Stories

Stories categorized: People

A photograph of items from Larry Svenson's life, including photographs and pins.

There are Far More Kind People in the World Than We Think

Terrence (Tess) Adams

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.

A group of workers standing outside the A-Channel headquarters, holding a sign that says "Scab TV"

The Labour Dispute Will Be Televised

John Vandenbeld

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.”

A black and white photograph of a middle-aged woman shown in profile from the shoulders up. She wears a v-cut black top with a long white pearl necklace and her hair is pulled back into a low bun.

Maud Bowman: The leader who kickstarted the Art Gallery of Alberta

Danielle Siemens

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.

A daguerrotype of an older woman, a boy, and a young man.

Lessons of loss and perseverance from Jane Klyne McDonald

Catherine C. Cole

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.

A photo of an Tom Daniels, one of the ironworkers featured in Alvin Finkel's story Waltzing with the Angels. Here he is an older man with glasses, sitting in an office.

Waltzing With the Angels: The Metis Ironworkers Who Built Edmonton’s Downtown

Alvin Finkel

The people who did the most dangerous jobs constructing the skyscrapers in downtown Edmonton in the 1960s and 1970s were almost all Metis ironworkers. That included the CN Tower.

Roads of Misery: Following an Afro-Indigenous Family from Oklahoma to Edmonton (And Back Again) 

Dr. Russell Cobb

As the train pulled into the station at North Portal, Saskatchewan, Sarah Atkins had no idea if she would be admitted into Canada. Her daughter and son-in-law, Naoma Atkins Hooks and Sam Hooks, had made it across the border and on to Edmonton.

Leilani Muir and Eugenics in Alberta

Kristine Kowalchuk

NOTE: this article contains historical but outdated and offensive language related to mental illness and neurodiversity. Leilani Muir was born…

The Dutch Immigrants’ Church

Harma-Mae Smit

If you drive through Edmonton neighbourhoods, you’ll see many churches with names that reflect the cultural background of the immigrants…

Teachable Moments

Bruce Cinnamon

Velva Hueston moved to Edmonton with her mother in the early 1920s, after her father died in the 1918 flu…

Imrie House: Home of Canada’s First Female Architectural Firm 

Josephine Boxwell

Imrie House is unassuming. It is an older home, modest in size, tucked away at the end of a treed…

An Everlasting River Valley Retreat

Ryan Stephens

Here on Keillor Farm, the scenery and serenity of the vast Canadian prairies is everywhere, though it’s packed into a…

Filipino Pioneers of Edmonton

Ida Beltran Lucila

The 1952 Immigration Act introduced a points system that brought about the entry of professionals to fill labour gaps in Canada.