Author: Ann Normand

Promptly after high school I jumped to the U of Alberta in the sciences faculty and was on the road to my bachelors degree. The best part about University is that your time off goes from about 3 months in high school (2 in the summer + combination of holidays throughout) to about 5 months … Continued

I haven’t written anything here for a couple weeks. Did anyone miss their almost weekly installment of environmental happenings in Alberta? WATERTON I spent the last week hanging out in Waterton AB down in the SW corner of the province. It’s definitely not the biggest National Park we have in Alberta, but I think it’s … Continued

There’s a lot of things going on with water in my life right now. 1) It’s raining so hard out right now I feel like if I stay at work much longer, when I leave our world will look like this: 2) When it rains a lot, the crawl space in my basement kind of … Continued

THE GOOD OL’ DAYS Back when I was a kid, after my 250km long uphill walk home from school in 182 feet deep snow, I would flip on the good ol’ YTV and watch some afternoon mindless television shows. These shows included Power Rangers, possibly the X-Men cartoon, and of course Samurai Pizza Cats. YTV … Continued

We launched the Work Wild website to rave reviews on January 5. It was a pretty crazy couple days after that. I got the first 5 minutes of my fifteen minutes of fame anyways. GlobalTV and CTV had me on and I got my first exposure to being on TV. News sets are eerily quiet. … Continued

How sweet are Shetland Ponies? Look at those little guys. They’re like ants that can carry more than their body weight around on their backs. Definitely sturdy little guys. Many people say that horse logging is the least damaging way to cut down a tree and get it to a mill. Horses are so much … Continued

It’s been a busy couple of weeks. I have always had the job of updating the Work Wild website, but recently I’ve also been working on the AFPA site as well. It’s a pretty site, full of bright colours that change with the seasons. I’ve got to write some stuff and add pictures to it … Continued

Right at the beginning of the Work Wild video it says, “out here, your commute looks a little different” (I should know, I have every part of the video memorized). That didn’t really hit home with me until today. It took me an hour to get to work. I’m know people complain about traffic all … Continued

Feel free to listen to this song and possibly watch the video while reading this blog. The organ player wants to rock out so hard, but he’s tied down to his instrument. I bet he wishes he had a key-tar. I had only been to High Level once before yesterday, and I can’t say I … Continued

Being a Registered Professional Forester means you need to go to school all the time. You have to ensure you know about the most up to date technology and science when you’re managing the public forests of Alberta. Yesterday I went to a technical session titled “Best Practices in the Oilsands”. I’m not one who … Continued

Rick Mercer said it best when stating that we, the younger generation, are often ignored politically. Nobody is directly targeting my vote. Stephen Harper shows up at boat showrooms and my grandma’s over 65 assisted living condos, but he doesn’t seem to venture to the places where I hang out. He’s not in the condos … Continued

Part of the reason people decide to work in the forest industry is for the community that you become a part of. I grew up in a town of 6,000 people, so I understand what it’s like to feel like part of a community. My town was more of a farming town than a forestry … Continued

Generate 2011 is an energy literacy youth summit for high schoolers across the province to share ideas about what they believe should be the future of energy in Alberta. It’s a very interesting idea, and I imagine some of the youth attending this conference will be the ones that carry the torch for our province … Continued