Edmonton: From the Top of the City to the End of the World

There are a few important things they don’t tell you about Edmonton.

My father grew up just outside the city, but I knew very little about Canada’s northernmost urban centre. So, in order to figure out what to do in Edmonton, I’d done a little research, which included reading The Yards, an Edmonton urban issues magazine. I knew about the hipsterization of Whyte Avenue, the ICE district being built around the new stadium, that the architecturally impressive Royal Alberta Museum was about to open, and that the city went from having no bike lanes to having one of the most comprehensive networks in the country in under a year.

But somehow I’d missed the fact that the place has been split down the middle by an enormous, majestic gorge, carved out of the Prairie by the noble and languorous North Saskatchewan River. This topographic novelty gives Edmonton something flatland cities rarely have: views. Though there are great ones from the High-Level Bridge, the Low-Level Bridge, and any number of parks and spaces that thread the brow on either side, there are two, in particular, that you shouldn’t miss.

The End of the World

The first is the one from a place Edmontonians call The End of the World. You could walk there, but I’d recommend riding on some of those new bike lanes. There’s a good bike rental place, River Valley Adventure Co., in the gorge directly below the Chateau Lacombe hotel, which is where you’re going to find the second view (see below).

You get to that first one by taking a short path off Saskatchewan Drive in the neighbourhood of Belgravia (Google gives the closest address as 7433). Perched on the remains of a retaining wall, the south end of the city and the University of Alberta campus hidden behind you, you can sit and gaze at the broad river stretching out as far as you can see in either direction. From here, with the exception of a few houses, all you see is the primordial Prairie and a river doing its best to turn a valley into a canyon.

North and South

The gorge ends up defining your experience of the city as shuttle between the old city of Edmonton to the north and the old city of Strathcona to the south. In the south, you’ll find the Muttart Conservatory, four glass pyramids (seen in the top image) designed by Edmonton starchitect Peter Hemingway, each housing a different horticultural eco-system. Also in the south is Bonnie Doon, an unexpectedly francophone neighbourhood where you could ride your bike to La Bicyclette Café and hear nothing but French as you sip your glass of Côte du Rhône. Whyte Avenue, one of the city’s main drags, is also on the south side, but it’s the north side where you’ll want to spend most of your time. Start at the Art Gallery of Alberta, a sophisticatedly curated place with a great sense of fun – they had an entire exhibit devoted to Wayne Gretzky when I was there in the fall.

Edmonton’s Best Restaurants and Cocktails

The north side is also where the restaurants are. Despite being the birthplace of both Boston Pizza and Earl’s, Edmonton’s food scene is broad, eclectic, and admirably specific.

Baijiu is part of the new generation of restaurants. It’s Alberta-Chinese fusion that produces thickly marinated pork bao and an inventive semifreddo-filled deep-fried bao version of an ice-cream sandwich by chef Alexei Baldireff.

Diners are disappearing across the nation, but Edmonton’s keeping the flame lit with the truck stop-themed Route 99, and the truly old-school Commodore (est. 1943), complete with chocolate bars and gum for sale under glass at the cash. It’s a good town for cocktails, too, the best ones at the moment being at Clementine, where you should ask for a Doctor; a scotch, Rauchbier, and peat concoction that’s smoky and boozy in all the right places.

Have Your Cake and the View Too

 But the most unforgettable culinary experience to be had in Edmonton comes as a package deal with that second great vista I mentioned, at the top of the Chateau Lacombe hotel. Founded in 1967, the Chateau Lacombe is the proud owner of one of the country’s few surviving revolving restaurants, La Ronde. Here, dishes compete with the panorama of this surprising city over the course of each 88-minute revolution.

Click here for more suggestions on what to do in Edmonton!