Donna Coombs-Montrose is Edmonton's current Historians Laureate, selected by the Edmonton Historical Board and the Edmonton Heritage Council following an open application process.
Donna Coombs-Montrose is a Community Activist and History Advocate who has resided in Edmonton, Alberta for over 20 years. Donna’s activism began while a student in Toronto during the 1970s and continued her heritage exploration in her home country during the succeeding years, after completing her academic training in librarianship and archives.
With a passion for story telling as an essential platform for documenting a community’s history, Donna has recorded with online access, many interviews of community members in labour, culture, health, education, entrepreneurship, in various trades and professional occupations, on the ground of transforming our society. Current projects include Caribbean Oil Workers Contribution to Alberta’s economy, and Jasper Place – The Black Community.
A recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Medal in 2022, Donna is an avid painter who plays in the music band iLand.+
Energized by a visionary agenda and nurtured by a community with high expectations, the coming period will be pivotal in her role as City of Edmonton Historian Laureate, 2024-2026.
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The Commonwealth Walkway project is a standalone exhibit expanding 10KM through the North Saskatchewan River Valley. From the Funicular to the Groat Bridge, the Walkway includes paths to the Indigenous Art Park, John Walter Museum and Alberta Legislature and displays 31 Medallion’s displaying Queen Elizabeth II’s personal monogram. At each medallion, place-specific stories live on the Commonwealth Walkway app
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The FIRE Grant program (Funding Indigenous Resurgence in Edmonton) provides funding assistance—up to $10,000—to Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) individuals and organizations to support projects that help tell important stories about our community.
The FIRE grant program is designed by Indigenous people for Indigenous people. This program supports Indigenous peoples’ inherent right to self-determination and cultural resurgence, and we hope to provide folks with the support and resources to advance their brilliant work.
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The Edmonton City As Museum Project tells the best stories Edmonton has to offer, from the perspective of Edmontonians.
A stepping stone to an eventual bricks and mortar city museum, the Edmonton City As Museum Project uses the web to preserve and present Edmonton’s urban heritage: the people, places, things and moments that make us who we are.
Far from a dusty archive, the Edmonton City As Museum Project—or #ECAMP—offers a colourful look at this multifaceted city.
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Capital Modern allows us to explore the impact that modernism had on our city’s development during the most productive period of the last century and seeks to find the connections to the design and architecture of today.
This website is intended as an interactive reproduction of the material contained in the publication Capital Modern: Edmonton Architecture and Urban Design 1940-1969 (copies still available at the Art Gallery of Alberta Shop), a companion publication to the exhibition of the same name held at the Art Gallery of Alberta in 2007.
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On April 1st, 2016 a diverse group of people gathered at the Santa Maria Goretti Centre with one aim: to explore the many sides and stories of the Charles Camsell Hospital site from its early days through to its decommissioning in 1996.
Elders, former patients, academics, as well as heritage and health professionals gave presentations and worked together in facilitated groups, all to increase our general understanding and think of ways this history can be accessed, shared and acknowledged.
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