Explore the Green Side of Edmonton<\/a> was published in fall 2025. While Harris wrote it with complete newcomers to Edmonton\u2019s green spaces in mind, her thorough approach means even seasoned outdoors enthusiasts are likely to find surprises.<\/p>\nMore than just parks<\/p>\n
![\"Book](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/green-edmonton-book.jpg\"\/)
The book covers popular destinations like the North Saskatchewan River Valley, the Muttart Conservatory, and the Edmonton Valley Zoo. But it goes far beyond these well-known destinations.<\/p>\n
Readers will learn about pocket parks downtown, urban wetlands, and the urban food forest in MacKinnon Ravine. They\u2019ll read about some of Alberta\u2019s most beautiful, least visited stretches of wilderness close to Edmonton, like Miquelon Lake Provincial Park, the Riverlot 56 Natural Area in St. Albert, Bunchberry Meadows and Pipestone Creek.<\/p>\n
But the book is much more than a list of parks.<\/p>\n
It contains recommendations for outfitting companies, tour guides, conservation societies and clubs. It highlights online courses, post-secondary programs, apps, podcasts, magazines and volunteer opportunities.<\/p>\n
Organizing the large amount of information in the book to grip and guide the reader was not an easy job. Harris reworked the order and categories several times.<\/p>\n
While her NAIT education helped guide her research, Harris relied on her experience as an educator to structure the book.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an educator you spend a lot of time thinking about themes and topics,\u201d she says. \u201cYou get used to figuring out what bubble things go into and how people will be enticed by that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps the book\u2019s most surprising section is the chapter on climate change and sustainability. These are gigantic topics that can easily overwhelm or depress the reader. That\u2019s exactly why Harris wanted to address them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve worked a lot with youth that deal with eco anxiety,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I\u2019m going to talk about climate change it needs to be tangible and there needs to be a feeling of hope. Climate change is happening, but these are things you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
More to explore<\/p>\n
![\"Person](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/michelle-harris-and-book.jpg\"\/)
Since the book was published, Harris has heard from people across her industry and beyond. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive \u2013 though, since Harris is a reluctant author, it might not be entirely to her liking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard from the community that the book is great,\u201d she says. But it\u2019s also left readers wanting more \u2013 in a good way.<\/p>\n
Harris has heard from educational institutions that want to use the book as an employment resource for grads and had requests to write similar books for Calgary and beyond.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, it\u2019s difficult to imagine a more comprehensive guide to Edmonton\u2019s green spaces.<\/p>\n
But Harris can do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason this book got published when it did is that I ran out of time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI self-published, and when you do that you only get the services of the publisher for a certain time.\u201d<\/p>\n
After almost four years of research, that publisher contacted Harris to notify her of the upcoming deadline. It left her a few weeks to edit.<\/p>\n
In three or four years, she expects to return to the text to make updates she\u2019s already imagining.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike a painter, you\u2019re never going to be sure it\u2019s finished,\u201d Harris says. \u201cYou need to learn to be happy with what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explore the Green Side of Edmonton covers destinations, resources and other ways to enjoy the outdoors Michelle Harris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[7176,15843,52,234,1881,1721,19340,19338,2863,19339,19341,237],"class_list":["post-43917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-book","tag-conservation","tag-edmonton","tag-environment","tag-green","tag-guide","tag-michelle-harris","tag-nait","tag-nature","tag-northern-alberta-institute-of-technology","tag-self-published","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}