The great thing about Okotoks is you don’t have to choose.
For the entirety of our married life, my wife and I have been suburban people, drawn to the slower pace and open spaces offered by communities beyond the din of the big city.
For 25 years we lived in Ladner, a town in the shadow of Vancouver on the south shore of the Fraser River, before moving to Beaumont, a bedroom community immediately south of Edmonton, just about two years ago.
The two are similar in size, Beaumont having just reached the 20,000 mark as one of Alberta’s fastest growing places in the last census, while Ladner has hovered just above that figure for years thanks to the rigid boundaries of the Agricultural Land Reserve and some deeply held small town sensibilities.
Beyond their size and proximity to a major population centre, they have something else in common: a distinct lack of commercial amenities. I joked with people back in Ladner that I had moved from a town with two grocery stores and a hardware store to another place whose commercial core was anchored by two grocery stores and a hardware store.
Their limited population coupled with relatively easy access to larger centres meant that major retailers — read Costco, Walmart, Canadian Tire, Winners, etc. — took a hard pass in favour of places with greater density. Even many public services weren’t available as government also saw an economy of scale elsewhere.
I can’t speak for those in Beaumont given my short time there, but I know in Ladner that a lack of amenities was a trade-off people were willing to make in order to maintain a small-town vibe. It might be inconvenient to travel 15 minutes or half an hour to renew a driver’s licence or catch a movie, but it’s a price people are willing to pay. Some even view it as a badge of honour.
When we came to Okotoks this spring, we were pleasantly surprised that we weren’t expected to pay that price. On our initial drive through town, first southbound along Northridge/Southridge and then northward along 32nd Street, we were gobsmacked by the collection of retailers we passed, a sight we simply weren’t accustomed to seeing in a smaller town.
Now, you could argue that a community of 30,000 people can no longer be classified as a small town, and it’s true that Okotoks is somewhat larger than where we’ve lived previously, yet at the same time it embodies many of those small-town characteristics so it’s easy to still look upon it as one.
Before you think we’re fixated on big boxes, I should mention that in all three communities we’ve lived in there are many fabulous smaller retailers, those owner-operated shops that are the backbone of any town. We’ve come to rely on their services and have already encountered several in our short time here.
We’re grateful for the variety that’s available in the business community as well as for the amenities, both natural and man-made, that Okotoks offers. We like to think of it as a small town; we also like the idea of having our cake and eating it too.
