River Crossing: Interpretation at the Heart of the City

On July 11, 2017, City Council approved a plan for preserving and sharing the history of Rossdale, a place at the heart of not only Edmonton's landscape, but also its historic narrative. Olive Bailey is a Principal Planner with the City Planning Branch at the City of Edmonton and leads the Heritage Interpretive Plan for the River Crossing Initiative. In this guest post, Olive describes the community work that went into building the Heritage Interpretive Plan and some of the lessons from this lengthy learning process.

We also heard from Indigenous communities, reaching out to 29 First Nation and Metis communities and related organizations. We met with communities to better understand how to engage with them on this type of project, and then created opportunities, including site visits and workshops with Elders, that tailored to the needs of the communities.

The input we received through this process was used to create a thematic framework, in this case a set of four linked interpretive themes and goals. In the Heritage Interpretive Plan, we explore this thematic framework through a series of ideas for interpreting the themes and stories through materials, events, activities, architecture, urban design, media and public art. Many of these ideas also came out of engagement as did many of the principles for moving forward with heritage interpretation. The entire final draft of the River Crossing Heritage Interpretive Plan, can be found at Edmonton.ca/HeritageInterpretivePlan.As we worked on the plan, it became clear that although the Heritage Interpretive Plan builds on previous work and knowledge, it is still very much a starting point for understanding the history of the area from different perspectives and for learning how to move forward with sharing those stories in ways that are compelling, authentic and appropriate. It also became clear that telling the stories is not something that the City can or should do alone. It will require collaboration between partners, Edmontonians, Indigenous communities, heritage practitioners, local organizations, designers and other implementers. On July 11, 2017, Edmonton City Council approved the River Crossing Heritage Interpretive Plan. This means that we can now turn our attention to implementing the plan with partners and the community through tactical interpretation and events to begin to tell the stories of this place in the short term. Council’s approval also firmly establishes the Heritage Interpretive Plan as a foundation for redevelopment planning of the area to ensure that the heritage of this special place is honoured, shared and made visible as the area changes over time.