Alberta
Video profile of Central Alberta’s beloved naturalist Myrna Pearman

It’s our great pleasure at Todayville.com to work with some of the most extraordinary people in this area. One of the wonderful people we are honoured to know is the Site Leader and Biologist in charge of the Central Alberta treasure, the Ellis Bird Farm. Myrna Pearman has dedicated her life to Central Alberta’s natural habitat and this month she was rightfully named Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
Please enjoy the video profile we produced with Myrna below. In the meantime, we’ll direct you to Myrna’s own words from her website introducing herself, and talking about the incredible honour bestowed on her by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
From MyrnaPearman.com
I am an enthusiastic naturalist, outdoors person and photographer. I am lucky to live on the south shore of beautiful Sylvan Lake, Alberta, where I enjoy both the view of the lake as well as the many trails that crisscross our woods.
My greatest joy in life is to get out in nature with my camera, to experience and capture the awesome beauty of this planet and her creatures. I hope that my small contributions—this website, my blog, books and columns—will encourage others to do the same.
I write a monthly nature photo essay in the Red Deer Advocate (third Thursday of the month) as well as a column (Wild Neighbours) in The Gardener magazine. I also produce the newsletter for the Red Deer River Naturalists, have a Facebook page, and occasionally contribute photos to several Facebook groups (Birds of Alberta Photography Group, Canadian Bird Photographer, Alberta Birds).
It has been my great fortune to have been at the helm of Ellis Bird Farm for the past 30 years. Ellis Bird Farm is both a non-profit company as well as a working farm, public garden and education centre, and I have been fortunate to oversee—with a very smart and dedicated team of board members, fellow contractors and summer staff—the growth of this wonderful place.
Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society
I am humbled and honoured to have been recently accepted as a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. The ceremony was held in Ottawa earlier this week.
How inspiring it was to be in the company of so many exemplary Canadians who also received fellowships, received medals, and who spoke at the evening gala (Dr. Roberta Bondar, Rt. Hon. Joe Clark, Rt. Hon. David Johnson to name a few)! A big thank you to Carol Patterson for the nomination. Carol has been a wonderful personal mentor and Ellis Bird Farm supporter over the years.
The experience was extra special because it was shared with a great personal friend and another Ellis Bird Farm champion (and founding board chairman), Morris Flewwelling. What a treat it was to also be in the company of Dr. Dee (who was also inducted) and Brian Keating (we are pictured here with Anne Innis Dogg, the “Jane Goodall of Giraffes”).
We live in troubled times, but there are so many talented and dedicated men and women across this great land who are working tirelessly on behalf of this beautiful country (and planet). My thanks to them!
Alberta
Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Cody Ciona
‘Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests’
Billions of investment in new data centres is still expected in Alberta despite the province’s electric system operator placing a temporary limit on new large-load grid connections, said Carson Kearl, lead data centre analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research.
Kearl cited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s estimate from earlier this year that building a one-gigawatt data centre costs between US$60 billion and US$80 billion.
That implies the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)’s 1.2 gigawatt temporary limit would still allow for up to C$130 billion of investment.
“It’s got the potential to be extremely impactful to the Alberta power sector and economy,” Kearl said.
Importantly, data centre operators can potentially get around the temporary limit by ‘bringing their own power’ rather than drawing electricity from the existing grid.
In Alberta’s deregulated electricity market – the only one in Canada – large energy consumers like data centres can build the power supply they need by entering project agreements directly with electricity producers.
According to the AESO, there are 30 proposed data centre projects across the province.
The total requested power load for these projects is more than 16 gigawatts, roughly four gigawatts more than Alberta’s demand record in January 2024 during a severe cold snap.
For comparison, Edmonton’s load is around 1.4 gigawatts, the AESO said.
“Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,” CEO Aaron Engen said in a statement.
“Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.”
As data centre projects come to the province, so do jobs and other economic benefits.
“You have all of the construction staff associated; electricians, engineers, plumbers, and HVAC people for all the cooling tech that are continuously working on a multi-year time horizon. In the construction phase there’s a lot of spend, and that is just generally good for the ecosystem,” said Kearl.
Investment in local power infrastructure also has long-term job implications for maintenance and upgrades, he said.
“Alberta is a really exciting place when it comes to building data centers,” said Beacon AI CEO Josh Schertzer on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.
“It has really great access to natural gas, it does have some excess grid capacity that can be used in the short term, it’s got a great workforce, and it’s very business-friendly.”
The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.
Alberta
Alberta Next: Taxation

A new video from the Alberta Next panel looks at whether Alberta should stop relying on Ottawa to collect our provincial income taxes. Quebec already does it, and Alberta already collects corporate taxes directly. Doing the same for personal income taxes could mean better tax policy, thousands of new jobs, and less federal interference. But it would take time, cost money, and require building new systems from the ground up.
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