Journey Across Canada through Captured Lies – Edmonton, Alberta

Last week you visited Valemount, BC, a beautiful hidden Canadian gem.

In Captured Lies, Bailey and Guy have had to leave there really fast as the bad guy has found them and is intent on killing them.

So Guy and Bailey head to Edmonton, another place that Bailey had lived as a child. I’m not sure I mentioned this before but growing up, Bailey lived on the streets and on the run with her mom. Bailey never really knew why just that sometimes her mom would come and pull her from school in the middle of the day and she’d never see it or the friends, if she’d made any, ever again. By returning to Edmonton Bailey is hoping to find some answers maybe by tracking down some of the people that she remembers. She knows the odds are pretty remote that any of them are alive.

So how did Edmonton come to be?

In 1795, the Hudson Bay Company built a fort on the edge of the North Saskatchewan River, which was named Fort Edmonton. It is suggested that it was named that after Sir James Winter Lake, the deputy governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company who came from Edmonton, in Middlesex, England.

The fort was known for trading, dispatching brigades to remote outposts, planting food and grain crops in the spring, harvesting them in the fall, and hunting and fishing to obtain meat for the fort’s inhabitants. In the 1840s, with the arrival of Methodist and Catholic missionaries, things slowly changed. The Methodists built a church outside of the fort walls in 1870 and were what really started the city of Edmonton.

With the gold rush in the 1890’s many people stopped in Edmonton on their way north. Then the railway arrived in 1902, providing an easier means of travel to the remote area. The biggest change happened in 1947 when black crude oil (or as some called it black gold) was discovered just southwest of Edmonton near Leduc, the city benefited greatly and grew exponentially after that. (to learn more: Edmonton History)

So in Captured Lies, when they arrive in Edmonton, Bailey insists that since Guy has messed up her life and she’s just been through a harrowing car chase, he’s paying for a nice place in Edmonton. So they end up at the Westin Hotel, much to Guy’s annoyance. It is a beautiful 4.5 star hotel that has awesome views of downtown Edmonton and the river valley.

This picture is about 1930 and originally was the Edmonton post office. Cool building hey?
Edmonton Post Office

Sadly it was demolished in the ’70’s to build a big hotel, which became the Westin. This is the Westin today.

A Slight Adjustment

Don’t tell them but in Captured Lies I had to make a slight change to the room that Bailey and Guy rented, I needed it to have a Jacuzzi tub so I added one in my story. It made for a very nice scene… no there was no sex but let’s say it helped to shift things a bit. 🙂

So while they are staying at the hotel, Bailey leaves to go and find answers, not sharing with Guy where she has gone or even what her connection to the city is. So Guy goes to find her, only the bad man has now found him. Holding a gun on Guy he forces him to drive him to where she is. Since Guy has no clue, he takes the man on a bit of a tour and then crashes the SUV, pinning the man while he gets away. The accident happened on 109 St. near the Kingsway Garden Mall. It’s a pretty decent mall in the center of Edmonton.

Now when I wrote the story, there was a Zellers in the mall. It is now gone and has been replaced by a Target store (update: this is now also gone). Sheesh you’d think they’d know not to change things once it’s been written about in a story. 🙂

After the accident Guy hails a taxi and makes his way back to the hotel and finds Bailey. They decide that they need to get out of the city. Bailey wants to go home to Victoria but Guy convinces her that her answers and her real family are in Ontario. So they head to the Edmonton International Airport and board a plane to Toronto.

Next week, we’ll talk about Toronto.