Long-form writing on place, economy, and environment.https://wayward.house/https://wayward.house/essays/fire-country/https://wayward.house/essays/fire-country/Fort McMurray showed what happens when fire reaches the wildland-urban edge. The WUI keeps expanding. The fire climate is changing. The two trends are running toward each other.Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTphysical-geographyenvironmental-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/the-insurance-geography/https://wayward.house/essays/the-insurance-geography/Insurance does not prevent disasters. It prices the geography of risk and decides who can afford to live where. In Alberta, that pricing is changing.Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTphysical-geographyeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/watching-water/https://wayward.house/essays/watching-water/Snowpack satellites, radar altimeters, and gravity sensors now make it possible to watch Alberta's water budget from orbit. Here is what they are telling us.Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTmonitoringphysical-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/capital-country/https://wayward.house/essays/capital-country/Canada has $1.8 trillion in growth waiting to be unlocked. Where it lives, what is blocking it, and why the province that anchors the largest sector is generating the uncertainty that kills long-horizon investment.Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/the-warehouse-province/https://wayward.house/essays/the-warehouse-province/Alberta produces raw materials and exports them in bulk. Everything else arrives by truck. This is the infrastructure that makes that possible — and what it costs when it breaks.Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyinfrastructurehttps://wayward.house/essays/after-the-burning-strait/https://wayward.house/essays/after-the-burning-strait/What changes when closure becomes a governed corridorFri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/avalanche-country/https://wayward.house/essays/avalanche-country/The eastern slopes have always slid. What is changing is the season, the trigger, and the kind of instability now arriving from a warming mountain climate.Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTphysical-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/classroom-arithmetic/https://wayward.house/essays/classroom-arithmetic/Alberta's education system is building schools for yesterday's growth while a demographic pulse rolls toward secondary school.Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTurban-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/storm-country/https://wayward.house/essays/storm-country/Calgary sits where Arctic, Pacific, and continental air collide — and the bill is climbing.Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTphysical-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/alberta-calling/https://wayward.house/essays/alberta-calling/How a province that spent a decade recruiting the world is learning to blame it for showing up.Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyurban-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/hidden-in-plain-sight/https://wayward.house/essays/hidden-in-plain-sight/Calgary's 8,000 hectares of urban nature: what the livability rankings capture, what they miss, and what happens when a city keeps adding people.Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTurban-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/ideology-of-extraction/https://wayward.house/essays/ideology-of-extraction/Commodity, class, and the collapse of distance — from the Banda Islands to the Strait of Hormuz.Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThistorical-geographyeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/rockets-and-feathers/https://wayward.house/essays/rockets-and-feathers/Why Alberta pump prices spike overnight but fall for weeks — and whether this week's crude crash will actually reach the forecourt.Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/albertas-pipeline-geography/https://wayward.house/essays/albertas-pipeline-geography/A Connected Province and the Infrastructure That Makes It SoSun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyinfrastructurehttps://wayward.house/essays/the-checkout-problem/https://wayward.house/essays/the-checkout-problem/Alberta grows the food, drills the fuel, and still pays some of Canada's highest grocery prices. This is why.Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/two-front-doors-and-a-mountain/https://wayward.house/essays/two-front-doors-and-a-mountain/Alberta tourism through flight patterns, spend trails, seasonal rhythms, and the places that arrival pressure is changing fastest.Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/landlocked-by-default/https://wayward.house/essays/landlocked-by-default/Why Alberta's geography is its biggest economic constraint — and what that means for the pipelines, ports, and trade deals being negotiated in its name.Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/the-burning-strait/https://wayward.house/essays/the-burning-strait/A systems view of chokepoint activation, supply chain propagation, and the asymmetric geography of oil dependence.Tue, 03 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/contested-ground/https://wayward.house/essays/contested-ground/Global Energy Markets, War, Sanctions, and the Renewable TideSat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/texas-of-the-north/https://wayward.house/essays/texas-of-the-north/What the Comparison Actually Reveals — and What It ObscuresThu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/alberta-trade-reality-check/https://wayward.house/essays/alberta-trade-reality-check/What the Province Produces, What It Exports, and What It Needs From Everyone ElseTue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTeconomic-geographyhttps://wayward.house/essays/what-light-reveals/https://wayward.house/essays/what-light-reveals/How a team of University of Alberta graduates put hyperspectral eyes in orbit — and made them free to use.Mon, 10 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMTmonitoring