Accepting an invitation from Douglas Haynes to teach at the University of Alberta in 1977, Hide decided to move far from the London art scene, to the frontier Canadian prairie city of Edmonton, giving him the freedom to develop his work on his own terms. Hide was active throughout the 1980s, exhibiting internationally and working at the early Triangle Artists' Workshops. According to a letter from 1983, Clement Greenberg thought Hide ""one of the three or four best sculptors working anywhere right now. Among British sculptors, I'd place him second only to Anthony Caro, and to no one in North America.""