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The rhythmic clickety click of the High Level Bridge streetcar relaxes my mind as I ride along its historic route. I take in the textures of the streetcar’s hardwood paneling and the rough weave of the seat upholstery, enjoying the rattle of the windowpanes in their frames as we pass over the North Saskatchewan River far below. On the neighbouring Menzies Bridge, I see the light rail train (affectionately called the LRT by Edmontonians) pass by – it looks miniature from the great height at which the streetcar crosses the river, 156 feet above its wide banks. Given the subzero temperature f ..read more

NOTE: this article contains historical but outdated and offensive language related to mental illness and neurodiversity. Front Cover of Leilani Muir’s Autobiography, A Whisper Past. By permission of FriesenPress.  Leilani Muir was born in Calgary on July 15, 1944 and grew up in rural central Alberta. “Unloved, unwanted,”[1] Leilani was abused by her mother and called Tom or Marie rather than her real name.[2] In 1955, Leilani’s mother admitted her to the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives (PTS) in Red Deer, later known as the Michener Center. A precondition was consent pe ..read more

While Alberta is often understood as a prairie province, Edmonton is nestled within a geographical zone known as aspen parkland: an ecoregion that exists as a meeting place between northern boreal forests and southern grassland. The hybrid nature of the Edmonton region contributes to its patchwork of natural features, including forested valleys and ravines; wetlands and riparian areas; swampy peatlands; and prairie grassland and shrubland[1]. Amidst this patchwork, the 2008 Edmonton Biodiversity Report identifies the North Saskatchewan River Valley and Ravines System, our “Ribbon of Green,” a ..read more

It was late in October 1947 that the school year finally started. It is fair to say that a start to school this late in the fall was not ideal, but it was necessary because polio had made its way to Edmonton once again. Usually October was the time when polio cases tended to decline, those who contracted it had recovered, and those who had not recovered remained in the hospital. Records show that polio epidemics had hit Edmonton since the 1920s, and as a result, the ‘infantile paralysis’ hospital was built near the University of Alberta in 1928 to accommodate the demand for treatment and resea ..read more

If you drive through Edmonton neighbourhoods, you’ll see many churches with names that reflect the cultural background of the immigrants who brought that church to Canada: Ukrainian, Mennonite, Coptic, among others. If you take a turn through the leafy, tree-lined streets of the Sherbrooke neighbourhood, you may drive past a church with the sign “Providence Canadian Reformed Church.” While the sign proclaims the church’s love and connection to the country now established in, this church was built by Dutch immigrants who left their war-torn country after the Second World War. Providence Cana ..read more

Would you be surprised if I told you that Edmonton’s schools were a more prominent contributor to Edmonton’s 1918 influenza response than the city’s hospitals? Wait, you might say- weren’t schools were closed during the 1918 epidemic? Yes, they were. And so were churches, theatres, and cinemas- and anywhere else large numbers of people might congregate. Since classes were cancelled, Edmonton’s school buildings were available for other uses and a handful were transformed into operational headquarters for volunteer organizations which looked after sick and suffering Edmontonians. “Epidemic Infl ..read more

Velva Hueston moved to Edmonton with her mother in the early 1920s, after her father died in the 1918 flu pandemic when she was sixteen.1 To support their small family, Velva became a teacher, working at Jasper Place and Cromdale Schools and caring for her mother until her death in 1942.2 Shortly thereafter, in 1943, thirty-year-old Velva married Edward (Scotty) Thompson.   In most of the twentieth and certainly the twenty-first century, Velva’s story would have continued as normal from here, with nothing loud or scandalous happening in an otherwise distinguished teaching career. B ..read more

In its 1966 annual report, the City of Edmonton Parks and Recreation Department described its purpose as facilitating “the development of the physical and mental well-being of all segments of the population of Edmonton during their leisure time.”  That same year, the city launched the Green Shack program, a still running free public recreational program that offers kids across Edmonton games, crafts, special programming and summer fun run by city staff. At the launch, 90 playgrounds had shacks running– a number that’s grown to 236 today sprinkled across the ballooning city boundaries.&nb ..read more

Imrie House is unassuming. It is an older home, modest in size, tucked away at the end of a treed driveway. The expansive modern residences that are typical of Edmonton’s affluent Donsdale neighbourhood are outwardly far more impressive. “Six Acres”, now Imrie House, serves as a lasting memory of two Edmonton women who defied convention. Jean was born in 1912, Mary in 1918, and when they registered with The Alberta Association of Architects in the 1940s, very few women had done so before them (Jean was the third and Mary the fifth woman to join the association). They started a business togeth ..read more