Grande Prairie is called Swan City for the reclamation work the city has done to protect the natural habitat of the Trumpeter Swan, which was formerly an endangered species.

While the swan is an official symbol of the city, the dinosaur has become its unofficial symbol. One of Alberta's best dinosaur museums is a short drive out of the city and celebrates the numerous nearby paleontological discoveries.

Grande Prairie was originally founded as a Hudson Bay Company fort, "La Grande Prairie", after the natural plains on three of its sides.

Grande Prairie is situated on the southern edge of Peace Country, which contains the northern-most aspen parkland on the continent. Unfortunately, much of this land is threatened by human activity around the city.

Retail is a major pillar of the Grande Prairie economy. Many franchises and big box stores thought not to be this far north can indeed be found here, which is a major draw for tourism!

Grande Prairie features the only natural luge track in North America to be certified to host major international events.

Edmonton / Edward

Jo considers Ed a dorky brother or cousin and often orients herself in competition with him, taking every opportunity to tease. She prides herself on her independence from him and often hazes him for his emotional repression, but she’s also quite fond of him and still depends on him from time to time.

Fort McMurray / Mac

Although Jo and Mac are close friends who both claim to be gateways to the North and rarely run out of conversation (or memes), they are quite distant from each other and typically end up mediated through Ed. Jo also considers Mac almost like family; while she often talks herself up, she also understands the hardships of his work and isolation and rarely truly crosses a line with him.

Calgary / Calvin

Jo thinks of Calvin with a little bit of smug disdain as he represents everything negative about big city softness; while she is sensitive about her own remoteness, she will not hesitate to take Calvin down a peg. The two do share a zeal for hospitality and a little bit of danger, however, and Calvin often pleasantly surprises her.

Red Deer / Red

Jo thinks its a real shame that she and Red aren’t neighbours since they both have similar experiences feeling left out and underappreciated. When they do see each other, they could easily spend an entire day commiserating and collaborating over take-out or work-outs.

Lethbridge / Lilith

Josephine tends to perceive Lilith as a little old fashioned and perhaps a little too laid back for someone of her stature in the province. Jo knows Lilith is capable of letting loose a little, she just hasn’t quite figured out the circumstances under which Lilith lets her hair down.

Medicine Hat / Madeline

Josephine and Madeline are total opposites in more than geography. Jo tends to be impatient and stubborn where Madeline is passive and pensive, and thus gets easily frustrated with her and defensive over her own way of doing things. However, they represent similarly sized cities and may have a lot to learn from each other.

Banff / Eleanor

Jo and Eleanor cross paths a little less due to Jo’s preference for vacations in Jasper, but the two get on quite well. They both share a zeal for thrills, but Josephine usually makes Eleanor look like the responsible one.

Other Relationships

Josephine is very proud of her role as a conduit between the Peace Region and is absolutely thrilled to take her friends from BC and the Territories shopping and sight-seeing in the city and around the county. She and Peace River also go way back, of course.

And what the heck do you do when the stereotypes you have to go off of become overwhelmingly negative? This is a particular problem I have struggled with over the past ten years with perceptions of my home province, both from within and without. How do you break the cycle of writing a character who appears to exhibit the absolute worst associations of the places you live and even love each day on the news or on social media?

Moreover, stepping back and realizing the role that cities, other levels of government, and nationalism play in suppressing, policing, and literally eradicating people who don’t or can’t adhere to the ideas these institutions were founded upon... that’s hard to deal with too. I’m not for a second claiming I have some magical answer to these issues, especially not from some silly blog, only that they are increasingly urgent the longer they continue and that we all have work to do.

I respect the fact that for many people, this fandom is a silly escape. People would prefer not to drag the everyday struggles of the world into everything they do, and honestly I am very much on the same page. I have no interest in representing the world exactly as it is, and I have no interest in dragging my work down into grit and darkness just because it is somehow (supposedly)  “more honest” or “more true” to reflect the headlines than it is everyday joys. However, I will never claim that my work is in any way apolitical: everything I do here is completely embedded in politics and I try not to completely shy away from that.

So how do you create characters who are believable, recognizable, sympathetic and representative of reality? I can’t really answer that: it is different for everyone who sits down to create something like this. What I can do is shine a little more light on my own process for doing it, if you’re interested, and how I sort of navigate those sticky spaces of identity and representation in Hetalia OCs.

To be honest, I think of myself as a bit of a haphazard and impressionistic creator: sort of throwing paint at the canvas until a shape begins to appear and then, as I do my ‘research’ (if it can even be called that) there’s a bit of a confirmation bias consistency.... narrative... filter (lens?) that helps adding detail onto those silhouettes. I won’t say it’s the right way or even the only way, but it’s how I’ve become accustomed to representing the infinite complexities of peoples-as-people. After all, I like to think of personifications as representing how fascinatingly complicated individual people can be rather than oversimplifying and flattening everything into a person-shaped cookie cutter... even if that is what is ultimately happening. It’s also, at the end of the day, a way of crystallizing the experiences of many through the only viewpoint I have: my own.