Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt summary of a study by Megan Beiraugle et al.For more details, the full study and references can be foundhere.
Written by: Megan Bieraugle
Despite their tight connection to people over the past several thousand years, understanding the past lives of dogs and wolves is a challenge. Ancient canine companions in Alberta are no different. Despite more than 300 archaeological sites in Alberta having canids (dogs, wolves, coyotes and foxes), we know comparatively very little about their relationships with Indigenous people. One of the best ways for understanding the lives of archaeological dogs stems from age-at-death studies; essentially asking, “how old was this critter when it died?”
A wolfdog at the Yamnuska Wolfdog Sanctuary, Alberta. Source: Megan Bieraugle.
Traditional age-at-death studies involve destructive methods, where a sliver of bone or tooth is cut from the fossil and examined. A recent method, developed by Bieraugle et al. (2025), avoids causing this damage by micro-CT (micro-computed tomography) scanning teeth to view the cementum bands instead. Cementum is a non-uniform mineralized connective tissue that grows on tooth roots and essentially anchors the tooth within its socket. What makes cementum interesting is that it kind of grows like tree rings do, with a new ring being added roughly each year.
Editor’s note:September 30 is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and Orange Shirt Day.Reading residential school histories can be a painful process. If reading this is causing pain or bringing back distressing memories, please call the Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419. The Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day and can also provide information on other health supports provided by the Health Canada Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program.
The banner image above is “A class in penmanship, Red Deer Institute.” ca 1914-1919. From Mission to Partnership Collection, United Church of Canada Archives.
Written by: Laura Golebiowski (Indigenous Consultation Adviser) in collaboration with Samson Cree Nation and Paul First Nation
Industrial and residential schools in Canada were established for purposes of assimilation, Christianization, and colonization. The institutionalization of Indigenous girls, alongside boys, became an early part of that equation.
In the beginning of the industrial school system on the prairies, the federal government and churches subscribed to Victorian ideologies of gender, class, and education. These ideologies were firmly entrenched in society at the time. Schooling was seen as the means to condition and prepare men for work in the outside world, and to enforce women’s roles inside the home as wives, mothers and providers of domestic service. Additionally, colonial government officials feared that young Indigenous men would return from schools to the reserve, only to ‘revert’ back to their culture, language and religion. Indigenous women were viewed as likely culprits: men would marry, only to be, “pulled back into Indian savagery by her.” In 1883, Liberal party leader Edward Blake argued: “If this scheme is going to succeed at all, you will, unless these Indian bucks are to be veritable bachelors all their lives, have to civilize the intended wives as well as the husbands.”
When Red Deer Industrial School opened in 1893, 52 children were enrolled. The number of boys nearly doubled that of the girls. The school operated on a half-day system, where a portion of the day was spent in the classroom, and the remainder was spent working to support the school in delegated trades and vocations. The boys were generally assigned the trade of farming, carpentry or potentially blacksmithing. Girls were relegated to domestic labour: cooking, cleaning, and making clothes.
“Students cooking at the Indian Industrial School, Red Deer.” ca 1910-1915. Source: Alfred Hives Collection, City of Red Deer Archives.
Last Thursday, 12 groups and individuals were recognized at the 2026 Alberta Heritage Awards in Edmonton. Each recipient was recognized for their significant contributions to the protection, preservation and promotion of Alberta’s heritage.
Written by: Braden Cannon, Private Records Archivist, Provincial Archives of Alberta
The Provincial Archives of Alberta (PAA) is proud to present its 38th annual Film Night, The View From Alberta: Films By Tom Radford, which pays tribute to the work of Edmonton-based documentary filmmaker Tom Radford.
Film Night is an annual showcase of films from the PAA’s extensive holdings, each year bringing a different theme. Past Film Night events have focused on topics such as wrestling, travelling film shows and CanCon television. Some Film Night events focus on specific filmmakers or creators while others feature and a program of all-women filmmakers.
A still from Má Vlast: The Jiraneks in Canada. Source: Provincial Archives of Alberta.
This year’s focus is on Tom Radford, born and raised in Edmonton. His career began as a filmmaker and by co-founding the film cooperative Filmwest Associates, a production company that focused on industrial shorts and documentaries. Radford also co-founded Film Frontiers and made films under both banners before launching the North West Studio of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) in 1980. This Edmonton-based studio of the NFB produced documentaries focusing on western and northern Canada with Radford serving as executive producer until 1985.
Editor’s note: The post originally appeared on the Royal Alberta Museum blog in March 2026.The image above is the finished, cleaned ant colony. Image courtesy of the Royal Alberta Museum.
Written by: Camilla Leurini, Live Animals Assistant
The Bug Gallery at the Royal Alberta Museum is one of those rare places where time seems to slow down. Visitors of all ages and backgrounds wander through, leaning close to the glass, captivated by the small but mighty creatures going about their lives. You can watch paper wasps build their nests without worrying about a sting. You can observe cockroaches with the comforting knowledge that they are definitely not in your kitchen. But one exhibit consistently draws a crowd: the ant chambers.
At first glance, the ants you see while camping or crossing your backyard might not seem remarkable. Yet those surface wanderers are only the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the soil lies a hidden world—the queen, the eggs, the larvae, the pupae—all part of a complex and thriving colony. Our ant exhibition gives visitors a rare opportunity to peer into that underground world.
The display includes eight nest units made of aerated concrete, each with one glass-facing side that allows guests to observe the colony’s daily life. You can see ants moving larvae, collecting seeds and maintaining their carefully organized society. Over time, however, the ants began to redecorate.
Written by: Dorothy Field, Heritage Survey Program Coordinator and Ron Kelland, Historic Places Research Officer
The Alberta Heritage Survey Program is happy to announce that digitized versions of eight additional Occasional Papers, published by the Historic Sites Service between 1985 and 1992, are now available online via the Alberta Open Government Portal.
In June 2025, the first 15 Occasional Papers were made available online. With the release of these remaining eight, the entirety of the original Historic Sites Service Occasional Papers is now accessible online.
The Occasional Papers series was started in 1976 to make Albertans, historians and heritage professionals better aware of certain themes in Alberta’s history and built heritage. Similar to the Archaeological Survey of Alberta’s Occasional Papers, popularly known as the “Blue Books” or the “Blue Series,” the Historic Sites Service Occasional Papers series were produced by staff historians and contractors based on their in-house research done to support the development and interpretation of Alberta’s historic sites.
The Radway Livery Barn, Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. Built in 1928, it was acquired by the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village in 1978 as one of the province’s last extant examples of a livery barn. Historic Sites Service historian Peter Melnycky’s research about the barn was published as Occasional Paper No. 18. Source: Conservation and Construction Services.
Editor’s note: Aba Wathtech. June is National Indigenous History Month, an invitation to honour the history, diversity, strength and contemporary achievements of Indigenous Peoples.
The banner image above features Walking Buffalo, Stoney, at Calgary Exhibition and Stampede grounds, Calgary, Alberta, unknown date, (CU189040) by Oliver, W. J. Source: Glenbow Library and Archives, Glenbow Archives, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.
Reading residential school histories can be a painful process. If reading this is causing pain or bringing back distressing memories, please call the Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419. The Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day and can also provide information on other health supports provided by the Health Canada Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program.
Written by: Laura Golebiowski, Indigenous Consultation Adviser, in collaboration with the Stoney Nakoda Nations
When Tatanga Mani was a small boy, he went by the name of Little Bear. He grew up under the protection of his maternal and paternal grandmothers and the sheltered forests of the Bow Valley. The Stoney Nakoda (contemporarily the Bearspaw, Chiniki and Goodstoney First Nations) lived in small familial groups, hunting buffalo, moose, deer and goat. Wild carrot, wild rhubarb and sour grass were harvested from the mountains. Sweet tree sap was harvested and boiled in the springtime and cranberries, huckleberries, chickenberries and chokecherries were harvested through the summer. In the winter, groups would gather together in the valley flats of what is now Banff National Park. By Tatanga Mani’s own recollections, life was simple and happy:
In my young days, [there were] no roads, no horses. One time I remember there was five in a family. I would be about five years old. There’s my grandmother, my uncle Ben Kaquitts, there’s another uncle, and one aunt…and just one horse, to travel around with. And one dog. And I always remembered that that time, that [we were] the poorest people…but at that time we didn’t notice at all, we still lived contented and happy. We didn’t worry about nothing.
For Stoney children born one generation prior, their education was informal but holistic, grounded in respect and reciprocity. Nature was the teacher. Per Chief John Snow in These Mountains are Our Sacred Places, “A child would grow up learning about nature and the importance of respecting all things in creation…It was an ongoing educational process about religion, life, hunting, and so on. Other topics were bravery, courage, kindness, sharing, [and] survival…”
But by the 1870s when Tatanga Mani was born, Methodist missionaries had established their foothold in Stoney Nakoda territory. Despite having an extended family and community who loved and cared for him, Tatanga Mani was adopted by Methodist missionary John McLean. He was assigned the name George McLean and forced to attend the McDougall Orphanage at Mînî Thnî. (The “Orphanage” was a misnomer, per Chief John Snow: “The reason for the name is not clear; my people’s extended family system made the use of European-style orphanages unnecessary and records suggest that many children in the institution certainly had parents who were willing and able to care for them.”).
“Teachers and pupils, McDougall orphanage, Morley, Alberta.”, 1885, (CU184411) by Thom, A. B.. Tatanga Mani has been identified as the third from the left child in the second-last row. Source: Glenbow Library and Archives, Glenbow Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.
Written by: Robert Gustas, PhD, Geomatics Technologist, Archaeological Survey of Alberta
The Archaeological Survey of Alberta is excited to release a complete volume of our latest Occasional Paper Series (No. 44) available for free download here.
The current volume is dedicated to synopses or components of graduate theses and dissertations written over the last 15 years. The initial six articles were released in April and the final four articles are featured below. They explore projectile points, the use of space at archaeological sites, and a bison skull ceremonial feature.
The seventh article in the volume compiles information about projectile points in the Peace Region to inform cultural contact, technologies, and chronological change. Northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta were fluid places with long histories of cultural influence from neighbouring regions that are detectable in the shape and function of lithic artifacts.
A composite of some of the variety of projectile point morphologies in northeastern British Columbia. Source: Jen Hogan, 2025.
The last RETROactive Live Alberta Heritage Speaker Series for the next few months is taking place on Thursday, June 18. Click the registration link to sign up. You can also watch recordings of the previous four webinars.
The Russian Revolution and Civil War (1917-22) created an enormous refugee crisis, as hundreds of thousands of people fled Russia to escape violence and persecution. Approximately 16,000 sought refuge in Harbin, China, where they appealed to the international community for assistance. In 1924, Canada agreed to open its borders to several groups of Russian refugees on the condition that they pay for their own passage and settle on agricultural land. Between 1924 and 1927, over 1,000 Russian refugees arrived in Canada to start a new life, with hundreds initially settling in central Alberta.
The RETROactive Live Alberta Heritage Speaker Series continues. Join us on Monday, June 8 for a discussion about the Okotoks Erratic. Click this registration link to sign up.
The Okotoks Erratic has been a site of visitation and ceremony for as long as anyone can remember. Join Historic Resources Management Branch staff Christina Robinson and Blair First Rider in a discussion about Blackfoot perspectives of Okotoks, and the network of knowledge that has expanded our understandings of how to respectfully preserve and share this special place.
Blair First Rider can still remember the first time he heard the Okotoks creation story. Raised as a kiipita pooka—a grandparent’s child—he grew up with the stories shared by his grandfather, Maatoom Kitopi (George First Rider). Despite generations of government policy that forcibly separated Indigenous peoples from their language, community and places of significance, the stories and oral traditional prevailed. “I used to listen to the old men who would come around to the house, and they would tell stories way into the night. One of the stories was about Okotoks. That’s how they impart knowledge and life lessons and morals to the children, through Napi stories.”
Watch a special video from Blair First Rider, discussing the significance of this site to the Blackfoot Confederacy.
