i smell an alberta rat

No, I don’t believe that Alberta is absolutely rat free, but I do buy into the myth. I know we have far fewer Norway rats than any place else. Back in the 1980s I went for a ride along with the Alberta Rat Patrol for CBC Radio, Edmonton. I travelled to the Saskatchewan border and remember passing a cattle feedlot. The rat patroller says to me: “There’s no doubt about it. There are rats there.” He also went into graphic detail about how farmers deal with an infestation. “They gather in a group with shotguns, hook a tail pipe-hose to the grain silo. It fills with exhaust. Rats come running out and they pick them off.” One of my favourite podcasts triggered this memory. Decoder Ring. Here’s a link to the rat episode. If you live in Alberta and you see a rat, rat him out here.