Anna Lapointe
There’s no ambition like the ambition to be heard.
Those who live farther from the centre of things sometimes shout louder, act out, hurl loud, bright objects at the sky. The Waggle publishes out of Grande Prairie, AB. We know a few things about isolation. We are 456km north of Edmonton; 136km from Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway; 3886km from the North Pole; 6166km from the Equator. We’re just over 1000km from the Chief Mountain Border Crossing, our nearest port of entry into the continental United States. We’re about 1800km from the nearest crossing to Alaska, though if we could fly, it’d be much closer: that’s a twisty road.
At least half of these, though, are driving distances. We measure distance in hours of car travel, or plane travel. In terms of communication, the distances are fractions of a second. You can find us online. It’s easy: just click here.
See? You can see my house from there.
If you use the directional arrows, you can find your own house, too. You could draw a line between us. Figure out the distance, if you want.
When we decided to launch a new publication from the ashes of the academic journal Lobstick, we needed everything. We needed a name – kindly provided by Jamie Simpson – and a home, and words to fill our pages. So we screamed out to the world. And it shouted back.
The inaugural issue of The Waggle includes work from Grande Prairie residents. It also includes work from across Canada and the United States, and from Brazil, Singapore, and the Marshall Islands. We were frankly shocked at the geographical spread of our contributors, but thrilled, too. We think you’ll like it.
The Waggle Magazine 