Did you know that about 500 people attended the Athabasca post office’s 1955 grand opening? Or that the shed of 49th Street house that belonged to Charles Nancekivell was once the town mortuary?
Athabasca University historian Greg Johnson and a team of local archivists and historians worked these into a new edition of the Town of Athabasca’s Historical Walking Tour that also has a modern twist – it’s available online.
Johnson said the revamp gives a more detailed understanding of the Town of Athabasca’s early days.
“Like any publication, there’s a few mistakes,” Johnson said. “They fixed those. A couple buildings had disappeared … The big change for me was the introductory bit.”
In the last walking tour, which he also wrote, Johnson credited the town’s dramatic expansion to the fur trade and industries it stimulated.
Athabasca Landing, now called the Town of Athabasca, went from a population of 227 people in 1911 to 1,100 the following year, according to the guide. In 1913, that number doubled.
Johnson said continued research has led him to believe the rapid growth was the result of a colonial settler revolution that happened internationally in booms and busts.
“The fur trade and economic spinoffs such as transportation certainly played a role in the early commercial developments of Athabasca Landing, but did little to promote the growth of the Town of Athabasca,” the new version of the tour reads.
Former archivist at the Alice B. Donahue Library and Archives, Marilyn Mol, assisted in the rewrite. She said the walking tour was first published in 1995 after the archives received a grant to put up signs around the town and to hire someone to work on the book.
The online version is the tour’s fourth incarnation.
“I would keep stuffing little bits into the book so that the next time we did one, we would have these new bits of information to include,” she said. “So each time we’ve added a bit more.”
The updated tour leads people through the same stops as the last one, updating them when need be.
“Dr. Brown’s Medical Centre” became “Dr. Brown’s House,” as the medical centre burnt down in 2010.
“We were looking at the history of the town through the architecture,” Johnson said. “I think it’s a pretty novel way to do things.”
Johnson said the tour was updated to recognize Canada’s 150th anniversary and to supply people visiting Athabasca University for conferences with something to do. It is only publicly available online at www.athabascaheritage.ca.
Athabasca University visual communications designer Margaret Anderson and archivist Gina Payzant also helped with the tour.
