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… contribute to their own history,” Ellyn Vandekerkhove, executive director of the South Peace Regional Archives, said during a grand opening Wednesday.
Previously housed at the Grande Prairie Museum, the archive now occupies 7,555 square feet of space at Center 2000, a community facility in Grande Prairie’s Muskoseepi Park.
Citizens and researchers can view the archive material in the reading room. The materials are stored in a vault, where they are located in boxes on metal shelves.
Dozens of people, including officials from Grande Prairie and the region, attended the grand opening Wednesday.
The archives now occupy more than 7,500 square feet at Center 2000, a community facility in Grande Prairie, Alta., pictured here. (Dennis Kovtun/CBC)
“We are the primary archive for the entire South Peace region,” Jack Lawrence, the facility’s archivist, said in an interview.
“We preserve the documentary history of the area, and that includes not just the major organizations, but also families, individuals – even some government documents and nonprofits.
“The idea is to try to get a comprehensive picture of the history of the region, and that includes everything from paper, official documents, diaries and even film, photographs and digital documents.”
Lawrence is excited about the archive’s move to a new home.
“It’s just really exciting to be in this new space where we can grow and where we can maintain records in the future,” he said.
Jack Lawrence is the archivist at the South Peace Regional Archives. He is very happy that the archive has moved to its new home. (Dennis Kovtun/CBC)
The public asks interesting questions to the archive staff. One of Lawrence’s favorite questions came from someone looking for information about the history of his home.
“We found out that it was actually designed by a specific architect and must have been state-of-the-art in the 1920s,” he said.
The archive is also a repository for organizational documents.
“We have organizations that are interested in preserving their own history or looking back and trying to remember it in the future,” Lawrence said.
The legacy of a scientist
Vandekerkhove said one of her favorite sculpture collections is in the WD Albright fund.
William Donald Albright was a scientist who moved to Grande Prairie in the early 20th century. His scientific work focused on agriculture in the region.
Albright was the founder and first superintendent of the Beaverlodge Dominion experimental substation. Today it functions as the Beaverlodge Research Farm, home to Canada’s honey bee research program and other agricultural research.
Vandekerkhove said Albright was known for giving lectures and other outreach efforts throughout his career as a scientist.
The archive now holds a large collection of his research and presentation materials, including 764 glass lantern slides, probably made between 1930 and 1942.
Originally black and white images, some were later hand colored.
Among the documents is this lantern slide of hollyhocks blooming in September, taken in 1926. The photo was taken 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 since 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 painstakingly hand-painted.”
Family history
Dan Wong is a senior mechanical engineer at Beairsto & Associates in Grande Prairie. He is also chairman of the Grande Prairie Police Commission.
The archives have helped him learn more about his family’s history in Canada, Wong said in an interview after the grand opening Wednesday.
“I was looking for some family history because I knew my great-grandfather had settled 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 at Beairsto & Associates in Grande Prairie, and chairman of the city’s police commission, used the archives to uncover new details about his family’s history.(Dennis Kovtun/CBC)
Wong wanted to know if there were any records of his great-grandfather from that era – and he found several stories in the Grande Prairie Herald-Tribune that gave a snapshot of what Arthur Wong’s life was like in the community.
On December 28, 1944, the Herald-Tribune reported that “some 60 people,” including some from nearby Sexsmith, Alta., “sat down at Christmas to a splendid banquet given by the Royal Cafe in Grande Prairie.” Arthur Wong owned that location.
“Arthur Wong, manager of the Royal, who was chairman, welcomed the guests and wished them prosperity for the coming year,” the newspaper reported.
Dan Wong has spent most of his life in Grande Prairie. “I knew the Chinese community had very strong roots here, but I didn’t know where it came from,” he said.
“It’s really moving to be able to go back in history and find out what impact your family had on the community you grew up in,” he said.
Wong also found an article in the archives that mentioned his great-grandmother. His great-grandmother “was the very first Chinese lady to come into Grande Prairie,” he said.
“I found another article from 1951 where they were talking about [that she] and my great-grandfather reunited after thirty years.”
Learning that his great-grandfather was one of the first immigrants from China to settle in Grande Prairie, and that his great-grandmother was the first female Chinese immigrant to the area, “was really an eye-opener,” Wong said.
“But it really touched me to know that we were so familiar,” he added.