Edmonton, from its pre-history to present, is a gathering place of different cultures, languages and religions.
Our founding people were Cree and Nakoda, followed by the Métis, French-speaking Canadians, Scottish and English who worked in the fur trade. After the signing of Treaty 6 in 1876 came settlement by peoples from Ukraine and throughout Europe, as well as from central Canada.
Through the 20th century to the present day, people from the world over—Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, Europe and from all parts of Canada—have come to Edmonton.
Reflecting this cultural richness are the museums, archives and the many historical and cultural organizations founded and supported by citizens of the Edmonton region. An abundance of events and performances draw on the region’s unique heritage.
From the personal to the public, our shared heritage is about Edmontonians making a beloved home and a place in the world.
The Edmonton Heritage Council is committed to supporting this activity and initiating partnerships and projects that:
• provide a forum for analyzing, discussing and sharing heritage issues
• advocate for a vibrant heritage community and heritage programs
• unify Edmonton’s heritage community and give it a voice
• promote the awareness and development of effective, informed and recognized heritage principles and practices.
Recent Articles
The Lost Series: Edmonton's Incline Railway
By Lawrence Herzog
When it began operating in 1908, it may well have been the world’s shortest railway. The Edmonton Incline Railway lifted people and teams of horses from the bottom to the top of the North Saskatchewan River valley on tracks just 290 feet long.
The funicular railway was built into McDougall Hill at the foot of 101st Street, on the eastern side of today’s Crowne Plaza Chateau Lacombe. It was apparently the brainchild of Joseph Hostyn, manager of the Edmonton Hotel, which was then at the bottom of the hill...
The Lost Series: Edmonton's Lost Boomtown Hotels - Part 2
By Lawrence Herzog
Drawn by the lure of opportunity in Canada’s “last best west,” nearly 50,000 people came to Edmonton in the first dozen years of the 20th century and decided to call it their new home. The influx generated enormous demand for hotels and rooming houses, and the booming city’s first wood-frame hotels were soon joined by a second wave, and then a third.
Most of them are gone now, lost to the march of time. Here’s a look at three of the vanished ones built in 1906, a fifth that started welcoming guests in 1910, and another constructed in 1908 that rose from the ashes in 1932.
Stately Home Tells Stories: The House that Evans Built
By Adriana A. Davies, CM PhD
Various media outlets in Edmonton invited the public to an open house at Sylvancroft – a wonderful 1911/12 mansion located on Stony Plain Road and 127th Street – on Wednesday, July 20th, 2011. When I arrived, shortly after 3 pm, a member of the family was standing on the front steps under the portico that had provided shelter to family and guests over a period of 100 years as they descended from their carriages and, later, the first cars.
The Lost Series: Edmonton's Lost Boomtown Hotels - Part 1
By Lawrence Herzog
As Edmonton was born and grew with the fur trade, the Klondike gold rush, the arrival of the railways and the settlement of the West, thousands of newcomers poured in and needed places to stay. In the first dozen years of the 20th century, Edmonton’s population grew by nearly 50,000, generating enormous demand for hotels and rooming houses.
The earliest hotels, like Edmonton House and the Strathcona Hotel, were wood-frame buildings, constructed quickly from materials at hand. Those that were built between 1905 and 1910 were some of the new city’s very first brick buildings, designed and constructed to last and bring a little sophistication and style to the edge of the frontier.
A century later, nearly all of them are long gone. Here’s to remembering a few of the first ones.
