April 19, 2016 marked the 100 year anniversary of the passage of Alberta’s Act for Equal Suffrage. To mark the occasion, The Alberta League Encouraging Storytelling (TALES) developed a traveling storytelling piece wherein costumed storytellers told the story of the fight for women’s suffrage in Alberta—in character! We caught up with TALES’ Renee Englot about her experience… Read more »
Reconciling Our Built Form
As someone who is still fairly new to the formal heritage sector, I am constantly learning more about the heritage community and its operating norms. And as an Indigenous person, I continually struggle with the emphasis placed on built heritage as our primary link to the past and where we come from as a community. I recently… Read more »
Catching Up: The “Know Your Winspear” Project
In 2015, the Francis Winspear Centre for Music embarked on a project to create a digital archive of key moments in Edmonton’s musical history. With Know Your Winspear, what began as an online collection photographs, ads, pamphlets and other ephemera,has become a physical museum of sorts, sharing this history with guests on the Winspear’s lobby and backstage… Read more »
Culture & Reconciliation
Last November, Chief Wilton Littlechild, Mayor Don Iveson and MLA Rod Loyola sat with Edmonton Heritage Council’s board and staff to speak about their vision of how Edmontonians would live into (and beyond) the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) Calls to Action. At the time, the release of the final report of the TRC was… Read more »
The What and the How: Why I Created a Research Methods Podcast
Let me tell you a secret. I’m Edmonton’s Historian Laureate, but I’m not an expert about all things “local history.” What I am is curious and not afraid to ask questions. With my new podcast Let’s Find Out, I’m trying to turn that into a public good. If you follow this blog, you already know… Read more »
Five Lessons from a Summer Traveling Exhibit Interpreter
In the latest blog post, EHC’s Traveling Exhibit Interpreter Alexandra Mackay shares what she has learned after a summer of connecting with Edmontonians through pop-up exhibits at the Night Market and various Edmonton Public Library locations. — With 30 exhibits over the last 4 months, the Edmonton City as Museum Project‘s summer pop-ups have been an enlightening… Read more »
An Open and Inclusive Grants Program
Earlier this year, the Edmonton Heritage Council set out to complete a full review of our Heritage Community Investment Program. We wanted to make sure that the grants were responsive to the needs of the organizations that we support and our city. We also wanted to make sure that the community had an opportunity to… Read more »
Heritage Horticulture: Cultivating Participation with the Edmonton Heritage Council
Participation and engagement are terms at the forefront of any heritage and non-profit organization. With these sectors facing a steady barrage of new technology—new ways to participate!—and a constant flow of coinciding research— how to truly engage!—it’s important for us to consider what these terms mean for the Edmonton Heritage Council and their role in our organizational orchestra… Read more »
What’s in a Name? Digging into Mill Woods Place Names with City Hall School
We are surrounded by names. Our friends have names. Our streets and our neighbourhoods have names. Our schools and our buildings have names. The word for the name of a specific place or space is a toponym. While I’m not a toponymist (someone who studies place names professionally), I understand that these names are laden with the stories,… Read more »
Looking Back & Looking Forward
The Edmonton Heritage Council has been administering the Heritage Community Investment Program (HCIP) on behalf of Edmonton City Council for the past four years, as recommended in The Art of Living: A Plan for Securing the Future of Arts & Heritage in the City of Edmonton: 2008-2018. During this time over 1.2 million dollars has been… Read more »