How did Edmonton come to be known as a prairie city? Dustin Bajer asked that question on Taproot Edmonton‘s story garden. Finding out the answer – and figuring out whether this area is aspen parkland, or prairie, or forest – challenged our ideas about the land we live on.

This episode is the first of a series of collaborations with Taproot.

Listen first, then read below for more information.

We began our journey with at the Bruce Peel Special Collections, where Jeff Papineau led us through print records enticing settlers to come out to Alberta.

Kory DeGroot from the Edmonton & Area Land Trust helped orient us to a site we hoped would offer a snapshot in time of what this land was like before it was turned into farms and cities.

We headed out to one of EALT’s local sites: the Coates Conservation Area.

We found freshwater mussel shells down in the Coates area along the Willow Creek trail!

Finally, we spoke to Ron Lameman, a member of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation who works for the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations. He turned our whole paradigm about this land on its head.