A local man has discovered there are over 100 Edmonton Streets around the world and many of those are named after Alberta's Capital City.
City planner Erik Backstrom said the idea first came to him while he was in Winnipeg.
“I was in Winnipeg for a meeting and came across Edmonton Street there and just as I was walking along Edmonton Street I thought just how interesting and how kind of exciting it was that the people in Winnipeg decided to memorialize our city through one of their street names.”
From there Backstrom began researching by contacting planning departments, libraries, historical societies and even Google.
“I just was curious as to where else that might have happened. It turns out it has happened in almost 150 places around the world.”
He discovered there are 25 streets named Edmonton in Canada, 80 in the United States and over 20 in the United Kingdom.
According to Backstrom, many of them are named after Alberta’s capital city.
“Most of the Edmonton streets in the UK are actually named after Edmonton, Alberta.
“You can tell by the context of the streets around them where there is other Canadian street names that it is actually Edmonton, Alberta as opposed to their own Edmonton.”
For Backstrom, that gave new meaning to the city he calls home.
“If there are Edmonton streets that means that the name Edmonton is important enough for someone to memorialize in a street name.
“In a subtle way it helps record the priorities and the significance of a name or a place or a person.”
Backstrom has published an online article about his findings.
With files from Amanda Anderson
