Month: October 2024

Halloween in Smoky Lake

Jared

Written by: Sara King, Government Records Archivist, Provincial Archives of Alberta

With Halloween once again upon us it’s time for some spooky fun from the Provincial Archives of Alberta. Nicholas Gavinchuk operated a photography studio in Smoky Lake from the early 1920s into the 1960s documenting all manner of aspects of community life there, including Halloween. One of the more interesting aspects of doing archival research is seeing a brief description of a file or photograph and finding out it’s not quite what you expected. This is often the case in archives as archivists try and use the titles given to photographs and files by the creator of the records as opposed to assigning their own.  

For example, the image below was labelled as “Halloween Hags”. But as you can see, they’re clearly Halloween hogs! In the Archives’ defense, an “a” and an “o” are awfully similar in cursive.

G1810 “Halloween Hags” (Smoky Lake), 1953. Source: Provincial Archives of Alberta.
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Who and where was John Ware?

Who and where was John Ware?

Jared

Written by: Sam Judson and Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary.

Alberta’s cowboy culture is embraced by many and celebrated through events and conventions like the Calgary Stampede, K-Days or Calgary’s ‘White Hat’ tradition. This culture is largely represented in the history books by white, European settlers, although Alberta’s past is much more multiethnic and multicultural than many realize.

John Ware was one of Alberta’s early Black setters. Ware’s name is recognizable today to many Albertans, who refer to him as Alberta’s first Black cowboy, and the longevity of his legend is fascinating. Despite this, few know his story and very little is known about the true nature of his life.

John Ware, rancher, with wife Mildred and children Robert and Nettie in southern Alberta, [ca. 1896], (CU1107289) by Unknown. Source: Glenbow Library and Archives Collection, Libraries and Cultural Resources Digital Collections, University of Calgary.
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