Editor’s note: The banner image above is a slanted roof, dug-out home with a four-post frame, 1913, found in Occasional Paper No. 11.
Written by: Dorothy Field, Heritage Survey Program Coordinator and Ronald Kelland, Historic Places Research Officer
The Alberta Heritage Survey Program is happy to announce that digitized versions of the first 15 Historic Sites Services Occasional Papers, published by the Historic Sites Service (HSS) between 1976 and 1985, are now available online.
Starting in 1976, the HSS produced and published an Occasional Paper Series about sites, people and historic themes in Alberta. Similar to the Archaeological Survey of Alberta’s Occasional Papers, popularly known as the “Blue Books” or the “Blue Series,” the HSS occasional papers series were produced by staff historians and contractors based on their in-house research.
Largely done to support the opening of a number of Provincial Historic Sites and to aid in the ongoing interpretation of those sites, the HSS Occasional Papers Series includes volumes on Fort Victoria (three papers), Rutherford House (one paper), Stephansson House (one paper) and six papers on structures re-located to and themes interpreted by the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. Two further sites that were considered for development as Provincial Historic Sites are also represented in the series: two volumes on the North West Mounted Police post in Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park on the Milk River in southern Alberta and one on the Charles Plavin Homestead Provincial Historic Resource near Manning in northern Alberta. Rounding out the list of occasional papers published by 1985 is a volume on fur trade era geographical names.
Originally conceived primarily as resource material for subject specialists, the Historic Sites Service Occasional Paper Series was also made available to the public. In the 1990s, it was distributed by the Documentary Heritage Society of Alberta. Copies of some or all of the volumes can be found in academic and public libraries in Alberta and across Canada, in academic libraries and historical society collections in the United States and in national and university libraries in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. Outside of those institutions, finding print copies of the Historic Sites Service’s Occasional Papers today is exceedingly rare. These newly-digitized documents now reside on the Alberta government’s Open Data portal.
Alberta’s Open Government Program was launched in 2012, with the first Open Data Portal making its debut in May 2013. Since then, the size of the portal has been increasing steadily; there are now over 3,000 open datasets and almost 29,000 publications available. The goal of Alberta’s Open Government Portal is to serve as the website of choice for anyone seeking current and historical data and publications published by the Government of Alberta. There are currently about 740 publications from 1985 or earlier. This set of Historic Sites Service Occasional Papers is an excellent example of the valuable historic collection of publications the Open Government Program hopes to make available.
We hope you find these publications interesting and useful, and look forward to completing the set with the launch of further scans later this year, including HSS Occasional Papers Numbers 16 to 21. Say tuned!
RETROactive 
How about adding the Provincial Museum of Alberta Occasional Papers series to this list?