The Edmonton City as Museum Project has a new theme, which means we’re brewing a new batch of stories for the website. We’re doing things a little differently this time, though.
ECAMP’s theme for 2026/27 is Sensing the City, and we’re really excited about its potential to help Edmontonians think about our city in new ways. Usually at this point, we’d invite Edmontonians to pitch us stories, and hire folks to write one article each. With our labour history theme though, we realized that lots of our writers had multiple excellent ideas, and we just didn’t have space to share them all. Having been a reporter and editor in the past, I also know how valuable it can be to keep developing your ideas through multiple stories on the same beat.
So this time around we’re looking for a small team of writers, and each one will get to write 4 stories. On top of that, they’ll get paid for paying attention to what’s happening in the city that ECAMP should know about — and which historical stories we should consider featuring.
Which historical threads would you want to follow? What stories about our city are you obsessed with?
If you’re a writer, let us know by sending in our application. More details below.
And check out all the other fun ways we’re exploring the city through our senses this summer, like our Curiosity Tours (we’ve got a brand new one in Rossdale this summer) and our upcoming exhibit at K Days (yes, you will get to experience historical smells).
– Chris Chang-Yen Phillips, ECAMP Coordinator
The Edmonton City as Museum Project (ECAMP) is an initiative of the Edmonton Heritage Council. We help to collect, exhibit, preserve, and archive the stories, events, people, places, and culture that have made our city.
ECAMP’s theme for 2026-27 is Sensing the City. We want to explore ideas like:
- How can our senses help us understand Edmonton’s heritage? (e.g. How can the taste of sorrel or the feeling of scraping moose hide connect us to our ancestors?)
- How did Edmontonians experience the city in the past? (e.g. What did they smell or touch or hear at work? How did they warm up on cold days?)
- Which Edmontonians have helped people get a better sense of their surroundings? (e.g. through detecting pollution or monitoring our climate)
- How do different abilities and disabilities shape Edmontonians’ experience of living in the city? (e.g. Sharing moments of deaf joy, or learning how blind vs sighted people understand the cityscape in different ways)
As part of this work, we are hiring a small team of writers who will each produce 4 articles for the ECAMP website. They will also help us keep our fingers on the pulse of what is happening in the city, and report back each month about ideas and collaborators that ECAMP should consider.
These articles will be edited by the ECAMP Coordinator and Assistant Editor. For some articles, we will license archival images. For others, we will commission new multimedia works to present the stories in relevant ways, such as videos, soundscapes, or illustrations.
These articles will give space for Edmontonians to share and learn stories about the history of this place from diverse perspectives. They will be targeted towards general readers – including those who don’t usually seek out information about local history. ECAMP is especially interested in voices and stories often excluded from local heritage, including newcomers, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, and queer communities.
Duties
Each month you will go out into the city to find potential stories, collaborators, and ideas for ECAMP articles and programming. You will be part of the nerve system of ECAMP, letting us know about interesting and under-reported stories of Edmonton’s past and present. Then you’ll pitch these ideas to the ECAMP team, who will commission you to develop some into full ECAMP articles.
We plan to have each Writer create several articles on one theme, such as a particular sense, disability history, or environmental history.
In sum, each Writer will:
- Spend time each month chasing ideas for ECAMP articles, projects, and collaborators
- Meet the ECAMP team once each month to present around 3 ideas
- Write 4 articles for the ECAMP website
Qualifications
- Should have experience writing public history stories for a general audience (e.g. public history blog posts, magazine articles, community history zines or books, plaques)
- Should have experience writing academic history and/or journalistic projects
- Must have experience finding stories about local history and/or culture
- Must be curious about Edmonton’s people, places, and history
Compensation
$6400 for approx. 128hr contract, plus $650 per published piece.
Total compensation: $9000
How to apply
Submit the following to ecamp@edmontonheritage.ca by 11:59 PM on June 24th, 2026
- Resume
- Expression of interest letter, including 1-3 story ideas on the theme of Sensing the City
- Public history writing sample. Ideally 800-2000 words; 4500 words maximum. If you send an excerpt of a longer story, give context.
Closing Date
24 June 2026, 11:59PM
We thank all candidates for their interest in the position. Due to large volume of applications, we may not be able to get back to everyone.