Historic Festival and Doors Open Edmonton

HISTORIC FESTIVAL AND DOORS OPEN 2023

The Edmonton and District Historical Society Presents the 27th Annual Historic Festival and Doors Open

July 2-9, 2023

For 27 years, the Edmonton and District Historical Society (EDHS) has proudly presented the annual Historic Festival & Doors Open Edmonton. Community arts and heritage organizations, historic places and corporate partners from around the Edmonton region offer unique tours or events over the course of the week-long festival.

This year’s festival theme is Prohibition:

Prohibition was the result of generations of effort by temperance workers to close bars and taverns. They were seen as a source of unhappiness in an age before social welfare existed. Temperance activists and their allies believed that alcohol, especially hard liquor, was an obstacle to economic success, to social cohesion, and to moral and religious purity.
By 1923, Alberta voters were done with being dry. A petition led to a plebiscite, where a majority voted in favour of allowing liquor sales through the government, which came into effect in 1924.
Today, Alberta has at least 47 licensed distillers, 133 breweries and at least 10 wineries and meaderies with most selling directly to the consumer or in collaboration with local restaurants.