Edmonton: Secrets of the City

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

If you sat down with a best friend who “knew everything and
everyone” in Edmonton, and wrote down the tidbits she offered you,
this book would be the result. There are historical snippets along with
a current guide to the toniest restaurants and shops. Most of the
“secrets” in the book are rather obscure and have a gossipy edge to
them. We discover, for example, that there is a closed tunnel under the
Faculté Saint Jean—a tidbit that serves primarily as a vehicle for
spreading rumors about the tunnel’s historical use as a place for
illicit rendezvous between nuns and priests. And some of the tidbits,
such as Alberta’s strenuous efforts to remain rat-free, aren’t
secrets at all.

The author’s criteria for inclusion are not obvious. Wayne Gretzky
and Mark Messier make the cut, but Kevin Lowe, Grant Fuhr, and Dave
Semenko do not. Even the current mayor, Bill Smith, doesn’t rate a
mention. Edmonton’s entertainment personalities and wealthy families
are represented, but the academic greats are completely overlooked. The
fact that Edmonton has made huge medical breakthroughs, particularly in
diabetes research, is simply not on Rooke’s radar.

The structure of this book is very odd. A series of entries related to
a particular theme occupy the outer two-thirds of each page. The inner
third of each page may contain materials totally unrelated to the theme
on the outer two-thirds. For example, in the section on tunnels, the
story in the inner columns concerns the Valley Zoo. Remarkably, no
mention is made of the zoo’s train tunnel and its informative
hummingbird display, although the index does allow the user to locate
material.

Flaws aside, Edmonton: Secrets of the City would an interesting window
on the city for anyone planning to visit Edmonton and would be
appropriate for public libraries.