For the business world, it has been a year to remember.

Or perhaps one to forget, depending on the number of tech stocks languishing in your portfolio.

The markets rocked n’ rolled, from the early highs of Nortel to the dark depths of Enron.

In Alberta, the oil and gas sector was energized by billions of dollars of mergers and acquisitions, and giant telecoms duked it out for wireless supremacy.

Small business was shocked by high electricity prices, while e-business was on the march into remote corners of the province as the provincial government inked contracts for the Alberta SuperNet.

It looked like a typical good-news, bad-news year for a country struggling to hold off a looming recession and a province determined to make its good fortune last.

Then Sept. 11 shook the world – further crippling markets and consumer confidence and sending the business world into a financial and psychological tailspin from which it is only beginning to recover.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Jean Chretien said the Canadian recession won’t be felt as deeply as in the U.S.

But the economic downturn – a rather insipid term to describe the carnage of the past few months – is still painfully real to thousands of laid-off Canadian workers and business owners trying to keep their heads above the rising water.

Throughout 2001, Business Edge helped to put national and international events in perspective for Alberta readers as its writers and photographers covered local businesses and trends. Here’s a flashback to some of the news and views that kept our readers turning the pages:

* JANUARY

The year starts out on a high note as writer Mike Dempster profiles how Calgarian Dave Rodney will attempt to become the first Canadian to twice reach Mount Everest’s 29,035-ft summit – helped by Calgary high-tech firm Jet Stream Digital Media, which climbed to new heights to provide streaming images and interviews to the folks back home in Alberta. Rodney would eventually touch the sky in late May, and have a safe journey home.

With an eye on the year to come, columnist Mark Lowey predicts Calgary will be in a better position than most to survive the high-tech slowdown.

“The future looks bright here for the New Economy,” he writes, and many in Alberta’s advanced tech sector agree – with fingers crossed behind their backs. “The future looks bright here for the New Economy,” he writes, and many in Alberta’s advanced tech sector agree – with fingers crossed behind their backs.

Financial Edge columnist Gyle Konotopetz is licking his wounds after his stock in a promising Edmonton company called Brocker Technology slumps 71 per cent. (He bought at $3.50). Later in a midsummer fit of pique, Konotopetz will sell the stock at 90 cents – for a loss of $4,680 in Business Edge mad money. The beleaguered company will be delisted from NASDAQ later in November.

Also in January, Talisman CEO Jim Buckee tells Business Edge that he believes criticism of his company’s role in war-torn Sudan is receding. “I hope over time, people will see that if we withdrew, Sudan and the world would be worse off,” Buckee says. His views provoke a column later in the month by local Sudanese activist Morris Yoll, who says his kinsmen are living a nightmare because of companies such as Talisman.

* FEBRUARY

As the year starts to unfold, it quickly becomes apparent that electricity deregulation is going to be a hot-button issue for many Alberta businesses. More than 11,000 businesses are now paying between three and five times more for electricity than they paid last year. The Alberta Forest Products Association reports that its industry is paying 100 per cent more for power than B.C., Manitoba and Ontario.

February also ushers in a keen new face to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. Barry Rempel, CEO of Aviatas Ventures Inc., says he intends to help grow Chamber membership and foster greater links between Calgary’s high-tech community and the rest of the world.

The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology trumpets a new partnership with tech giant Cisco, which endows the institute with a $2-million seat in network engineering. It’s the beginning of a series of business partnerships for SAIT, which will later land deals with steel industry giant IPSCO Inc., Alliance Pipeline and the Calgary Airport Authority.

Alberta starts to crank up energy rebates for cold-fingered consumers, and the premier announces businesses and other non-residential consumers can expect rebates up to $30,000 a month until the end of April.

It’s also a hot month in the labour sector, and Petro-Canada is served with strike notice by workers in several facilities across Canada. A strike will begin in April at several locations, and the last collective agreements will be signed at the company’s facilities in September.

Labour troubles of a different kind are also brewing in Alberta’s overheated oilpatch, as a shortage of skilled workers plagues the petroleum services industry. The mean age of a trades worker in Alberta is 53 years old.

* MARCH

March comes in like a lion, and columnist Konotopetz is grumbling that analysts are being too tough on poor old Nortel. He’s just bought the stock at $31, and vows to eat his words with perogies and sour cream if the stock ever falls to $18. Our Gyle will dine in style shortly after June 11, as Nortel plummets to the $13 level.

Royal Airlines optimistically announces new scheduled service between Calgary and Toronto. The airline will instead merge with ill-fated Canada 3000, which will be grounded permanently in November.

Spring also means growth for Business Edge, and the newsmagazine stretches its wings to launch an edition in Alberta’s booming capital city.

* APRIL

It’s warming up outside, and Alberta vows to move full steam ahead with its plan to reduce greenhouse gases, even as U.S. President George Bush is pulling the plug on his country’s participation in the Kyoto Protocol.

By the end of May, the Alberta government will invest $1.5 million to fuel Climate Change Central, a private-public sector agency that will leverage funds to promote emissions-reducing projects.

Meanwhile, Jean Chretien drops into Calgary for a swanky Palliser lunch with local oil barons, promises a renewed strategy for a continental energy policy with the U.S., and throws open the door to investment in Alberta oilsands and Arctic natural gas.

EPCOR and ENMAX face off in a competition to lure customers on each other’s turf. EPCOR lands a huge PR punch when it aces a multi-million-dollar sponsorship deal to attach its name to the Calgary Performing Arts Centre.

Nortel holds its annual meeting in Calgary, and CEO John Roth talks turkey with shareholders. “Ninety-nine per cent of the shareholders voted for me,” he reminds anybody who is still listening, “and I think that’s a pretty good rate.”

Columnist Tom Keyser profiles Gulf Canada’s Dick Auchinleck, “hailed as oilpatch’s new guiding light.” Within weeks, Gulf is swallowed by Houston-based giant Conoco Inc. in a $10-billion acquisition, the biggest takeover of an oil and gas firm in Canadian history.

* MAY

Alberta holds a land sale – and the big money comes calling. The sale attracts $92 million, with licences in the gas-prone foothills region accounting for $56 million. Gas producers start to jockey for position on the proposed U.S. gas pipeline project to the Arctic. Enbridge CEO Patrick Daniel says that since producers will be the ones signing long-term contracts to underwrite the huge bills, they should be the ones to decide which project goes ahead.

Meanwhile, it’s 80 candles on the cake for the Alberta Research Council, a not-for-profit business and wholly owned subsidiary of the Alberta Science and Research Authority. ARC celebrates its anniversary by donating 80,000 seedlings to promote sustainable development.

* JUNE

Albertans are burning the midnight oil when it comes to work, but really, who is surprised? A survey released by Microsoft Canada Co. and Ipsos Reid shows 69 per cent of respondents in Alberta said they go to work early, or leave late to keep up with their workloads. And while they may be exhausted, workers sure are computer-savvy – 68 per cent report they spend six hours a day at their keyboards, while 79 per cent say they experiment with their software to discover its full potential.

Born-in-Alberta telecom TELUS goes on a buying binge this month, making an offer for PSINet’s Canadian operations – which includes its Calgary-based subsidiary CADVision. The Burnaby, B.C.-based giant also inks an agreement to acquire Arquana Technologies and Williams Communications Canada.

It’s an election year and Edmonton Mayor Bill Smith is on the stump. The city is booming with a GDP four per cent higher than last year, and Smith is overseeing a thriving manufacturing, business services and advanced technology sector.

“This is a diamond,” Smith tells Business Edge. “I’m just going to polish it a bit.”

Financial Edge columnist Gyle Konotopetz is licking his wounds after his stock in a promising Edmonton company called Brocker Technology slumps 71 per cent. (He bought at $3.50). Later in a midsummer fit of pique, Konotopetz will sell the stock at 90 cents – for a loss of $4,680 in Business Edge mad money. The beleaguered company will be delisted from NASDAQ later in November.

* JULY

TELUS opens a $36-million “bullet-proof” Internet hosting centre in Calgary. Web hosting is becoming an attractive multi-billion-dollar-business, notes CEO Darren Entwistle, “and we want a big chunk of that market.”

The summer job picture looks healthy, with close to half the businesses in Edmonton and Calgary planning to hire staff over July, August and September. Even the Alberta government is getting in on the recruitment biz by opening a website to post public sector jobs online.

In Edmonton, local trades associations are trying to attract new blood by setting up mentorship programs to help attract and train young workers to the trades.

Sheldon Zelitt, founder and chief executive officer of Calgary-based VisuaLabs, is suspended from the company over allegations he made major “misrepresentations” about the company’s technology. The Alberta Securities Commission issues a trading halt to shares owned by Zelitt and his wife, Joy, a former vice-chair of the firm. Zelitt and the company had parted company in late June over allegations he tried to fake a public demonstration of the company’s leading-edge imaging products using a recently purchased television set.

* AUGUST

It’s a blue-sky month, so what better time for PanCanadian Petroleum to join the CO2 Capture Project international consortium dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The company joins others including Suncor Energy, BP, Chevron and the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of companies as members dedicated to finding ways to develop technology to capture CO2 from power generation and industrial sources and store it in geological formations below the earth’s surface.

Business Edge writer Mark Lowey reports on the increasing influence of business in post-secondary institutions in Calgary and Edmonton. In the capital city, the University of Alberta is Edmonton’s fifth-largest employer, creating more than 11,000 jobs in the region, while in Calgary, the U of C is the fourth-largest employer, contributing about $620 million a year to the city.

Alberta businesses are keen to form partnerships in the community. “What we’ve seen over the last 10 years is a move towards providing a more seamless transition (to the workplace) for kids,” explains Doug Clovechok, executive director of the non-profit Calgary Educational Partnership Foundation.

Edmonton is also on top of the World’s – and the international athletics championships is also attracting the cream of the international business community. More than 70 corporate captains from Canada and abroad attend the Aug. 3 opening ceremonies, and stay on to tour local industries, companies and research facilities in the Edmonton region.

* SEPTEMBER

Alberta research gets down to the nitty-gritty with the announcement of a new, $120-million national nanotechnology institute at the University of Alberta. The science of manipulating individual molecules has applications in many sectors, and the institute will add 200 jobs in Edmonton.

In Calgary, third-generation wireless is a hot topic as the University of Calgary sponsors the Alberta/Finland 2001 wireless symposium, which attracts an international slate of experts to discuss the future of this quickly evolving technology. But the local picture is less inspiring – wireless darling Wi-LAN announces it will cut its staff to 55 to weather the economic downturn. At its peak, the company had employed 280.

Following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, Alberta energy companies quickly review and update their own security plans. “I think all we can do is be aware and plan in a prudent fashion to cover the risk that we can foresee,” says John Richels, president and CEO of Northstar Energy, the Canadian subsidiary of Devon Energy Corp.

Oil prices jump in the wake of the attacks. Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy agrees to buy Canadian natural gas producer Anderson Exploration Ltd. in a deal worth $4.6 billion US. “By combining our existing Canadian staff with Anderson’s, we will build one of the strongest workforces in the Canadian oilpatch,” vows Richels.

* OCTOBER

By mid-October, the big story across the country is the embattled airline industry. Calgary-based WestJet boosts its capacity to deal with new competition from Air Canada’s discount carrier Tango, while Air Canada moves to slash regional service in Alberta and B.C., blaming a dramatic drop in passenger demand. WestJet CEO Clive Beddoe presses the federal government to toughen the Competition Act to fight “predatory practices” by its rival. Business travel on most airlines has dipped 60 per cent from a year ago.

Burlington Resources signs on the dotted line to buy Calgary-based natural gas producer Canadian Hunter Exploration for $3.3 billion. The deal nearly doubles Burlington’s investment in Canada, and is “a match made in heaven,” says an ecstatic Bobby Shackouls, Burlington’s chairman.

Later in the month, Business Edge staff, shareholders and advertisers hoist glasses of bubbly to celebrate the first anniversary of Alberta’s plucky little home-grown paper.

* NOVEMBER

Calgary-based online travel company Tripeze.com is acquired by retail giant Sears Canada, in a move the company president calls a last-chance deal for the struggling online player, which was facing bankruptcy.

The middle of the month brings a bloodbath in energy stocks, highlighted by the biggest one-day drop in the TSE’s oil and gas subindex on Nov. 15, while in the ’patch, lower oil and gas prices are causing slowdowns in drilling plans. “Utilization (of rigs) has diminished and competition has gone up,” shrugs Kirk Hilton of Enserco Energy Service Co. “Business has changed.”

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton stops by to deliver a stern anti-terrorist message at a black-tie soiree held for Calgary’s monied denizens at $400 a pop. Blue-dress jokes are a dime a dozen, notes Business Edge columnist Tom Keyser.

* DECEMBER

Alberta’s business community remains the kind of place where hearts and pocketbooks open wide at this time of year – in fact, 56 Alberta companies pledge one per cent or more of their domestic pre-tax profits to community investment.

At Petro-Canada, community investment manager Hazel Gillespie says the company is not supporting as many organizations as it once did, but is forming “deeper partnerships.” Burlington Resources Canada dons a Santa suit to donate $1 million toward childhood cancer research at the Alberta Children’s Hospital.

Not everybody is in the Christmas spirit, however. Rival Internet providers Shaw Communications and TELUS duke it out in Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench over an ongoing ad campaign by TELUS that Shaw complained was misleading and costing it business. Shaw decides to seek a permanent injunction, but decided at the 11th hour this week to suspend its lawsuit and negotiate with TELUS.

In the darkening days of December, the editorial crew at Business Edge park their pencils until Jan. 3, when we’ll be back on the street in Edmonton and Calgary looking for even more interesting local stories to tell.

Until then, happy holidays to all, from all of us.