Dorothy Field – RETROactive

The Alberta Register of Historic Places: Questions and Answers

July 21, 2021July 21, 2021Jared

Editor’s note: For our next instalment recognizing National Historic Places Days, we look at the Register of Historic Places, what information it contains and how to use the database to search for historic resources. It’s recommended that while you read this article, you follow along on the Heritage Resources Management Information System. This database works best using Internet Explorer.

Written by: Dorothy Field, Heritage Survey Program Coordinator

Alberta’s provincial and municipal governments have recognized and protected over 800 historic resources. Did you know that information about all of these significant sites is available to the public? Read on to find out all about where this information is located, and how you can learn more about Alberta’s historic places.

What is the Alberta Register of Historic Places?

The Alberta Register of Historic Places is a searchable database of legally protected historic places in Alberta, including sites designated by the province and by municipalities.

Where can I access the Alberta Register of Historic Places?

The register is available to the public on the HeRMIS (Heritage Resources Management Information System) website. Here it is possible to find information about the location, significance and level of designation for designated historic resources. In addition to this data, the website also includes photographs and an interactive map.

What sorts of things are listed on the Alberta Register of Historic Places?

A wide variety of historic resources have been designated in Alberta, reflecting the range of resources that are significant to Albertans. In fact, if it’s not a small moveable object, human remains, or no longer in its historic context, just about anything that’s provincially or municipally significant could be designated and listed on the register. There are things on the register you might expect, like the Legislature Building in Edmonton and the Rowley Grain Elevator Row, near Big Valley. There are also unexpected things, like significant geological features such as the Whitecourt / Woodlands Meteorite Impact Crater, or important biological sites like the Wood’s Douglas Fir Tree Sanctuary in Calgary. There are all kinds of other designated historic resources, including industrial sites and machinery, palaeontological sites, engineering structures, homes, commercial buildings, churches and more – all of them illustrating some significant aspect of Alberta’s history.

What can I do with the Alberta Register of Historic Places?

You can search the register to learn about a wide variety of topics relating to Alberta’s history – from archaeology to architecture to astronomy, from the prairies to the Rockies and the 49th to the 60th parallel. You can use the Map Search function to plan a tour to view historic resources within a community or along a route between communities.

Municipal Historic Resource designation refresher series: character-defining elements

July 29, 2020July 28, 2020Jared

Editor’s note: Welcome to the fifth post in a series of blog posts developed with municipalities in mind who either have or are considering undertaking Municipal Historic Resource designation. In this post, we will continue to discuss Statements of Significance as the primary tool for summarizing the significance of designated historic places. You can read the previous post here.

For more information, please review the “Creating a Future” manuals available here or contact Rebecca Goodenough, Manager, Historic Places Research and Designation at rebecca.goodenough@gov.ab.ca or 780-431-2309.

Written by: Dorothy Field, Heritage Survey Coordinator, Sandy Aumonier, Heritage Conservation Adviser and Allan Rowe, Historic Places Research Officer, Historic Resources Management Branch

As previously mentioned, a Statement of Significance (SOS) is a one- to two-page summary document written as a clear, concise and brief narrative of a historic resource. It is written for a broad audience that is not familiar with the resource. The SOS has three sections: description of historic place, heritage values and character-defining elements.

An SOS is central to understanding a resource and any of its elements that might be protected and why.

If a historic resource is designated, the SOS will thereafter be an important planning and property management tool and essential for developing a conservation plan for ongoing management of the resource.

Municipal Historic Resource designation refresher series: heritage value

July 22, 2020July 22, 2020Jared

Editor’s note: Welcome to the fourth post in a series of blog posts developed with municipalities in mind who either have or are considering undertaking Municipal Historic Resource designation. In this post, we will continue to discuss Statements of Significance as the primary tool for summarizing the significance of designated historic places. You can read the previous post here.

Written by: Dorothy Field, Heritage Survey Coordinator, Sandy Aumonier, Heritage Conservation Adviser and Allan Rowe, Historic Places Research Officer, Historic Resources Management Branch

An SOS is central to understanding a resource and any of its elements that might be protected and why.

Municipal Historic Resource designation refresher series: determining significance

July 8, 2020July 7, 2020Jared

Editor’s note: Welcome to the second post in a series of blog posts developed with municipalities in mind who either have or are considering undertaking Municipal Historic Resource designation. In this post, we will be discussing how to determine if a historic place is eligible for designation.You can read the first post here.

Written by: Dorothy Field, Heritage Survey Program Coordinator, Sandy Aumonier, Heritage Conservation Adviser and Allan Rowe, Historic Places Research Officer.

Determining significance

Typically, most folks agree that preserving significant historic resources in our province is important. While it is relatively easy to identify the ‘old’ stuff, how do you go about determining which historic resources are significant and should be considered for protection?

In order to be considered for protection as a Municipal Historic Resource (MHR), a site needs to:

be an eligible resource type
possess historical significance
have sufficient material integrity

If a site meets all three of these of these criteria, it can be considered for MHR designation.

Alberta Remembers

November 9, 2018November 9, 2018Alberta's Historic Places

The Beverly Cenotaph, a simple stone obelisk, was unveiled on October 17, 1920. (City of Edmonton Archives, EA-160-14)

On November 11, 1918, after more than four years of fighting the “war to end war”, an armistice was called in France and all hostilities came to an end on the Western Front of the First World War. While the battles may have ceased, the effects of the conflict continued to reverberate around the world and across the years, even to the present day, a century later.

Albertans were among those who fought alongside fellow British citizens, as well as French and American soldiers – among others – to defeat Germany and its allies. Estimates place the number of Albertan soldiers at 48,885 – or over one third of the province’s male population aged 18 to 45. Of these, about one in eight did not return from the war, and almost half of those who did return had been wounded.¹ The effect of the distant, unseen war was felt throughout the province on a personal level.

One way Albertans dealt with the trauma and loss was to come together and commemorate those who had sacrificed their lives. A model for these activities was provided by “Peace Day”, celebrated on July 19, 1919, in London, England, in honour of the signing of the Treaty of Read more →

Alberta’s Wooden Country Grain Elevators – Update

April 4, 2018April 3, 2018Alberta's Historic Places

This post was originally published on RETROactive on March 6th, 2012 and again on August 26, 2015. Interest in grain elevators remains strong, so a revisit seems in order. Some additional data has been added, an updated list of communities with elevators can be accessed below, as well as a variety of resources and documents relating to Alberta’s Grain elevators.

The twentieth century saw the rise and fall—literally—of the wooden country grain elevator in Alberta. As rail lines spread across the province in the early 1900s, grain elevators sprouted like mushrooms after a spring rain. The height of wooden country grain elevators was reached in 1934. New ones continued to be added until the 1990s, but with increasing numbers being demolished, these icons of the prairie became scarcer. Today, the remaining wooden country grain elevators number only about six percent of the maximum reached in the 1930s. Check out the following “index” of Alberta’s wooden country grain elevators, called “elevators” for short in this article.

Grain elevators, Altario.

Stavely grain elevators, 1920 (Image: Provincial Archives of Alberta, P659).

Herronton elevator

Number of elevators in Alberta: Read more →

Ask an Expert: The Nite’n Day Café

October 18, 2017October 31, 2017Alberta's Historic Places

Have you ever heard of the Nite’n Day Café in Edmonton, formerly located at 118 Avenue and 80 Street? We recently had an inquiry on our Facebook page about the café through our Ask an Expert feature. The call was put out to our experts and, while no one had heard of it before, they did dig up some information! Read more →

Claiming their Ground – Three Pioneering Alberta Women in their Professions

October 19, 2016February 8, 2018rkelland

October is Women’s History Month in Canada, when we celebrate the achievements of women throughout our past and use their stories to inspire Canadians today. The twentieth century saw women entering occupations previously the exclusive domain of men. A variety of circumstances combined to allow these advances, including the rise of public education, social activism culminating in universal suffrage, legal challenges that established women as “persons” and the upheaval created by two world wars. These changes are not sufficient to explain the careers of the three women described in this blog; it took determination, persistence, courage and intelligence for them to succeed and carve a place for themselves as professional women in these fields that were predominantly, if not exclusively, the preserve of men.

diane_loranger — Diane Loranger, geologist, ca. 1946-1947. (Glenbow Archives, IP-14A-1470)

Alberta’s Wooden Country Grain Elevators

August 26, 2015August 26, 2015Alberta's Historic Places

This post was originally published on RETROactive on March 6th, 2012. Farmers across the province will soon be busy with harvest so we thought it appropriate to highlight a previous post associated with Alberta’s agricultural past. Please note that these statistics are from 2012.

The twentieth century saw the rise and fall – literally – of the wooden country grain elevator in Alberta. As rail lines spread across the province, grain elevators sprouted like mushrooms after a spring rain. The high water mark for wooden country grain elevators was in 1934. New elevators were added in every decade, but this has been exceeded by the rate of demolition or closure ever since. Check out the following “index” of Alberta’s wooden country elevators, called “elevators” for short in this list.

Rowley Grain Elevator Row, Provincial Historic Resource

Number of elevators in Alberta:

in 1934: 1,781
in 1951: 1,651
in 1982: 979
in 1997: 327
in 2005: 156
in 2012 on railway rights-of-way: 130

Number of communities with:

at least one elevator: 95
2 or more elevators: 26
3 or more elevators: 7
4 or more elevators: 1 (Warner)

Alberta Pacific Grain Elevator Site Complex, Meeting Creek, Provincial Historic Resource

Additional statistics:

Number of elevators in Alberta’s longest row: 6
Oldest remaining elevator: 1905 (Raley)
Number of remaining elevators that pre-date 1910: 3 (Raley, St. Albert, De Winton)
Newest remaining elevator: 1988 (Woodgrove)
Decade with the largest number of surviving elevators: 1920s (33)
Decade with the second largest number of surviving elevators: 1980s (26)
Decade with the fewest (after pre-1910) number of surviving elevators: 1940s (5)
Number of elevators that have been designated a Provincial Historic Resource (PHR): 13
Number of communities with at least one elevator designated as a PHR: 10
Oldest designated elevator: 1906 (St. Albert)
Newest designated elevator: Leduc (1978)

Alberta Wheat Pool Grain Elevator, Paradise Valley, Provincial Historic Resource

For a list of communities in Alberta with designated and non-designated elevators, please click here.

Please Note:

Grain elevators that have been moved off railway rights-of-way – to a farmyard or a museum, for instance – are not included in these statistics.
Grain elevators located on railway rights-of-way where the rails have been torn up are included in these statistics.
Concrete or steel elevators are not included.
Elevators used for other purposes, such as seed cleaning or fertilizer storage, are not included.
Most of these elevators were last documented by the Heritage Survey in 2005. It is possible that some of the elevators on the list are now gone.

Additional Information:

View records for designated grain elevators on the Alberta Register of Historic Places.
Explore the online Heritage Survey database, which has records for over 700 grain elevators.
Read “Alberta’s Grain Elevators: A brief history of a prairie icon”, a Government of Alberta booklet, on the Alberta Grain Elevator Society website.

Written by: Dorothy Field, Heritage Survey Program Coordinator

Get Outta Town!

July 29, 2014July 25, 2014editor, RETROactive

The August long weekend is fast approaching. Before we know it Heritage Day – Monday, August 4 – will be upon us. If you are wondering what to do with your day off, why not consider a heritage-themed outing? This is the perfect time of year to explore Alberta’s rural historic resources.

The cover of the Victoria Trail Historical Walking and Driving Tours booklet.

If you are in the Edmonton area, an ideal destination for a heritage day trip is the Victoria Settlement Provincial Historic Site, located one hour and forty minutes northeast of the city. It is a perfect location for a picnic, and there’s plenty to see there. Before you head out of town, make sure you download or print out the Victoria Trail Historical Walking and Driving Tours booklet that is available on the Alberta Culture website. It contains information about the buildings at the settlement, and, once you’ve finished exploring the historic site, you can follow the tour back towards Edmonton along the historic Victoria Trail.

There are two Provincial Historic Resources at the Victoria Settlement Historic Site: Fort Victoria, a Hudson’s Bay Company building dating from the 1860s, and the 1882 Free Trader’s Cabin on River Lot #3. In addition, you can see the Reverend McDougall Graves, where four of the missionary’s family members – victims of an epidemic of smallpox in the 1870s – are buried. A 1906 Methodist Church on the site recalls the important role of the church in the settlement of the area.

Victoria Trail Plan — This plan of Indian Reserve No. 126 shows the Victoria Trail as it follows a curve in the North Saskatchewan River. (NCR 291)

The Victoria Trail is a scenic drive that winds along the bank of the North Saskatchewan River. Unlike many other historic routes, it has remained largely undeveloped and evocative of days gone by. As you traverse the Victoria Trail, it is easy to imagine yourself in the company of those who came before. After 1860, convoys of Red River carts carrying supplies to Edmonton wore ruts into the sod. In 1874, the first North-West Mounted Police contingent famously trekked west along the trail. After the turn of the century, traffic flowed the other way, with Ukrainian settlers coming east from Edmonton to settle on the land. Until the coming of the railway in 1918, the Victoria Trail remained the most important overland route linking Edmonton the Victoria Settlement.

Red River Cart — Red River carts like this one were a common sight on the Victoria Trail in the 1860s. (PAA B5806)

This Heritage Day, treat yourself to a journey back in time, along the Victoria Trail.

Written by: Dorothy Field, Coordinator, Heritage Survey Program

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