#aph grande prairie

[battle-of-alberta]

Hooray! The height chart is done!

Obviously there are some minor characters not featured here but, uh, that's for me to figure out later and you to speculate.

and yeahhhhh there's quite a few characters who are the same height but uh. It's Fine. Height inconsistency, for my part, can be attributed to the fact that Many of these characters wear heels in their day to day (so it was fun thinking about their socks, which I don't usually do).

Enjoy!

[attichoney4u]

Welcome to another blog of "what I'm doing with my life?!". In this one, I'm presenting my own biases regarding the differences between Athens's former and ancient rival, Sparta, and Athens's current rival, Thessaloniki.

The idea came to me, since Hapo tends to do this with her characters (like between Athens and Calgary and Athens and Persia) and I wanted to give it a try.

Before we get further into this, I would like to point out that this post is created for fun and all information here is based from the work of the lovely Hapo and from stereotypes that we Greeks have about Modern Thessaloniki (and it's mostly my headcanon about the personification of the co-capital).

Note: The drawings were not made by me. They were made by @allbeendonebefore and you can check both her blogs, @athensandspartaadventures (if you want a silly comic about ancient greek city-states) and @battle-of-alberta (if you want a silly comic about canadian cities).

Now, we're talking about this, I tried to find a canadian city that matched Thessaloniki, either in personality or in vibes. I ended up settling for Grand Prairie, aka Josephine. I'm not that sure about this decision, since Josephine doesn't appear that much in the comic and Hapo, unfortunately, doesn't talk about her often, so take this with a grain of salt.

Here are some similarities between these two cities (or rather, personifications of these cities).

That's all I've got to offer! Hope you enjoyed my post and have a lovely day or night! Bye! 😚

[acetechne]

battle of alberta pokemon au all together! which is your favourite team? 

[allbeendonebefore]

Out of your ocs, who is a shower and who is a bath person? Also hot water or cold water?

gut reactions

the cold shower challenge is some weird manly man thing i encountered modding for business school classes and it frightens me. While I think Calvin is also a hot shower person I also think he's stubborn and swears by this weird thing.

[battle-of-alberta]

Battle of Alberta Timeline pt. 1: 17th-19th Centuries

[ Alberta Story ] [ part 1 ] [ part 2 soon ]

Phew.

This was an ambitious little project for such a short time period.

I don't have much to say about it other than that, it is just supposed to be a crash course in the broad strokes of what Alberta considers to be its history. It glosses over a lot and is mostly about the foundations and incorporations of the characters (i.e. the municipalities that I have personified thus far) and a few contextual clues to the worlds they grew up in. It's basically a big cheat sheet for me since I'm both a stickler for consistency and also very inconsistent... Of course, each character could easily have their own personalized timeline on top of this, so I tried to leave room for that possibility.

(missing is St. Albert, who would be featured at 1861 if I ever intended to draw him)

And, of course, it's supposed to provoke your curiosity a little since it is of course an ask blog, I can't just explain everything down here much as I would like to :)

Enjoy!

[battle-of-alberta]

Who is the biggest romantic?

I feel like this question depends a lot on what you consider “romantic” lol.

Calvin is romantic in the nostalgic way and the tendency to view the past with rose coloured glasses. Ed on the other hand is almost never considered romantic in any way (unless you read local fiction on the subject) and exists to cynically balance out and temper Calvin’s wild west fantasies.

Eleanor, of course, makes a huge profit off of romance (although she strikes me as aromantic herself or at least far too busy to ever think of pursuing a relationship).

Jo won 4th in the aforementioned “Canada’s Most Romantic Cities” list back in 2013 (which her sash subtly omits aka i forgot to write it) which led to a lot of confusion and a cheeky article about why GP might at least be more inherently romantic than the “uptight” Edmonton in 17th place.

But in 2020, finally ousting long-time and much more obviously romantic Victoria B.C., Fort Mac made the top of the list. For a “city” that is nicknamed Fort McMordor, that touring celebrities describe as making their skin crawl, and which has a pretty high ratio of men to women, maybe it’s pretty impressive! ...Or maybe people are just really lonely up there and have to order online anyway! :’ )

[battle-of-alberta]

what is everyone’s MBTI??

they're all on the bios but here they are all together (I also meant to edit eleanors but I don't currently have my csp files so I can't do anything until I recover them fhghg)

I'm not super invested in mbti and i don't really consider them when I'm writing characters - I just pick them based off Vibes.

I don't have types for characters not listed here so if you have a proposal i want a powerpoint pitch with arguments lol

[battle-of-alberta]

CHARACTER BIO: GRANDE PRAIRIE

[ Bio ] [ Relationships ] [ Trivia ]

Notes

Yes there’s an anime reference in here and if you find it i’m proud of you

I’m trying to avoid naming specific companies and stuff and it IS a bit of a stretch to say the museum outside of GP is the Best Ever considering I’ve never set foot there but it’s named after a prof I had who is one of the world’s leading paleontologists SO. it’s one of the best.

The romantic city survey was based on online shopping for romance books/movies, romantic gifts, and ‘sexual wellness’ products. (Victoria BC wins Every Single Year)

Transcription below the cut. 

Grande Prairie is called Swan City for the reclamation work the city has done to protect the natural habitat of the Trumpeter Swan, which was formerly an endangered species.

While the swan is an official symbol of the city, the dinosaur has become its unofficial symbol. One of Alberta's best dinosaur museums is a short drive out of the city and celebrates the numerous nearby paleontological discoveries.

Grande Prairie was originally founded as a Hudson Bay Company fort, "La Grande Prairie", after the natural plains on three of its sides.

Grande Prairie is situated on the southern edge of Peace Country, which contains the northern-most aspen parkland on the continent. Unfortunately, much of this land is threatened by human activity around the city.

Retail is a major pillar of the Grande Prairie economy. Many franchises and big box stores thought not to be this far north can indeed be found here, which is a major draw for tourism!

Grande Prairie features the only natural luge track in North America to be certified to host major international events.

Grande Prairie was named Canada's fourth most romantic city in 2017. Citizens attributed this to the cold weather, local adventurous spirit, and a relatively uptight capital region....

[battle-of-alberta]

CHARACTER BIO: GRANDE PRAIRIE

[ Bio ] [ Relationships ] [ Trivia ]

Design Notes

Jo’s “key shape” when drawing is an oval or an egg shape, kind of similar in flavour to Ed’s oil drop shape (but make no mistake she is the Muscle of this duo).

Still no flag text but I did put it on the seal because that made a bit more sense.

Jo is like the grown up version of every girl I knew in jr high / high school in rural northern AB who would wear tights like this in -40 for the ~aesthetic~ and who would be up at 5 am to do makeup so they could still catch the bus on time.

Not shown: she has a half french braid pinning the crown of her hair back. I’ll try to show it more on the trivia page.

Edit: Fixed an error that made the image scale down 50% and distort some of the text.

Transcription below the cut

Municipal Info

City: Grande Prairie

Nicknames: Swan City

Region: Northwest (Foothills)

Population: 60,000+

Founded: 1881

Incorporated: 1914 / 1919 / 1958

Other: Alberta's 7th biggest city

Character Info

Name: Josephine Cardinal (she/her)

"Birthday": April 30 (Taurus)

Height: 5'8"

Heritage: Métis [First Nations (Beaver, Cree, Iroquois) + European (French)]

Hair: Auburn

Eyes: Brown

MBTI: ESTP

Symbols

Trumpeter Swan

Seal

Bio

Josephine has a reputation for being tough as nails, high energy, and very invested in all her relationships. She takes her role as the bridge between the North, the Peace Region and the other cities very seriously, but lately has been hoping people will notice her softer, romantic side.

Grande Prairie was a fur trading post for the Hudson Bay Company before settlers came for the rich farmland. Josephine grew up between many First Nations and settlers. The discovery of oil south of Edmonton led Jo in search of new sources of prosperity, accelerating her growth in the latter 20th century. Today, Jo welcomes visitors from both in and out of province who depend on her services and represents one of the youngest and fastest growing cities in the country.

[battle-of-alberta]

OCtober: Josephine and Madeline

I decided to give myself a little breather between uploading character profiles and do some traditional stuff for a change.

I’m curious to know if there’s a city you’d rather visit between them, so here are their tourism pages for you to check out:

Grande Prairie | Medicine Hat

Below is some meta stuff about the ‘research’ (if you can even call it that, it was more of a vibe check) I did for re-doing the profiles. Read on, if it intrigues you. (And yes, I’m doing similar comparisons for the remaining six characters).

Small Cities: MH and GP

Medicine Hat and Grande Prairie are cities with similar populations and similar industries, though oppositely located and seemingly growing in opposite directions. This article succinctly compares and contrasts the two cities and their points in their own stories: Medicine Hat, a sleepy, safe, retirement community content in its size and committed to careful long term planning; Grande Prairie, a boomtown with an increasingly young population and new developments nearly outpacing new residents. Both cities are reacting to the shifts in the energy industry described in the article, and since then also must manage dramatic political changes and an ongoing pandemic.

Website Round Up: Preface

While I was revisiting these character profiles, I took a look at how cities represented themselves on their municipal sites and tourism sites rather than how cities were represented in the news or in stereotypes, as the latter already tend to live in the back of my head. I was interested to see who the target audiences for each city were, what they considered their strengths, and how much effort each city put into putting its own identity on display. I was also interested into what ideas sort of fed into any pre-existing confirmation bias I had about each city's personality as well as interested in what narratives might be used to counteract negative stereotypes.

The first thing I tended to notice was the overall information architecture of each city's website. How easy were they to navigate? What kinds of information did they have? How did they organize it? How did they communicate that information?

Municipal: Out and About

Overall, both sites were easy to navigate and had an "About" page within the first two menus. City pages seemed equally attentive to attracting new residents and investment as they were to providing residents with relevant, updated information. Both cities also featured images of their skylines on their home pages.

Medicine Hat's "About" page tends to focus on the beauty of the surrounding geography, the feeling of community safety, and the mysterious "Medicine Hat Advantage". The city combines this page with a brief historical overview and touches briefly on the origin of the city's name and flag.

Grande Prairie's "About" page tends to focus on the youth and diversity of the community, the economic opportunities, and the importance of the area to the surrounding region. The page elaborates a little more on the amenities in the city as well as a map demonstrating where Grande Prairie is located in North America.

Medicine Hat's subpages are few and include a photo gallery and a page on the City's branding.  The brand stood out to me out of all of the city pages I visited around the province: Medicine Hat is very committed to creating this attractive and aesthetic self-image based on feedback from residents that I didn't really see reflected elsewhere (other than perhaps Calgary, which took the branding to an extreme).

Grande Prairie's subpages seem to be a more concerted effort to attract investment and new residents: they repeat their about page in French, have numerous pages dedicated to economic statistics and census data, and have a brief history section that focuses on economic development. Interestingly, none of the About pages seem to make any mention of Grande Prairie's indigenous origins at all.

Municipal: If You Lived Here...

Both cities have downloadable guides for prospective residents.

Medicine Hat's brochure is short with many large photos and each page introduced with a key word or feeling they want to evoke ("Rich, Beautiful, Warm, Safe,"). The guide does not seem to be frequently updated and has a bit of a timeless quality.

Grande Prairie's guide appears to be updated annually and goes more into depth about current events and amenities. The guide is full of ads and invitations for local businesses, realtors, schools, etc. in combination with more historical, geographical, and statistical information about the city.

Tourism: Staycation Spotlights

Finally, both cities also have tourism pages.

While both cities provide space for neighbouring towns and counties to share some of the spotlight, Grande Prairie's tourism site is dedicated to the entire region. The city is a subpage on the same level as its neighbouring communities.

Both cities are currently promoting staycation guides to encourage local residents to enjoy their summers locally due to COVID-19 restrictions. Medicine Hat encourages the use of the hashtag MyMHSummer and has several downloadable zoom backgrounds showcasing the geographical beauty around the city. Grande Prairie's currently spotlighting curated day trips within the region called "The Grande Plan", which is also very adorable.

Tourism: Sugar We’re Going Downtown

Both cities describe their downtowns on distinct pages.

Medicine Hat focuses on the city's historic character and particularly emphasizes its expressive, creative and artistic charm. The rest of the page functions as a catalogue of websites of businesses and organizations, many of them exclusive to the area, located downtown.

Grande Prairie's page is once again more specific and touches on arts, sports, events, and particularly shopping. Never before in my life have I seen a place so intensely proud of having so many pub-style franchises and never before have I seen such chains be held to equal importance with independent, local business.

A side note, but Grande Prairie self-describes as "like that friend who’s always up for whatever you want to do." Aww.

Tourism: Guidebook, Check

Both cities also have downloadable, annually updated Visitor's Guides

Medicine Hat's guide opens to several double spread images, completely without text. It launches directly in to the legend of the city's name and uses the historic downtown as a starting point, concentrating on arts and culture before dining and outdoor activities.

Once again, shopping is front and centre on Grande Prairie's list with no fewer than three exclamation marks. Outdoor activities and sports come close after, and descriptions of each region including the city proper bring up the end.

[battle-of-alberta]

the finished versions of red’s gal road trip photos :)

EDIT: I had put captions on the photos as to where they were but I can’t view them?? So here goes

1. a field of canola

2. somewhere in the foothills

3. Vulcan, AB

4. Glendon, AB

5. Torrington, AB

[battle-of-alberta]

CHARACTER BIO: GRANDE PRAIRIE

[ Bio ] [ Relationships ] [ Trivia ]

(These relationships are based on a combination of my own impressions of current and historical events, shared interests, and supplied with a little personality horoscope-ing where information is lacking!) 

Josephine’s Clubs

Northwest Company (NWC) Club

Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) Club

Northern Alberta Club (Treaty 8)

Mid-Sized Cities Club

Peace Country Club

Josephine’s Sister Cities

Mazatlán, Mexico

Transcription under the cut

Edmonton / Edward

Jo considers Ed a dorky brother or cousin and often orients herself in competition with him, taking every opportunity to tease. She prides herself on her independence from him and often hazes him for his emotional repression, but she’s also quite fond of him and still depends on him from time to time.

Fort McMurray / Mac

Although Jo and Mac are close friends who both claim to be gateways to the North and rarely run out of conversation (or memes), they are quite distant from each other and typically end up mediated through Ed. Jo also considers Mac almost like family; while she often talks herself up, she also understands the hardships of his work and isolation and rarely truly crosses a line with him.

Calgary / Calvin

Jo thinks of Calvin with a little bit of smug disdain as he represents everything negative about big city softness; while she is sensitive about her own remoteness, she will not hesitate to take Calvin down a peg. The two do share a zeal for hospitality and a little bit of danger, however, and Calvin often pleasantly surprises her.

Red Deer / Red

Jo thinks its a real shame that she and Red aren’t neighbours since they both have similar experiences feeling left out and underappreciated. When they do see each other, they could easily spend an entire day commiserating and collaborating over take-out or work-outs.

Lethbridge / Lilith

Josephine tends to perceive Lilith as a little old fashioned and perhaps a little too laid back for someone of her stature in the province. Jo knows Lilith is capable of letting loose a little, she just hasn’t quite figured out the circumstances under which Lilith lets her hair down.

Medicine Hat / Madeline

Josephine and Madeline are total opposites in more than geography. Jo tends to be impatient and stubborn where Madeline is passive and pensive, and thus gets easily frustrated with her and defensive over her own way of doing things. However, they represent similarly sized cities and may have a lot to learn from each other.

Banff / Eleanor

Jo and Eleanor cross paths a little less due to Jo’s preference for vacations in Jasper, but the two get on quite well. They both share a zeal for thrills, but Josephine usually makes Eleanor look like the responsible one.

Other Relationships

Josephine is very proud of her role as a conduit between the Peace Region and is absolutely thrilled to take her friends from BC and the Territories shopping and sight-seeing in the city and around the county. She and Peace River also go way back, of course.

Jo is also close to Jasper, who is like her big sister.

[battle-of-alberta]

i listened to a lot of mallsoft while drawing this and mallsoft is a genre i once described as “the music you listen to when you’re lost in space and want to remember what being on earth in the 90s was like” but it hits harder during covid

ok im very homesick for edmonton and sometimes i even get homesick for west ed. SOMETIMES. but i would rather not be there right now (except i hear the alley is opening their west ed location this week and im dying for their garden milk tea and their brown sugar ginger tea...) (also i heard that oomomo greatly expanded since i’ve been gone and where else am i gonna find .3 sized graphite)

ed’s text messages are a reference to a movie that i’ve only heard about through this video and am too afraid to actually watch

[acetechne]

ok NOW its pokemon BUT with the northern fam

dont tease muk HES VERY SENSITIVE!!

[battle-of-alberta]

What kind of clicks do the cities fit into? Like can anyone be classified as a prep or a goth ooo or maybe even an emo???

me: cliques?? what are they in high school? also me: ...why is this so easy

There’s a horrible glare on my screen so I had a Time colour picking these lol. Bonus nyo!characters and paranormal trio.

If anyone is an emo it’s probably ed who wears thick glasses and will pull over on the highway to cry when he hears a particularly sad song.

The hardest to place on this chart were Lilith (who is a goth disguised as a prep) and Mac (who is a nerd disguised as a jock)

[battle-of-alberta]

What's it like in the coldest place on earth (two time reigning champion), Jo?

this is my first digi art in several weeks and i dont have any of my presets on my computer yet so im starting from scratch lol but I wanted to answer this one in a semi timely fashion while it's still recent news ;o;

GP is consistently up there on the Colder than Mars Coldest Place on Earth charts (and Edmonton was on two separate rankings on the list because the airport is out of the city... but I've been hiding out on the coast like a weakling and the temperatures going way up by the time I get back so I'm sorry I missed it. I think.)

Cold does sap batteries - and if you have wired headphones you get a little zig zaggy sculpture. And icicles on each one of your little nose hairs. Sometimes when dry cold is really bad it does feel hard to breathe too. I actually really find face masks useful because if my nose is gonna drip (which it will) i'd rather keep that private!! :' )

and we all probably know one of Those People who thank o&g workers every time it goes below -20.