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 eight Occasional Papers now being made available include Nos. 16 through 21, as well as two unnumbered papers. One of the unnumbered papers concerns research on coal mining in the Crowsnest Pass. Occasional Papers No. 16 to 21 are related to research for structures and interpretive themes at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. The final unnumbered paper is in Ukrainian and concerns settlement patterns and housing traditions in Ukraine’s Bukovina region, from which a substantial number of people emigrated to Alberta.
The Historic Sites Service Occasional Papers were developed from the structural, archival and oral history research that was undertaken by Historic Sites Service staff and contractors to understand the physical structures, the historic of their use and their heritage significance. Physical copies of the publications were available to the public through the 1970s to 1900s. Today, they can be found in academic and public libraries in Alberta and across Canada, as well as 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 Occasional Papers today is exceedingly rare. Now, for the first time, all Historic Sites Service Occasional Papers are now available online.
1 Ukrainian vernacular architecture in Alberta
2 Archaeological investigations: Fort Victoria, 1974
3 Archaeological investigations: Fort Victoria, 1975
4 Archaeological investigations: Writing-on-Stone N.W.M.P. Post
5 A history of Writing-on-Stone N.W.M.P. Post
6 The Overlord of the Little Prairie: report on Charles Plavin and his homestead
7 The Victoria Settlement: 1862-1922
8 A gentleman of Strathcona: Alexander Cameron Rutherford
9 Stephan G. Stefansson: the poet of the Rocky Mountains
11 Ukrainian dug-out dwellings in east central Alberta
12 The Chernochan machine shed: land use and structural history
13 The Chernochan machine shed: Ukrainian farm practices in east central Alberta
14 The Grekul house: a land use and structural history
15 Geographical naming in western British North America: 1780-1820
16 Out of the peasant mold: a structural history of the M. Hawreliak Home in Shandro, Alberta
17 Commerce in the country: a land use and structural history of the Luzan Grocery Store
18 Shelter, feed and dray: a structural history of the Radway Livery Barn
19 Hlus’ Church: a narrative history of the Ukrainian Catholic Church at Baczacz, Alberta
20 Galicia and Bukovina: a research handbook about Western Ukraine, late 19th and 20th centuries
21 Sviéto: celebrating Ukrainian-Canadian ritual in east central Alberta through the generations
[1985] The coal mining industry in the Crow’s Nest Pass
[1992] Поселення та житло українців Івано-Франківщини та Буковини
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