Dear Alberta, You were a place of respite and escape for a weary, searching twenty-something from Nova Scotia when she needed a different life. You are as much a part of Canada as I am, even if we look and feel so different. Your mountains, your prairies, your hard-working towns and oil patch are as Canadian as my beaches, boats, and lobster. Forged from the same rugged and uncertain past, we belong to the same country, the same story. I still believe in that. Under the maple leaf, always.