Dr. Lila Fahlman: The First Muslim Woman Awarded the Order of Canada
Lila Fahlman’s career as an activist began with a riot. It was Canada Day 1935, and the 11-year-old Lila was…
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Gifting Indigenous Ward Names
On December 7, 2020, following over a year of planning and work by the Edmonton Boundaries Commission, Edmonton City Council…
City as Arboretum
Edmonton is a unique blend of indigenous and introduced species. As a sprawling city that contains eighteen-thousand acres of river-valley,…
Pondering Pehonan
In amiskwaciwaskahikan (Edmonton), when you examine the current state of Indigenous relations, initiatives and heritage, one cannot help but be…
In Dark Times, Go to the Garden: Part 1
Plans are afoot for spring. Sunday was spent scouring the glossy pages full of roots and blossoms in a favourite…
In Dark Times, Go to the Garden: Part 2
With the last blast of winter gusto already forgotten and double-digit weather on the horizon, now’s the time to start…
1960s: Emigration from the Caribbean
Before the early 1960s, few immigrants of African descent were allowed into Canada. Because of racist white preferred immigration rules and regulations, “admittance of ‘coloured or partly coloured persons’ was restricted to certain classes of close relatives of Canadian citizens and cases deemed as having exceptional merit.”
The End of the World: From Found Space to Keillor Point
The summer of 2010 was a memorable time: I started dating my future husband, and I started exploring Edmonton’s river…
Sustained Opposition to Black Immigration
Newspapers frequently reported negatively on the arrivals of Black immigrants from the United States, including the Edmonton Bulletin, Edmonton Journal, and Calgary Eye Opener. The first group of Black peoples to arrive were noted rather disparagingly by one newspaper, “It was in 1908 that the first party arrived from the cotton fields of Oklahoma and settled along the Grand Trunk Pacific, the largest settlement being at Chip Lake.”
After the Pisces Bathhouse Raid: John Kerr – Dance for Gramma
In the years before John Reid launched his career as owner of Flashback, Edmonton’s first gay disco, he worked cleaning…
After the Pisces Bathhouse Raid: Michael Phair – LGBTQ2S+ Activist and Community Leader
As of this writing, Michael is one of the few men charged as a “found-in” to speak publicly on the…
After the Pisces Bathhouse Raid: Dr. Henri Toupin – Dignity in the Eye of the Storm
Henri Toupin was born in Legal, Alberta, on March 15, 1923. He acquired his B.Sc. in 1947 from the University…