by A new public archives facility in Grande Prairie will help preserve the history of Alberta’s South Peace region for generations to come.
“People can come and … add to their own history,” said Ellyn Vandekerkhove, executive director of the South Peace Regional Archives, at Wednesday’s grand opening.
Formerly housed in the Grande Prairie Museum, the archive occupies 7,555 square feet of space in the 2000 Center, a community facility in Grande Prairie’s Muskoseepi Park.
Members of the public and researchers can examine the archived materials in the reading room. The materials are stored in a vault, where they reside in boxes on metal shelves.
Thousands of people, including public officials from Grande Prairie and the region, attended Wednesday’s grand opening.
The archive now occupies more than 7,500 square feet in Center 2000, a community facility in Grande Prairie, Alta., shown here. (Dennis Kovtun/CBC)
“We are the major archive for the entire South Pacific region,” said Jack Lawrence, the facility’s archivist, in an interview.
“We preserve the documentary history of the area, and that includes not just the big organizations, but families, individuals—even some government, non-profit records.
“The idea is to try to have a comprehensive picture of the history of the region, and that includes everything – from paper, official documents, diaries, even film, photographs, and digital records as well.”
Lawrence is excited about the archive’s move into a new home.
“It is very exciting to be in this new space, where we are able to grow, where we are able to preserve records in the future,” he said.
Jack Lawrence is the archivist at the South Peace Regional Archives. He is very pleased that the archive has moved into the new facility. (Dennis Kovtun/CBC)
Members of the public ask the archive staff interesting questions. One of Lawrence’s favorite questions came from someone looking for information on the history of his town.
“We found out that it was actually designed by a particular architect, and that it was supposed to be state-of-the-art back in the 1920s,” he said.
The archive is also a repository for organizational records.
“We have organizations that are interested in preserving their own history or looking back at it and trying to remember it in the future,” said Lawrence.
A scientist’s legacy
Vandekerkhove said one of her favorite visual collections is in the WD Albright fonds.
William Donald Albright was a scientist who moved to Grande Prairie in the early 20th century. His scientific work focused on the agriculture of the region.
Albright was the founder and first superintendent of the Beaverlodge Dominion experimental substation. Today it serves as the Beaverlodge Research Farm, home to Canada’s honey bee research program and other agricultural research work.
Vandekerkhove said Albright was known for giving talks and other outreach efforts during his career as a scientist.
The archive now contains a large collection of his research and presentation material, including 764 glass lantern slides, probably created between 1930 and 1942.
Originally black and white images, some were later colored by hand.
Among the records is this lantern slide of hollyhocks in bloom in September, taken in 1926. Photographed by WD Albright. (Submitted by South Peace Regional Archives)
“They’re kind of amazing to look at, because a lot of them are hand-painted, so people can see the details of the colors, especially because a lot of them are plants,” Vandekerkhove said.
“You can see the flowers, you can see the berries, all those details – and they’re all carefully painted by hand.”
Family history
Dan Wong is a senior mechanical engineer with Bearsto & Associates in Grande Prairie. He is also the chairman of the Grande Prairie police commission.
The archives helped him learn more about his family’s history in Canada, Wong said in an interview after Wednesday’s grand opening.
“I was looking for some family history, because I knew my great-grandfather was located here,” he said.
Arthur Wong came to Canada from China in 1918 and settled in the Grande Prairie area.
Dan Wong, a senior mechanical engineer with Bearsto & Associates in Grande Prairie, and chairman of the city’s police commission, used the archives to find new details about his family’s history (Dennis Kovtun/CBC)
Wong wanted to find out if there were any records about his great-grandfather from that time – and he found several stories in the Grande Prairie Herald-Tribune that gave insight into Arthur Wong’s life in the community.
On Dec. 28, 1944, the Herald-Tribune reported that about 60 people, including a number from nearby Sexsmith, Alta., “sat down to a wonderful feast given by the Royal Cafe in Grande Prairie” at Christmas. Arthur Wong owned that place.
“Arthur Wong, the manager of the Royal, who was in the chair, welcomed the guests and wished them prosperity for the coming year,” the newspaper reported.
Dan Wong has lived most of his life in Grande Prairie. “I knew that the Chinese community had very strong roots here, but I didn’t know where it came from,” he said.
“It’s a big change to be able to go back in history and find out what kind of impact your family had in the community you grew up in,” he said.
Wong also found an article that mentioned his great-grandmother in the archive. His great-grandmother was “the first Chinese woman to come into Grande Prairie,” he said.
“I found another article, back in 1951, where they were quoting [that she] and my great-grandfather reunited after 30 years.”
It was an eye-opener that his great-grandfather settled in Grande Prairie, and his great-grandmother was the first female Chinese immigrant in the area,” Wong said.
“But it really affected me that we knew we were settled in,” he said.
