Hot Wheelz is a drag artist and self-described “disabled genderqueer monster.” They are widely celebrated as one of the first ambulatory wheelchair users to join the Edmonton drag scene. In this addition to ECAMP’s labour history series, author Kels Valenzuela Delamarter tells the story of their rise, deliciously macabre costuming, and goal “to turn the corporate ladder into a ramp.”
In 2020, Giselle General discovered a museum exhibit honouring Tessie Oliva, a pioneering Filipino-Canadian nurse who supported immigrant nurses in Alberta. Oliva’s decades of work included founding the Filipino Nurses Association in Alberta, advocating for Internationally Educated Nurses, organizing large-scale recruitment from the Philippines, and fighting for permanent residency for newcomers—cementing her legacy in Edmonton’s healthcare and immigrant communities.
Geneva Misener, the University of Alberta’s first woman professor, was a pioneering Classicist and tireless advocate for women’s rights. Born in 1877, she earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, co-founded the Canadian Federation of University Women, and promoted women’s education, suffrage, and sport. Though underrecognized today, her enduring legacy reminds us that individual resolve can drive lasting social change.
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.
The Alberta Penitentiary operated on Edmonton’s River Lot 20 from 1906 – 1920, where Clarke Stadium is today. It was the first federal prison in Alberta. One constant in prisoners’ lives was unpaid hard labour, from mining coal to farming potatoes.
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.
Women like Emma Minde joined Homemakers’ Clubs to overcome isolation by doing work like sewing, canning, and charity drives together. Indian Affairs required its approval to start these clubs though, and used them to monitor members’ activities.
How do you calculate the hole left behind when a loved one dies? In this story, Terrence Adams sorts through the legacy of their uncle, Larry Svenson. Svenson worked for the Government of Alberta, using health data to ask big questions like whether it was possible to predict the peak of flu season.
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.”
In the early 1920s, a resolute woman named Maud Bowman set out to start the Edmonton Museum of Arts – today’s Art Gallery of Alberta. Bowman was a somewhat unconventional model of a female museum leader. Her work is even more remarkable given the sexism she faced.
