Chefprefers BLOG

Shopping malls are everywhere, but only one thought, “What if we made it the size of a small city?”

Back in the 1970s, indoor shopping malls began replacing outdoor strip malls, offering shoppers a warm escape from the weather. In Edmonton, where winter seems to have a personal grudge against humanity, someone decided a normal mall simply wasn’t enough. They built West Edmonton Mall.

With around 800 stores, plus a lake with boats, an ice rink, a water park, a casino and enough attractions to make you forget you originally came to buy socks, it was the largest shopping mall in the world. (Ironically Iran has the largest.) And of course naturally, I had to see what all the fuss was about.

Unfortunately, we chose Canada Day and so did everyone else in Edmonton.

Finding a parking space was less like parking a car and more like competition. You crawl along at walking pace, scanning every row with darted eyes. A pair of reverse lights appears and your hopes soar, only for the driver to spend the next five minutes checking their phone, adjusting the mirrors or apparently finishing a three course meal. Then, just as the perfect space opens up, another car appears from another dimension and steals it.

For once, I was that car.

We entered through the Canadian Sport Chek store. Calling it a store feels unfair. It was so enormous that for several minutes I genuinely thought we were already inside the mall. We weren’t. We were still inside one store.

Walking into the mall, I had that “Ok, impress me” attitude. The information booth map looked surprisingly small, but that was only because no platform could prepare you for the scale of the place. It was less of a shopping centre and more of a postcode.

I spent some time people watching. Since it was a public holiday, the crowd was mostly young families rather than the white haired retirees, I had imagined power walkers rolling the corridors before the shops opened.

The patrons were a vibrant mix of cultures, with faces reflecting every corner of the world. Different skin tones, hairstyles, languages and fashions blended into one lively bunch. Almost everyone wore casual clothes. Jeans, sportswear, hoodies and trainers tended to rule the day. Nobody seemed interested in dressing to impress. They were dressed to survive several kilometres of shopping.

The businesses were just as varied. International fashion brands sat beside jewellers, bookstores, toy shops, electronics retailers, sporting goods stores and home decorating outlets. And, of course, there was a food court large enough to feed a small nation.

It did make me wonder how Edmonton supports a mall of this size. During the COVID pandemic, many businesses must have struggled, and a walk through downtown suggested some still are.

We stayed near Jasper Avenue, where the contrast was striking. Despite it being a weekday, there were very few office workers around. Most of the people we encountered were homeless.

After spending days travelling through the mountains and forests of British Columbia and Alberta, where nature dominates the landscape, returning to the realities of city life was confronting. Thankfully, the people we passed mostly kept to themselves, but the difference between the wilderness and downtown Edmonton could not have been more obvious.

Although, after being in the downtown and in the west district I found Edmonton to be similar to any other city, it has its fortune and its graves. 

If you would like to see more of our trip of Edmonton, go to Jen’s Facebook post.