Gillian Steward is a Calgary writer and journalist, and former managing editor of the Calgary Herald.
It's spring, and the trophy hunters are out and about in British Columbia looking for grizzly bears to kill. They won't be eating them of course; grizzly bear meat doesn't taste very good. But a grizzly bear rug looks great in front of the fireplace.
by Gillian Steward
It's early Saturday afternoon and the casino a mere five minutes drive from my house thrums to the bleeps and bloops of slot machines and the whoops of excited craps players.
There are seven such casinos in Calgary and eight in Edmonton. Just in case some of the oilsands workers have money to burn, there are two in Fort McMurray.
No surprise then that Albertans are the biggest spenders per capita in the country when it comes to gambling. And it's much the same in the other western provinces: anyone who gets a thrill out of playing the slots can usually find a casino close at hand.
by Gillian Steward
Peter Facchini sits at a cluttered little table in a small office at the
But Facchini and a team of researchers at several Canadian universities are definitely exploring unknown territory. They are not only genetically decoding certain plants, they are identifying and cataloguing the functions of key genes and enzymes in those plants so they can be used to create new pharmaceuticals, foods, industrial chemicals or insecticides.
by Gillian Steward
You don't have to look far in either Calgary or Vancouver to see glaring signs of the widening gap between rich and poor. Women push shopping carts full of bottles and cans past gleaming new condo towers. Men line up outside a homeless shelter in the shadow of the Calgary Tower.
