Although the U.S. Department of State has given me thousands of USD primarily to do research here, I am allowed to leave my office and try to mix in with the Candian natives. Moreover, State even had the foresight to give me some helpful “Tips for Safety,” which will hopefully keep me alive on the notoriously unforgiving Edmonton streets. Things like, “when approaching a red light, leave space between your car and the vehicle in front of you so you can pull away if a gunman approaches;” “if you balance an ashtray on a windowsill, its fall will alert you to intruders;” and, perhaps most importantly for this brash country, “overcome your training to be polite to strangers. You could be caught off-base. . . . [D]o not be overly approachable; be hard-boiled or standoffish if necessary.”

So, keeping these tips in mind, I have gotten around a bit in the now three weeks that I’ve been here. And here’s what I can report:

• Canadians can go to Cuba. For cheap.
• Within two weeks of my arrival in Edmonton, the Edmontonians were nice enough to throw an Anarchist Bookfair for me. With childcare. Now my living room walls display coloring book pages with My Little Ponies sporting circle-A brands on their haunches.
• Edmonton has what seems to be a pretty active system of neighborhood associations, or rather “community leagues.” I joined mine this past weekend, and I’m promised potlucks, sweet peas, land use planning meetings, and free swimming and skating. Plus, it was my league that rented its hall out for the anarchist bookfair.
• My nearest farmer’s market is five blocks away, indoors, open year round, and pretty impressive.
• They’ve got a lot of beer here and a lot of folks eager to drink lots of it. In a bar conversation, I realized that I’m living in a country that signed the Geneva Conventions without reservation and has ratified the Kyoto Protocol (current headlines notwithstanding).

All that, and no gunmen have approached and nobody’s tipped the ashtray onto the floor–congratulations, Canada!