April 29, 1990

LEAD: The month of May can be an intriguing time in Edmonton, Alberta, the northernmost outpost of major league sports in North America. The late-spring sunshine glows softly in the sky until deep into the evening, giving the place an eerie feeling of early summer. Conversely, the northern location means you shouldn't put away your winter boots too soon.

LEAD: WHEN John Gavin started building a 77-unit town-house and apartment condominium project in this city 18 miles west of Portsmouth in 1988, he accepted 25 nonbinding reservations on units priced from $70,000 to $80,000.

LEAD: In a dramatic illustration of the way rapid advances in medical care in the United States sometimes collide with the will to pay for them, an employer is objecting to a $1.25 million bill for a worker's spouse who became the first person to receive a new heart, liver and kidney in the same operation.

LEAD: MIKHAIL S. GORBACHEV never seemed more the master of his nation's opaque and treacherous political process than when he dealt with objections in the national congress and had himself upgraded earlier this year to what was lightly termed the ''super president.'' He assumed executive emergency powers the czars might have envied, and all without the bother of going to the people for popular election.

LEAD: THE reopening of a small steel mill here on May 1 is expected to intensify a debate over the use of land in this city's old industrial corridor. City officials want the mill to operate, but not on its present site - 15 acres planned for part of a $45 million shopping center - and are threatening to take the land by eminent domain.