Poplar Magazine

01/18/2025

Did you know you can read all columns in our latest issues over at our homepage? Yup, for those who prefer this over the flip style - the reading world is your oyster!? 😄

In this issues Alberta Gardener, Deanna speaks to Seed Swaps. These are huge events for gardeners, especially those into the Heirloom scene.

https://lowingmedia.com/poplar-magazine/f/alberta-gardener-seed-swaps-by-deanna-lowing

01/18/2025

Big time welcome to our newest followers! We are grateful.

As an independent media outlet, we appreciate each and every like follow and share, thank you!

Help us on our quest to 70K readers - share poplarmagazine.com today!

01/15/2025

From the beginning, Nick Olexyn has been here. It began with fishing, some outdoors in general and blammo, here we are writing for the hunting crowd!

Alberta Outside: Resolutions: Bear Hunting Alberta
by Nick Olexyn.

This spring, I embarked on my first-ever bear hunt in Southern Alberta—a thrilling and nerve-wracking adventure that pushed me far beyond my comfort zone. A good friend and I set out for the weekend with hopes of stalking an animal I typically go to great lengths to avoid. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to embrace challenges that would expand my horizons, and bear hunting was the perfect test.

We arrived Friday evening, eager to set up camp and venture out for an evening hunt. Unfortunately, we discovered that our carefully scouted location, identified through satellite imagery, was already bustling with other backcountry enthusiasts. Eventually, we found a picturesque campsite along the river, but with limited daylight left, we opted to sit by the campfire instead. Sipping whisky and sharing our excitement for the days ahead, we anticipated the adventure awaiting us.

At first light, we groggily left camp, slightly regretting those mugs of whisky, and made our way to a trail across from our campsite. After hiking about a kilometer, we reached a vantage point that offered sweeping views of the surrounding valleys. We spent the entire morning glassing the area, spotting nothing but elk across the valley and a few mule deer that surprised us from behind. By noon, our restlessness got the better of us, and we decided to explore on foot.

During our hike, we encountered grizzly bear fur tangled in barbed wire and black bear tracks, accompanied by what seemed to be cubs—not our intended target. Feeling deflated but determined, we returned to our original glassing ridge in the late afternoon, settling in for a long sit. Hours passed, and the monotony of scanning the terrain left my eyes strained. My friend managed a few naps before I finally decided to take a rest myself.

No sooner had my head touched the ground than my buddy exclaimed, “Bear! Bear! Bear!” I bolted upright, grabbing my binoculars to scan in the direction he was pointing. Sure enough, a bear had wandered into the very area I had been monitoring. It was roughly two kilometers away across the river valley, with only three hours of daylight remaining.

We scrambled to gather our gear and descended the ridge at a near-run. Closing the distance, we got within 500 meters and devised a plan. My friend would attempt a shot with his bow while I stayed back, rifle ready. At 100 meters, I found a spot to post up while he carefully removed his boots to reduce noise and stalked closer.

Every moment felt like an eternity as he crept toward the bear. I kept my binoculars fixed on the target, ready to track it if needed. Suddenly, a crashing sound erupted to my right. My heart raced as I feared another bear might be heading straight for me. Glancing quickly, I saw nothing, and the noise soon faded—likely a spooked elk or moose.

Refocusing on the scene before me, I saw my friend balancing on a stump, bow drawn. Seconds later, I heard the sharp smack of the arrow finding its mark. The bear, struck broadside, turned in confusion before running into the woods. Moments later, we heard the unmistakable roar of a “death moan,” signaling the end. My friend had done it.

We waited 30 minutes before approaching the impact site, following the blood trail about 30 yards to where the bear lay. Relieved to see such a clean and quick kill, we worked swiftly to skin and dress the animal as the sun began to dip behind the mountains. With less than an hour of light remaining, we packed the bear and made our way down the hillside.

This experience was, without a doubt, one of the most adrenaline-filled moments of my life. Bear hunting challenged me in ways I hadn’t imagined, reaffirming my commitment to stepping out of my comfort zone. As I reflected on the 1:00 am drive home, I knew this would be a story I’d share for years to come.

Poplarmagazine.com

01/12/2025

Ghosts and Geese of Beaverhill Lake
by Nick Carter.

Since the summer' 22 issue Nature Nick Photography has been a steady force on the pages of Poplar Magazine, he never ceases to deliver with his passion for both the natural landscape of Alberta and his writing! Check out his latest contribution on page 12 of the winter 24 issue. Here's a snapshot below for you!

Is there a place in your life that you can’t get back to, no matter how much you want to? Not physically so much as mentally. A place that might have felt important a long time ago, but when you go back now it’s just not the same. I figure the older we get, the more places like that we acquire. I already have a few myself. One of them I feel like I never actually saw in its full glory, and that’s Beaverhill Lake.

About an hour’s drive east of Edmonton and just past the little town of Tofield, Beaverhill Lake is a big, shallow prairie slough. Surrounded by popular woods and farmland, it has no lakeside resort towns or beaches. This, and the fact that it’s conveniently along some major migration routes, makes the Lake and its surrounding countryside an absolute haven for all sorts of birds and birdwatchers. Perhaps most notable are the tens of thousands of migrating Snow Geese that stop at the lake for a few days every spring and autumn, and it’s one of nature’s biggest thrills to see a flock of these birds rising from the fields and stream through the sky like a noisy white cloud.

I’ve been to the Lake several times and, like most local birders, knew it was important. My own outings to the Lake included solo birding trips, watching owl banding at the bird observatory, and participating as a guide and speaker in the Tofield Snow Goose Festival. It was there this past April that I got my hands on an old book called The Birds and Birders of Beaverhills Lake. Sneakily bid on for me at the festival’s silent auction by my mother-in-law, the book was written by Robert Lister and published in 1979 (at some point in history the ‘s’ was dropped from “Beaverhills”). Lister was a zoology technician at the University of Alberta in addition to being an expert birdwatcher in his own right.

Read it all over at poplarmagazine.com !!!

01/10/2025

Editor's Letter ~ Growth
by Tim Lowing

Poplar Magazine Winter 2024

When I set out to create this magazine, I put a lot of thought into the name. Poplar, as I’ve shared in previous letters, is a tree that I’ve been connected to since my childhood; many a summer morning I was woken at the cottage to that specific hustle bustle sound their leaves fill the airwaves with. Poplars are incredible trees that can stand as tall as one hundred sixty feet, although they generally settle somewhere between fifty to eighty. They are dominant and always exuded a certain power to me; when I was small, we had what must have been an eighty-footer that stood next to the dock by the shoreline. That soldier of a tree provided our family with plenty of shade and song on countless summer days. Eventually it took ill and became a danger to all those sitting under it and was felled in the off season before the winter ice broke. I remember being very sad that it had to come down but alas, this is life.

Often forgotten when we see trees, is what’s happening below the surface. Poplars have an expansive root system that can spread as much as two to three times their height! Think about that when you imagine one of these beasts if you were to see one over one hundred fifty feet tall! That is a footprint. Like the life cycle of an actual Poplar, our magazines’ root system is beginning to expose its own expanse. I am very excited for all things Poplar Magazine right now. Our footprint is rooted in a quality digital landscape and people are starting to really take notice. We have our very own future in front of us now and if I thought I was excited at our launch, I believe that excitement has found a new level. I suppose that makes sense when you consider the metaphor of our name.

Trees are incredible and we see them growing in the most absurd places: from war zones to the sides of mountains where you wonder how it is nourished with water. In the aftermath of the Jasper fires, new growth will arrive sooner than we can imagine and like these marvels, Poplar Magazine is growing towards its future in an endless digital landscape of independent positivity.

Soon after we launched, I really began to realize this just might be a whole lot more than I imagined. In saying that, I confess that it stopped me in my tracks a little. The vulnerable truth is, I think it scared me! At a time when those born more recently see a newspaper on their step and think it’s litter that missed the recycling bin and not a document of community information, I can imagine anyone in the print business is very likely in a valley of introspective reconsideration of the lost stranglehold they once occupied in this media business.

I see modern media, specifically independent media as a gargantuan opportunity. One that I fully intend to explore. For me, we’ve destroyed honest media in Canada, not just Alberta. Government grants and censorship appear to be far more harmful than one may have first considered. Especially when you weigh what we have available to us today over what we were all privileged to experience in the media past. Gone are the days of objective journalism and true freedom of speech appears to be the first thing pulverized by those disconnected from the sacrifices of all our forefathers who gave us this country and the freedoms within.

The goal of Poplar is to restore community opportunity. There was a time when television was locally centric and driven by local advertisements. Today, we all have a huge opportunity to control our own advertising destiny with the available tools at our disposal. However, this begs the question: is social media enough? Furthermore, lost community programming has been resurrected in the overall Poplar plan with PoplarViews, a conversational video podcast show that celebrates its guests as we learn about their businesses and other important Alberta focused topics.

Together, in Poplar Magazine we can go towards our shared audience in this unique cyber vessel. So, think about your message and think about what it looks like in the cyber waves of Poplar Magazine, a modern, yet traditional approach to connecting people and communities in Alberta.

Thank you for your endless support and welcome to the twelfth issue of Poplar Magazine!

Gratefully yours,
Tim Lowing

01/05/2025

Driving in Alberta: Where did this go wrong?

Poplar Thoughts, Poplar Talks...

Is it just me, or has something changed dramatically in our province when it comes to basic driving skills in the past decade? Driving is an acquired skill and like all skills, some will take to it better than others. That's natural as we're not all good at the same things. However, it appears that driving has changed, and in that change, so has the attitude towards what is right and wrong. Recently, The City of Airdrie, has seen what appears to be an uptick in hit and runs including both vehicle and pedestrians.

Questions:

Are we seeing more of this across communities in Alberta; Or is this isolated to Airdrie?

Have you experienced a hit and run and what was the outcome?

01/04/2025

Friends, check this performance space out!

It’s time! We are looking for performers - be it music, theatre, spoken word, circus, dance, cultural, anything - for our upcoming 2025 Summer Series and Bandstand Sundays! All levels of experience welcome! Link in our stories, or through our website. Applications due end of February.

12/31/2024

PoplarViews is an conversational style interview show featuring Albertans from all walks of life. Produced by Lowing Media for Poplar Magazine, join host Tim Lowing as he navigates the interview process with a genuine and real approach to every conversation.

Guest Terry Olexyn is a recently retired energy executive who contributes The Retirement Edge in Poplar Magazine while supporting his clients through the retirement journey at Peak Retirement Solutions.

12/29/2024

The Chair, by Joyce D. Wall has taken a very cool turn to the restoration of a family heirloom. People connect intrinsically with Joyce's columns and now this new direction has created an even wider audience for Joyce. You can check it out at poplarmagazine.com in the mag itself or, in the posted columns. Pop over and have a peek at what we've done for you all!

Thanks for reading Poplar!

12/28/2024

Hey there Poplar readers. Here's another cool way to enjoy our content. PoplarViews, our interview show can also be enjoyed on Soundcloud! Here's the link for our audio-preferrin'-folks! 😅

Welcome to the return of PoplarViews! A long form interview show dedicated to the Alberta conversation. Proudly produced by Lowing Media we strive to connect with our guests on a deeper level. In this

12/27/2024

Welcome to the return of PoplarViews! A long form interview show dedicated to the Alberta conversation. Proudly produced by Lowing Media for Poplar Magazine where we strive to connect with our guests on a deeper level. In this episode, I connected with Shelley Koebel a few weeks back and we spoke at length about the trials and tribulations that the Jasper business community is facing since fire ravaged the community in the summer of 2024. Thanks for watching and we sincerely hope your appreciate the throwback style that encapsulates an organic and empathetic approach to human connection.

Follow Andromeda Coffee & SnowDome Coffee Bar and be sure to pop over to their website snowdome.coffee for further details about their tremendous footprint in Jasper!

Note: runtime is aprox 50 mins.

12/21/2024

This is a very special issue for me. I've wanted stand up comedy in Alberta represented and shared here. I have been on the look out for a contributor for some time and funny as life goes, I full circled all the way back to an old friend from my own touring days, Marcus Beaubier is a talented artist and comedian and I am touched to have him bringing his skills to our pages! Check out his first column!

When I left St. John’s in the early 90s, Atlantic Canada was seemingly trapped in a relentless storm of economic chaos, and Newfoundland was the tidal wave at its apex. Things were bleak. The fishery had collapsed, and t...

12/21/2024

Heya folks! Thanks for stoppin' in.

Did you know all columns are posted directly to Poplar's main page?

Yes! And apparently - this makes you readers very happy :)

Check it out here! The winter issue is live and the numbers are strong! Thank you folks for all your support. We are small but we are mighty!

poplarmagazine.com

Send a message to learn more

12/15/2024

Next issue incoming! Next Saturday so stay close and share us with your circle!

The work is underway this weekend, final photo selection and placement. Hopefully some more reel releases and some updated recording. The winter issue has some changes! Finally....finally some arts coverage and a serious throwback to my stage roots which is something I've wanted to see here for a long while. Some of the regulars you've read are also stepping into new territory so you'll have to check that out too! And, best yet is it's the solstice. I love the winter solstice. As of Saturday, when of course the winter issue drops, we also begin our Earthly journey back toward the sun! Things will stand still for a bit but then, like it never happened, the days will be longer. :)

Thanks for all your follows, shares and cares folks, means the world to me. This independent magazine that could, is starting to really cook with gas. The numbers are inspiring!

T

11/19/2024

Fresh designs! Green stitch on grey! We're thrilled with how these turned out.

This is a fantastic way to support Poplar Magazine, $40 includes free shipping to most locations. DM for details, store link coming soon.

Thank you for your continued support.
poplarmagazine.com

11/11/2024

Hello readers, here's a quick hello from me to you! We have some cool updates coming down the line from merch to PoplarViews! We're looking for subjects and discussions so hit us up with your business, event or whatever Alberta you got for us!