Patrick Audley // Identity Collected

I lack a word for Danielle. I’ve tried sister, confidante, best-friend, comrade in arms, trip friend. All are inadequate and cover so few of the facets that adorn our relationship. So I’ll borrow a word from Sumerian: nín – oneself repeated, sister, one’s own but subtly different. That’s about as close as I can come to describing how she fits into my life.

She has been a part of so much of my early adult years. We were engaged for a period of time, we’ve tripped together many times, we’ve been each other’s confidant, and so much more. Danielle has always been on the grounding forces in my life; someone to deflate my ego and hold my hand.

Klondike Days are an Edmonton tradition dating back to the Gold Rush when Edmonton as Fort Edmonton. It later became a huge affair with a week long carnival and a massive parade. Everyone would dress up in clothes from the Klondike era as you see below. This makes it four generations and over 60 years of Klondike Days for my family - amazing to think that I was swindled happily as a kid by the same games that my grandfather likely played.

I’ve been through from rough times with my father: the death of my grandfather, the Real Estate Crisis and many more.

From my father I gained my ability to interact with people. That sounds like a basic skill but it’s far from it. Being able to connect and communicate with anyone in any circumstance is challenging and my father is the one who gave me the skills to do it effortlessly. Every facet of my life is interwoven with threads of communication; thanks to my father, those threads are strong and thick.

Born of George Audley and [lifelinelink: GRAMMAA, Catherine Bohychuk].

What more can you say, it’s my mother. That word means so much to me: mentor, parent, friend, confidant, consoler, conspirator.

From my mother I gained my love of learning; she read to me before I could speak and was the person who taught me to program when I was six. Who knew from those humble beginnings would develop my innate ability with information to the peak it is today.

In 1994, Jan (see below), a flight attendant with Canadian introduced my Mom to Rick her cousin. They were married that December.

Born of Stanley Bayrack and Nellie Fedoruk.

She was a big proponent of Edmonton’s Klondike Days and sewed Klondike costumes every year for the family. (see image below)