On Tuesday, March 23, EDHS hosted a virtual Speaker Series presentation by Edmonton’s Historian Laureate, Amber Paquette, entitled Indigenous Lenses: Reimagining History. For an online audience of 80 members and guests, Amber spoke about the Indigenous trade systems, the “arteries of the continent,” that existed for millennia before European contact. Like the great cities and cultural…

On Tuesday, February 23, EDHS hosted a virtual Speaker Series presentation, The Beillevaire Letters (1879-1937). Dr. Juliette Champagne introduced an online audience of more than 70 to the letters of Father Hippolyte Beillevaire, a French priest who arrived in the Canadian North-West in 1880. He remained in Canada all his life, working with Indigenous people at Bear Hills,…

On Tuesday, January 26, EDHS hosted a virtual Speaker Series presentation, Settler Suffragists and the Edmonton Equal Franchise Campaign, 1905-1916. Dr. Sarah Carter, Henry Marshall Tory Chair in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta, guided our online audience through the campaign for women’s voting rights that culminated in Alberta’s 1916…

The Edmonton and District Historical Society (EDHS) is seeking nominations for Board members. The Society is a volunteer, not-for-profit organization, with charitable status. Our aim is to promote and preserve the history of the Edmonton region, through the hosting and promotion of historical and educational events and programs, including our Speakers Series and the annual,…

Like many of you, I had some time off around the holidays, but it looked very different from years past. Traditions our family held dear were forgone in consideration of the pandemic, and we had to come up with new ways to do things. Rather than visiting extended family for meals, we ordered in, and…

Now that winter is here and we face the new COVID-19-related need for more social isolation, a slice of Alberta History from Norah L. Lewis’ article Goose Grease and Turpentine may provide some perspective on our notion of hardship.  Lewis reviewed the women’s pages of farm and ranch newspapers and magazines spanning 1900 to 1920…

On Tuesday, October 27th, long-time EDHS board member Christine Prokop presented our Speaker Series offering, “A Mystery from Norway.” The mystery started with an email to EDHS in 2019 from Victor Iversen, a gentleman in Norway, that included a photo of a small town streetscape. Victor was hoping to confirm family lore that his grandmother, Agnes…

On Tuesday September 22nd EDHS relaunched our new season of the Speakers Series with a book launch for Volume III of the Edmonton House Journals. Edited by Ted Binnema and Gerhard J. Ens, and published by the Historical Society of Alberta, this book covers the period from 1826-1834. It provides a fascinating look into the…

In November 2017 the Board drafted a three year strategic plan, where we laid out our mission, mandate, and vision, and defined our audience. We also created a series of goals around branding, collaboration, publishing, communication, board development, and financial planning. Each goal included multiple strategies, with benchmarks to ensure we were making progress. We…

EDHS has received some sad news. Due to health reasons, Jim Higgs, our instructor for History in the Classroom, has announced his retirement. The confusion over how schools will handle covid-19 in the fall added to Jim’s predicament, as there’s currently no guarantee that his presentations would have been permitted in “closed” classrooms. Jim has been the…