By Community Affairs

Cultural Mecca or Seedy Small Town. It’s All In How You Look at It

Aug 18, 2011 | 10:26 AM

I’ve been thinking about comments that have been on my Facebook about an article from Spinner Canada. The article was written about the controversy surrounding the Rolling Stone's promotion of  the Sheepdogs, Saskatoon’s latest made-it-big band.

The RS article’s author, portrayed Saskatoon as a seedy, drunk infested slum. Spinner reports, “According to Rolling Stone writer (and son of famed musician Boz) Austin Scaggs, they also do these things (drink, do drugs and hang out in slum bars) in a city that's a “colourful backwater,” in establishments like The Colonial, a “sex farm for blithering drunks,” surrounded by “toothless degenerates, binge-drinking collegians and alcoholic members of the First Nations.”

Yikes! Aside from the blatant racism of the comments, it is hard for me to believe this is the view of Saskatoon.

Those of us who live in Saskatchewan, consider Saskatoon to be our pinnacle, our arts and cultural centre. It is the city we more often than not, send our children to for higher education. It has a university, which has been the developer of many of the best minds in the world.

But to an outsider, this is the view?

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This brought my thoughts to Prince Albert.

How often are local residents very critical of our city? Time and time and time again we see the comments about the local people with various social issues and the comments about run-down buildings and general … yuckiness.

Austin Scaggs of Rolling Stone did not see the galleries, the beautiful parks, the university, the thriving areas of the city – but chose to look at the dark side and portrayed the city through that perspective. This which goes to show that every city has its social issues and that if we focus on the bad, we never rise above to see the good.

In the case of most cities – I would hazard a guess that the good outweighs the bad.

Like most things – it is so much easier to just complain about what hurts us because it is most obvious. If we have burned our hand – we focus on the burn and forget that the rest of our body is in complete health and balance. It can be the same with our communities.

Yes, Prince Albert has inner-city issues. Every city does. And, like every other city we have groups like the Prince Albert Downtown Improvement Association to work on these issues.

On the flip-side though, we have, in Prince Albert, a wonderful city filled with arts and culture, recreation, parks and educational institutions. My focus has been on all the healthy things in the city with my job as the Community Affairs Editor for paNOW.com.

We have the E.A. Rawlinson Centre which brings in fantastic entertainment and which houses the Mann Art Gallery, one of the province’s premiere galleries.

We have the Art Hauser Centre, and enviable Skateboard Park, Harry Jerome Track. We have the greatest waterslide in the province. We have the Alfred Jenkins Field House. In the city is SIAST Woodland Campus and Off Campus Courses available here.

We have a whole development in Cornerstone with many brand new stores and restaurants.

We have several museums and a beautiful library, which is alive with a variety of programming just waiting for the community to partake in.

I could go on forever with all the wonderful things Prince Albert has to offer.

So, rather than just complaining about the downfalls – maybe we all need to focus on what is good in our city and maybe even roll up our sleeves to be involved with groups like the Downtown Improvement Association to fix what is much less than perfect.

If even our beautiful Saskatoon can be portrayed to the world as the seedy underbelly of human existence … then we can realize that our perceptions and attitudes do make a difference.

Have a great week.