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It’s a chance to reconnect with the past, a festival to highlight the wide range of historical attractions in Edmonton and surrounding communities and a reminder of the shared history of our hometowns and province as a whole.
This year’s Historic Festival and Doors Open Edmonton kicks off Sunday, a one-week celebration of the area’s past as told through its historic places. It’s the 27th anniversary of the festival put on by the Edmonton and District Historical Society.
“The idea is to be as diverse as possible,” festival organizer Susan Lacombe says of this year’s events. “They have to be historic in nature, but could be historic storytelling, architecture, museums, churches, walking tours.”
There’s a vast variety of locations to explore at this year’s festival, and Lacombe says she’s looking to increase the diversity of events in an attempt to draw in new audiences to learn about our history. That includes tours with the Edmonton Chinese Garden Society and walking tours with the Edmonton Queer History Project.
“We have our big organizations like (the Royal Alberta Museum) and the archives, but I like to find those little hidden gems too. We are trying to drive people to those locations and explore our history,” says Lacombe.
Half of the Doors Open Festival events are behind-the-scenes tours being offered at a number of professional historic sites such as the Royal Alberta Museum and the Provincial Archives, opportunities to peel back the curtain on how history is studied.
Each year’s festival features a theme centered around something happening in the province a century ago. This year that theme is Prohibition. Alberta voters had solidly supported the implementation of the Liquor Act in 1915, then voted to repeal prohibition seven years later. An exhibit at the Alberta Archives, Dried Out: Prohibition in Alberta, looks at the province’s foray into temperance and the unintended consequences.
Events at the festival don’t need to use the theme, and many partners will run unrelated events throughout the week, but it’s all a chance to learn a bit about the city’s history.
