Meet Jay Gilday: musician, postal worker, and host of Clock In – An ECAMP Podcast. What parts of ourselves do we bring to our jobs? How much does our work define us? This first episode of the show is the start of a journey to understand how Edmontonians’ work and family lives shape each other, and the world around us.
In 1943, skilled pilot Margaret Littlewood, rejected by the RCAF for being a woman, became the only woman Link Trainer instructor in Canada. Hired by aviation pioneer Wop May at Edmonton’s Air Observer School, she trained 150 pilots, overcame sexism, and later earned Canada’s highest pilot licence—helping pave the way for future women in aviation.
James “Big Jim” Stone, a decorated WWII veteran, led the Second Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry in the Korean War. His firm leadership, tactical brilliance, and battlefield courage culminated in a pivotal victory at Kapyong. Honoured posthumously as a Korean War hero, Stone’s legacy rests on resilience, strategy, and the respect of the soldiers he commanded.
One hot summer Sunday in 1910, Edmontonians lined up for ice cream in a tiny downtown park called Happyland. A scandal ensued. Our latest ECAMP story is a comic tale about those wicked delights, and why Edmonton police and City Council threatened to “out-Toronto Toronto.”
This addition to our labour history series was written by Elizabeth Cytko and illustrated by Toryn Suddaby.
Previously, ECAMP presented a story from an A-Channel employee who decided to cross the picket line during the 2003-4 strike. Adrian Pearce – a cameraman who helped lead the strike – submitted this response. Read what the strike was like for workers who held the line for 166 days.
When Sunwapta Broadcasting first produced local television in Edmonton in 1954, CFRN aimed daytime programs at the homemaker audience. Laura Banks was the popular face of this programming from 1955-1968, under the stage name Laura Lindsay. Decades after her death, she remains well-loved by women who tuned in for her sewing and cooking demonstrations and celebrity interviews.
In 1932, Edmonton had the best women’s basketball team in the world: the Edmonton Commercial Graduates. But it looked like they’d have to miss a charity game that May in Calgary – they’d never be able to get there in time after work. Until, that is, the Grads’ coach rallied supporters to strap some seats into the back of two little aircraft and make history.
In 1853, a group of voyageurs shipping furs from Fort Edmonton put down their oars in solidarity with one of their crew members. It was an early murmuring of organized labour in the West: not quite a strike, not quite a mutiny, but very much a show of strength and unity.
An inside look at the 2003-2004 strike at A-Channel Edmonton. “The strike dragged on through the fall and into the winter,” writes John Vandenbeld. “I both wanted it to end and feared its conclusion, knowing that I’d have to work with these people again.”
During the early days of the Covid pandemic, I thought of my Métis great-great-great-grandmother, and the loss of three of her young children to scarlet fever in Edmonton in May 1845.
NOTE: this article contains historical but outdated and offensive language related to mental illness and neurodiversity. Leilani Muir was born…
It was late in October 1947 that the school year finally started. It is fair to say that a start…
