Gas prices from gasbuddy.com on Alberta fuel prices as of last week. Price per litre.
Community Price
Edmonton 144.8
Fort McMurray 151.4
Barrhead 159.9
Grimshaw 159.9
Driftpile 160.9
Grande Prairie 162.9
Kinuso 162.9
Slave Lake 163.9
Manning 164.9
Peace River 165.9
Swan Hills 170.9
High Prairie 171.9
Banff 178.9
Valleyview 182.9
Jasper 185.9
High Level 186.9
No Report for Falher, McLennan. Thanks to the drivers who supply these prices.
Fuel prices go up and fuel prices go down for any number of reasons.
War against Iran. Summer holidays and lots of driving. Cold weather. Taxes and politics. Some gas company executive got his McCafe order mixed up. Moon phases. Dandelion puffs blowing in the wind. The ache in my side. Yup!
Anybody watching an old movie might notice some of the prices on signage as a scene flashed by. 79 cents? Yup! $1.09? Yup! Keep in mind, these are almost always American prices, per gallon. Cut that 79 cents by four. Now you get the picture in those good ol’ days.
Of course, back then drivers were happy when they got 15 miles per gallon. That’s about 6 km/L. Or as usually described today, about 16 litres per 100 km. Poor mileage, but not really an astounding difference from today.
Good heavens! There sure is a lot of complaining coming from down in the States about smoke from Canadian fires. Apparently, it’s all our fault we can’t look after our forests and don’t know how to put out a fire!
Didn’t someone once say Americans don’t know much about the world because half of them learn nothing in school. And the half that do learn something, pretty well learn the wrong things? The world outside America as a complete unknown pretty well covers the bases.
Reminds us of the quote from American comedian Lewis Black a few years ago: “Trump wants to build a wall across the Mexican border? How crazy is that? Why doesn’t he build a wall on the border between us and Canada? Doesn’t he know Canada is where all the cold air comes from!?”
The Page kept an eye out last week after Environment Canada marked on their website an “Orange Watch – Tornado” and at the same time, a “Yellow Watch – Severe Thunderstorm.” This was for the Slave Lake area.
Peace River had a “Yellow Watch – Severe Thunderstorm.”
This was on Wednesday afternoon last week and into the evening.
Thursday, when this is being written, things have improved slightly. High temperatures of 30 C on Thursday and 33 C on Friday. Prediction last week for this week are sunshine and maybe a shower or two.
Anyway, by now most of us have heard the news about whopping big rainfalls in Edmonton and around the area early last week. In fact, at one point a warning was out for one area a few km south of Spruce Grove to expect up to 244 mm per hour of rain! That’s about 6.5 inches of rain. In one hour!
Fortunately, that was just a forecast. Probably spit out by some weather AI. That’s our guess and we’re sticking to it.
Just for information, when a sky is full of clouds that seem to be moving in all kinds of directions at the same time, a situation known as “troubled skies,” keep an eye open for worsening weather. We can get bad things even here in usually quiet northern Alberta.
A few weeks ago, we were told by a business person who pays attention to these things: “Lots of people think they can get a better deal in the big city. The funny thing is, we get a lot of customers from the big city who think they can get a better deal in small towns.”
Personally, your humble correspondent tries to “Shop Local” as much as possible. We’re not sure if all our businesses appreciate that, but a few actually do exchange the support. Those that don’t? We guess they figure they have such a great lock on their customers, they don’t need to support local clubs, other local businesses that look after them, and even their loyal customers.
And how many of those big city businesses make local donations? Just saying.
The season for tent caterpillars is over. Or at least, the part in which trees are bare and caterpillars cover walls and roads and anything they can crawl on.
The critters started building cocoons, in which they turn into moths, a few weeks ago. They started hatching last week. Already, hordes of moths are flying around trees where cocoons clustered. Soon enough they will be laying eggs. About 300 or so per female moth. Please don’t ask how you spot a lady.
So does this mean those areas that were infested this year will see an even bigger crop of caterpillars next year? Maybe. Maybe not. Science still doesn’t have an answer for why there are outbreaks every 7-10 years or so, and in-between hardly any bugs. It’s just part of the circle of life.
The good news is, healthy trees are already sprouting new leaves. Maybe in a few more weeks, we will be mostly back to normal. Except of course, for all kinds of bugs flying around porch and street lights. Well, whatever eats them is going to be happy!
Many years ago an Alberta judge was looking at the charges against a citizen before him in his court. The citizen happened to be a lawyer, but that has nothing to do with the case. The lawyer was speeding over 160 km/hr (about 100 mph) on the highway between Banff and Calgary. He was driving an unregistered, uninsured Corvette, at night.
The judge, with a docket stretching out the door and down the hall, just asked how the lawyer wanted to plead to a string of charges. The lawyer said, “Guilty!”
The judge commented, more or less, “It never stops amazing me how people who know they are breaking the law can’t help drawing attention to themselves.”
Bang on the gavel! Huge fine!
That pretty well sums up the Canadian woman, Kaitlyn Tracey, 33 who is alleged to have slapped an American teen, twice, in New Jersey.
It’s a curious story. Tracey is in the States illegally. She’s been there since 2024. And goes about her married life, to a self-confessed broke American husband, both of whom film themselves doing things for TikTok clips. Now she is sitting in jail.
As the judge says, never stops being amazing how some people can’t help themselves.