How a McDonald’s Knockoff Became the Immigrant DreamWith its sloppy burgers and friendly fat knight mascot, Alberta’s Burger Baron has amassed a cult following—and sheltered a generation of Arab immigrants. Chances are you’ve never heard of Burger Baron unless you grew up in Alberta, Canada, in which… Oct 15 21October 15, 2021Article at Vice
Once a dead religion, Moorish Science is seeing a curious resurgenceWhen I started researching my book Praying to the West, a travelogue of Islamic communities rooted in the western world, I knew that a trip to Chicago was inevitable. It is, in the truest sense, a Black Mecca. It has spawned or galvanized the most… Jun 29 21June 29, 2021Article at Broadview
Was Eddy Haymour a Terrorist or Civil Rights Martyr?How the Canadian Dream became a nightmare for one Edmonton immigrant, the subject of Eddy’s Kingdom, a new documentary about the country’s first international hostage crisis.A previous version of this story ran in Eighteen Bridges in 2013. It has… Nov 08 20November 08, 2020Article at Edify.
January 8, 2020The day that PS752 was shot down will forever be frozen in his memoryJavad Soleimani Meimandi places his backpack on a picnic table and delicately removes the contents. A leather-bound certificate folder bears the same University crest as his… Sep 27 20September 27, 2020Article at Edify.
Life and Death in the ICULarry Pancer was hired at Markham Stouffville Hospital more than three decades ago, right after his pediatric training at SickKids. The hospital was brand new, and Pancer remembers holding the first child born there. He and his wife Patricia lived… Sep 17 20September 17, 2020Article at Toronto Life
How the First Arab American Movie Star Foretold a Century of Muslim Misrepresentation Frank Lackteen was just shy of 18 when a film director discovered him in a crowd. Visiting from north Massachusetts, where he’d worked menial factory jobs since childhood, Lackteen went to see whether his eldest brother, Mike, had found a better… May 22 19May 22, 2019Article at The Ringer
I Spent a Day at Canada’s Biggest Flat Earth ConferenceI was in the parking lot around the West Edmonton Mall, the only place where, under one roof, you can buy your girl Tiffany’s, bungee jump, pop a glock at a gun range, and, on this August morning, attend the Flat Earth International Conference.… Dec 12 18December 12, 2018Article at Title Magazine
What is Canada like for a refugee?It was never particularly complicated. All Mohammad El Hindawi wanted for his family was a reprieve from the bedbugs afflicting his children. In the summer of 2015, while dealing with the vermin in their new home of Edmonton, he’d learned through a… May 13 18May 13, 2018Article at the Guardian
Oil, Heartbreak, And Manhood: Behind The Mental Health Crisis Of Alberta's Oil WorkersAmber Bracken for BuzzFeed Canada / Via Amber Bracken Chris Johnson at work in Edmonton, Alberta, on July 20, 2017. Johnson, a crane operator, struggled with his mental health while working in Fort McMurray and staying in worker camps. The task was… Aug 02 17August 02, 2017Article at BuzzFeed
Homeland for the Holidays As a child I thought the Arabic term for Lebanon was “the Balaad.” That’s what my parents called it whenever they fondly remembered their life before Canada, before I was born. This other world, as they described it, was somehow a more difficult… Jul 29 17July 29, 2017Article at Eighteen Bridges
From political prisoner to parliamentarianOn a Friday morning in spring 2016, Amarjeet Sohi sat barefoot in the den of his craftsman style home in south Edmonton. His first few months as Canada’s federal minister of infrastructure had been frantic, sending him across the country to listen to… Jan 04 17January 04, 2017Article at Alberta Views - The Magazine for Engaged Citizens
Close ContactThe Correctional peace officer counts his inmates differently than his colleagues in other units of the Edmonton Remand Centre do. Each prisoner stands at ease beside his cellmate outside his cell door, awaiting the former chief military officer’s… Nov 09 16November 09, 2016Article at Alberta Views - The Magazine for Engaged Citizens
Whose Art Is It Anyway?Paul Moulton knew the optics of his proposition were not good. When the interim executive director of the Edmonton Arts Council entered City Hall on December 1, 2015, it had been three years since his predecessor, John Mahon, sat at that exact table,… Sep 29 16September 29, 2016Article at Avenue Edmonton
Welcoming Omar Khadr to The King’s UniversityHow a Christian university opened its heart to the Canadian Muslim convicted of war crimes. The King’s University is small, even by the standards of small, Christian liberal arts schools. Lodged between a plastics manufacturer and a suburb of… Sep 07 16September 07, 2016Article at University Affairs
Travel Long Read: Cruising the Canadian ArcticWhy you should add the great white North to your travel bucket list. I’d been blinded by my own privilege. The child, no older than three, was clamouring for my iPhone, which I’d been directing down a gravel road like a wifi divining rod. My only… Apr 12 16April 12, 2016Article at Western Living
Opiate for the Masses: How Fentanyl Nearly Killed My Best FriendThe first time I saw fentanyl was on a spoon, in my hand, as I stood over my friend screeching for air on my bedroom floor. Growing up together in Alberta, Tyson* and I experimented with the usual — hash, shrooms, weed — but he was always more… Apr 11 16April 11, 2016Article at Sharp Magazine
The Rise and Fall of Wrestling’s Weed-Dealing, Cat-Breeding PhenomOpen Sky Pictures It’s 5 o’clock in Tijuana, and one of Mexico’s premier wrestling promotions is readying for a press conference. On the eve of any event, the Crash Lucha Libre has a tradition of wrangling a handful of reporters to get wrestlers’… Mar 23 16March 23, 2016Article at Rolling Stone
Dark ScienceLast month I found myself on top of a dark mountain attending a “star party.” As much as it sounds like a Beverly Hills soirée or a drug-addled orgy, it is not. This star party is a gathering of a few hundred people at the McDonald Observatory in… Feb 17 16February 17, 2016Article at Hazlitt
Lusty Young Giant: A Biography of Our NeigbourhoodShortly after the CN Tower was completed in 1966, the City of Edmonton’s planning department produced a fact sheet with an illustrated timeline depicting all a developer needed to know about the Gateway to the North. The final milestone included a… Dec 18 14December 18, 2014Article at The Yards
A writer and his fiancée discover that a sexually transmitted disease has come between themMy fiancée, Janae, was splayed out on a crinkly examination table, knees high and spread, staring at fluorescent ceiling lights. I sat beside her as a nurse spun around in her chair, holding a thin hose attached to a dolly strapped with two steel… Nov 28 14November 28, 2014Article at Swerve Magazine
