated diners was above zero for the first time on June 11, at 4%.

When the province entered Stage 3 on Canada Day, restaurants saw the largest number of customers so far this year, and since then, the number of seated diners has been above 2019 numbers almost every day.

For more perspective on Edmonton's experience of the pandemic, check out our COVID-19 in Edmonton timeline.