Among the Thorns

Albertans are keenly aware of our reputation. We are undertaxed pipeline fanatics who drive pickups, vote Conservative, and care less about climate change than about stopping Ottawa from stealing our oil money. This half-truth persists, in part, because even we sometimes see our largest industry as a stand‑in for Alberta itself. But the land existed before the fossil fuel craze, as it did before the agrarian projects that initially drove European settlement.

With Wild Roses Are Worth It, Kevin Van Tighem insists that Alberta’s ecosystems should receive at least as much consideration in policy debates and the public imagination as its economy. One would be forgiven for cringing at the book’s title. Is this a manifesto for the return of the right-wing political party that wanted to take the Progressive out of “Progressive Conservative”? Van Tighem quickly dispatches that...