The Pulse: Jan. 24, 2024

Moves can be emotional and that includes when a social services organization vacates a building it occupied for 27 years, Elliott Tanti of Boyle Street Community Services told Taproot.

Before the organization left its former building just north of Rogers Place on Sept. 30, community members and outreach workers gathered for a round dance.

"We tried to bring some closure to that facility in a meaningful and spiritually informed way," Tanti said. "For many of these people, this was their home, this was the place that they felt safest in, it's where their family and their community was. There was a lot of history in that building — positive and negative."

It's been nearly four months since Boyle Street Community Services left the building. In that time, services that once ran out of the former building now operate from eight smaller spaces, through partnership with churches and other institutions.

"The idea is, rather than having one big drop-in space like we've traditionally had, what we wanted to do is do smaller micro drop-ins across the city," Tanti said.

And the results are positive, Tanti added. Partnerships with organizations have suggested where duplication might be reduced to improve services, and a few new buildings have even boosted inclusivity.

For example, BSCS moved its triage programs to a Bissell Centre building at 10527 96 Street NW. These programs are where clients can meet a housing or youth services worker, or pick up mail, a bus pass, or pet food.

There's overlap between the people Bissell and Boyle serve, so the Bissell Centre building has "slowly become a one-stop shop for folks," Tanti said.

The two agencies are contemplating how they might be more efficient in serving the community.

"The best example I would use is we have a mail service and so does Bissell, so we've been working with them actively and talking with them about how we might better integrate those services," Tanti said. "One of the greatest barriers in our work is having to send people from place, to place, to place … so anytime that we can be more collaborative in our service delivery approach — ask people to recite their stories and their traumas less often — the easier it is for us to connect people to services."

• A "heavily armed" man was arrested at city hall in Edmonton on Jan. 23 after firing shots and throwing a Molotov cocktail from the second floor of the building's atrium. Councillors were at a public committee meeting inside the River Valley Room on the main floor when the commotion began, forcing the building into lockdown. No injuries were reported. Edmonton Police Service Chief Dale McFee said during a new conference that the man entered the building armed with a long gun and several Molotov cocktails. An unarmed security guard detained him before police responded. The suspect's name hasn't been released and police said charges are pending. In a video statement, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said the city will "follow the advice of security professionals" to determine next steps. "I'm proud that Edmonton city hall has been an open and welcoming space for decades, and I'm confident that it will continue to be," he said.
• The Edmonton neighbourhood formerly known as Oliver has been renamed wîhkwêntôwin, a Cree term meaning "circle of friends," in a move to reflect the area's diversity. The change is the result of the Uncover Oliver campaign, launched in 2020, which highlighted the harmful legacy of the neighbourhood's former namesake Frank Oliver, who enacted policies that displaced Indigenous peoples and restricted immigration based on ethnicity. The renaming was led by an Indigenous-led committee and is part of a broader effort to remove problematic historical names and memorials from the city.
• Adam Laughlin, the deputy city manager for Integrated Infrastructure Services at the City of Edmonton is set to leave his position on Feb. 2, Postmedia reported. His departure marks the fifth high-ranking official to leave the city's executive leadership team in the past year, following a series of departures that began in March 2023. Laughlin has been with the city since 2005 and played a key role in Edmonton's infrastructure projects and pandemic response.
• In an interview with Postmedia, Sgt. Curtis Hoople, president of the Edmonton Police Association, highlighted the mental health toll on city police, with 10% of staffers on leave as of mid-December. The Edmonton Police Service is facing renewed public scrutiny in the wake of recent encampment removals, and members are continuing to deal with the aftermath of the March 2023 on-duty killings of two constables, Hoople said, adding he'd like to see more support for officers from the police service and the City of Edmonton.
• Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is in Edmonton for a three-day caucus meeting to strategize for the upcoming parliamentary year. The NDP is targeting growth in the city, and Singh and local MPs Heather McPherson and Blake Desjarlais canvass with Edmonton Centre candidate Trisha Estabrooks. Singh also hosted a town hall meeting in the Inglewood neighbourhood on Jan. 23 to hear from Albertans and outline the NDP's affordability plans.
• Alberta Medical Association president Dr. Paul Parks warned that family medicine in Alberta is facing a major crisis, as new data shows that 91% of family doctors are concerned about the financial viability of their practices and 61% are considering leaving the health-care system. Parks urged the government to act quickly, noting that other provinces have changed their funding models, while Alberta continues to reimburse doctors using a fee-for-service model. In a statement, Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange noted the province has committed $200 million over two years in stabilization funding to help physicians continue their practices.
• Despite an impressive 14-game winning streak, the Edmonton Oilers are not necessarily destined for a Stanley Cup victory, sports journalist Ryan Dixon wrote. While six other NHL teams have managed to match or beat that streak, just two went on to the final, and only one team won the Stanley Cup, he noted. "Short term, it seems like the Oilers have a decent chance to end up at the top of the all-time list," Dixon wrote. "Long term, all they care about is doing what most of the teams in that group didn't even come close to."

Here are some events happening today in the Edmonton area.

• The Art & Science of Public Sector Governance starting at 7:30am at the Royal Glenora Club
• ST Innovations Town Hall Info Session 1 starting at 2pm online
• Trivia Night with Net Impact Edmonton starting at 6pm at The Common
• YEGBio Hangout starting at 6:30pm at Amii
• Opera Pub starting at 7pm at the Blue Chair Cafe

And here are some upcoming events to keep in mind:

• Feb. 8: Startup TNT Top 20 Pitch for Agri-Food, Cleantech, and Life Sciences starting at 5pm online
• Feb. 25: Brewery Tour and Tasting with the Brewmaster starting at 1pm at Manual Labour Beer Co.
• Mar. 2: BCW International Women's Day 2024 DigitALL starting at 5:30pm at the Edmonton Convention Centre

Visit the beta version of the Taproot Edmonton Calendar for many more events in the Edmonton region.

On this day in 1919, one of Edmonton's largest dairies was courting delegates from the United Farmers of Alberta.

Cattle and ranching have been a part of Alberta's identity for longer than it has been a province. Early advertisements created to entice European settlers to the area focused on farming and ranching as lucrative opportunities for anyone willing to move out west. An 1889 booklet made a special case for what became Alberta as the ideal location for dairy farming. It promised natural grazing lands, "sparkling springs of cold mountain water" and the absence of "highly flavoured noxious weeds" that might affect milk production if cows ate them.

These pledges of land without tasty weeds seemed to work as many settlers established dairy farms, including in the Edmonton area. The first commercial dairy near the city was likely the West End Dairy, established in 1899. It was located in what was considered west Edmonton at the time — around 110 Street and 99 Avenue. The dairy was soon delivering milk, butter, and other dairy products by horse-drawn wagon to the homes of people in the growing settlement.

The early part of the 1900s was a boom time for Edmonton, but it wasn't just the population that was on the rise. Prosperity also increased, and as the city grew larger and wealthier, demand for milk, cheese, and butter continued to rise. With this came more dairies to fulfill the need. The Edmonton City Dairy was one of them. It was founded in 1906 and soon grew to be one of the city's largest, alongside others like the Woodland Dairy and the Jasper Dairy.

By the 1910s, dairy production had become a vital part of Edmonton's economy. Production served local residents but was also shipped and sold in eastern Canada and British Columbia. By 1916, the Edmonton City Dairy had grown to be the largest butter factory in the country, churning up more than 2.5 million pounds of butter annually.

Dairy was still big business in Edmonton in the 1920s, and it made its mark on the city's skyline. In 1928, Edmonton City Dairy commissioned a 27-foot-tall steel milk bottle for the roof of its new building near Jasper Avenue and 109 Street. The eight-ton landmark was made in New York and shipped to the city. This behemoth bottle wasn't all show, however: it also served as the condenser for the building's refrigeration system.

The bottle outlasted the dairy itself, as it remained on the building after ECD was bought and turned into the Silverwood Dairy.

The 1930s saw the number of milk producers peak in the province, topping out at around 36. Then producers started to decline. New technology and disappearing farmland pushed smaller dairies out. They sold their farms to a shrinking number of mega-producers.

In the latter half of the century, dairy became a less important part of Edmonton's economy. Faster shipping, better refrigeration, and other factors saw more competitors arrive from outside the city. Eventually, Silverwood shut down. Their building was demolished in 1977. That massive milk bottle survived, though, and was moved to Northlands Park.

Edmonton's dairy industry might not be the powerhouse it used to be, but it wasn't forgotten. Home delivery of milk bottles lasted a surprisingly long time — Edmonton's last door-to-door milkman retired in 2012. And there is still a robust community of collectors who seek out old milk bottles, each stamped with the logos and names of the now-defunct dairies.

Milk production is still big in Alberta, with about 500 dairies across the province. And like everything else, technology continues to change the industry. Just last year, an Edmonton start-up announced a project to develop artificial intelligence to identify injured or ill milk cows using photos or videos.

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