No matter your place of origin, you cannot help but have Alberta rub off on you once you live here. I moved here as a teenager and I knew I was in Alberta when… everyone was driving a truck, usually a Ford or Chevy. Back east, trucks were more for the farm. Here it was the first vehicle I tried to drive, a standard of course, automatics were too uncool for a real trucker.
I recall being introduced to ”road apples”, produced by said trucks. According to my somewhat questionable friends who had just obtained their drivers’ licences – road apples were those prairie dogs who met their unfortunate demise under the tire of some passing truck, sometimes intentionally as there were apparently too many. Little did I know that ”road apples” is a term for frozen horse dung, historically used for hockey pucks. Until recently, I thought The Tragically Hip album of the same name was about dead gophers.
You know you’re a lawyer in Alberta when… the burning wills and estates planning question you are asked is not about what will happen with one’s pets, but rather one’s beloved guns, once the owner passes away. If their spouse is not licensed, will the guns be confiscated? No need to pry them from cold, dead hands if you plan ahead.
Being one that blows up pots when I try to cook, as my husband recently reminded me, I have never owned a gun. I permanently turned off the gas for the gas fireplace when we moved into our current home as I did not want to inadvertently blow up the house. So guns have always been out of the question for me, weighing the odds of the good I could achieve in an emergency scenario versus the harm I might inadvertently cause. The right to bear arms, if the weather is nice, is enough of a right for me personally, though, with global warnings, even that right can be fraught with risk if I forget the SPF 50.
You know you’re in Alberta when… you don your own cowboy hats and boots, not because it is Halloween, but because it is Stampede and Rodeo season. If you have been here long enough, you will have a whole wardrobe even if it is to wear at your desk.
You know you are in Alberta… if you cook your steak outdoors on the barbecue, year-round, including in minus-40 weather. Gas BBQ for me? No way, that must be way easier to blow up than a pot, but partaking in the eating has always been a passion. The recent Ribfests are not the end of outdoor cooking for true Albertans.
Lastly, you know you’re in Alberta… when the RVs on the highway on the long weekends outnumber regular vehicles. Alberta RVs are sometimes expandable to be larger than most homes.
There you have it, trucks, guns, cowboy hats, barbecue, and RV’s, a little, or a lot, of Wild West for each of us Albertans.
Donna Purcell, KC (aka Lady Justice), is a Central Alberta lawyer and Chief Innovation Officer with Donna Purcell QC Law. If you have legal questions, contact dpurcell@dpqclaw.com.
