Exploring Alberta's Past
In February 2016, the City of Medicine Hat designated the Elizabeth Street School as a Municipal Historic Resource. In September, a plaque about the school’s history and designation was unveiled. The school is the most recent of Medicine Hat’s historic resources to be listed on the Alberta Register of Historic Places.
The night of October 14 was filled with pride and honour as award recipients, guests, staff and board members celebrated the biennial Heritage Awards at the historic McDougall Centre in Calgary.
The Alberta Historical Resources Foundation presented the awards in four categories to 14 deserving individuals and organizations in recognition of their accomplishments and contribution to the preservation and promotion of Alberta’s heritage.
Outstanding Achievement
Heritage Conservation
Heritage Awareness
Municipal Heritage Preservation
Additional information is available on the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation webpage at http://culture.alberta.ca/heritage-and-museums/grants-and-recognition/heritage-awards/.
Congratulations and thank you to all Heritage Award Recipients!
Historic places are unfortunately fair game for graffiti attacks – sometimes especially so when these places are visible and widely recognized landmarks. Defined as writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or painted illicitly onto walls and other surfaces, graffiti from a heritage conservation perspective is an intervention to be removed or reversed. It clearly differs from old markings that are an acknowledged and legitimate part, or “character-defining element”, of a historic place. Examples of the latter are prisoners’ inscriptions etched into the basement cell walls of the Cardston Courthouse or, on the opposite side of the law, North West Mounted Police members’ initials carved into the sandstone outcrops overlooking Police Coulee at Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park. These special cases contribute to heritage value rather than obscure or detract from it. Read more
Shortly before his death in April of 1915 while serving with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, English poet Rupert Brooke penned the now famous lines of The Soldier. He surmised that should he die during the course of the war, there would be some corner of a foreign field “That is for ever England”. In a similar vein, one might consider the ultimate sacrifices paid by Albertans during two World Wars and their final resting places as corners of foreign fields that are for ever Alberta.
During Canada’s two World Wars approximately 127,000 Albertans served in the country’s armed forces, of Read more
You may have recently seen a news story about archaeological finds at McKinnon Flats, approximately 22 km southeast of Calgary (see below for news links). Today, McKinnon Flats is a popular recreational area, used for fishing, hiking and bird watching. But did you know that five centuries ago it may also have been used for bison hunting and camping?
Archaeologists of Lifeways of Canada Limited have been contracted by Alberta Culture and Tourism to find out about early settlement at McKinnon Flats. They’re part of Culture and Tourism’s three-year Post-Flood Investigation Program, which was initiated to record the effects of the June 2013 southern Alberta flood on archaeological and palaeontological sites along rivers such as the Bow, Highwood, Sheep and Kananaskis. As a result of the program, 100 new archaeological sites were identified and additional information was gathered at 87 sites that had been recorded prior to the flood. Many of these sites were found eroding from the riverbanks, with some in need of investigation before they disappeared entirely. Read more
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