Laura Nichol was five years old when she started volunteering at Fort Edmonton Park. Her dad worked in park leadership, so the best way for the family to spend time together was at the Fort.
“If we wanted to see dad, we had to become part of it, because he loved it here so much,” says Nichol. “So I started volunteering with my mom and my brother, as a little baby pioneer dressed up in costume. I learned how to do everything here, not just weird pioneer things like baking on a wood stove. I learned about what community engagement means and what it means to be part of a society, a community.”
She’s been with the park for the better part of three decades; through her university years, she was an in-costume interpreter. She met her husband at the park. And, now, she’s Fort Edmonton’s Core Programs Manager.
So, celebrating the park’s 50th anniversary is going to be extra special for her.
“It’s like a big birthday party for my family,” she says. “I met my husband here, as well as my dearest friends, and I’d include my supervisors and colleagues in that, too. It doesn’t just feel like the anniversary of an attraction, but the celebration of community.”
But, the park has changed a lot since Nichol began her volunteer work there. And, in the following article, we’ll look at exactly how the Park has adapted to become an even more important cultural resource in 2024 than it was in 1974.
Nearly 100,000 visitors paid admission fees and strolled through the park gates in 2024. But, running a living museum is a challenge. Families have so much choice when it comes to spending their disposable income — from the Waterpark at West Edmonton Mall, to going to sporting events, or just downloading videos onto their devices.
And, museums, as important as they are, can be a tough sell to kids outside of school trips. So, over the last five years, Fort Edmonton’s mandate has expanded. The Indigenous Peoples Experience, (IPE) which opened in 2021, has earned international accolades and boosted the park’s reputation as a tourist destination — but it also is part of an intentional move to change the tenor of the heritage park. It’s not just a place to go and look at a white pioneer village anymore.
And, then there’s the non-traditional programming. The Dark event transforms the park into a theatre of horrors in October. The Capitol Theatre hosts movie screenings and multiple venues within the park host weddings and parties throughout the season. Another 30,000 guests came to the park in 2023 for this alternative programming.
Darren Dalgleish, the president and CEO of the Fort Edmonton Management Company (FEMCO), says that in order to keep the core business solid, the park needs to mix in contemporary programming. The Fort may be old, but it also needs to be new.
“How do we think about sustainability in a non-traditional way?” asks Dalgleish. “Museums struggle everywhere in the world. You can’t assume that the next generation will have the same priorities on cultural institutions that four generations ago did.
“History gets a year older every year, but our methodology cannot… The minute you rely on the guest or on the cost-effectiveness of the museum, you’re losing sight of what it’s really supposed to be. So, put those efforts in a different area and let the museum have its own personality. Let it continue to be its pure self.”
The goals are to make the IPE even more immersive. A Fort Edmonton app will debut in 2024. And soon, the park will unveil plans for a winter product that will transform the park into a year-round operation.
“It will be a monster for us, and a differentiator in the market,” says Dalgleish.
Renee Williams shows me a picture of herself as a child, with her sister, taken at the Fort in 1983.
And Williams, now the park’s senior vice-president of customer experience and product development, says it’s a reminder of what Fort Edmonton used to be, and why she’s there to help drive a cultural change. As a Black child growing up in Edmonton, she enjoyed the Fort, but couldn’t help but notice that it drove home a very white pioneer narrative.
That is changing. The Indigenous Peoples Experience is a big part of that, but so is the need to tell stories about a fully multicultural Alberta, including Asian and Black communities.
“I’m a first-generation Canadian,” says Williams. “Canada is home, it’s where I was born and raised. But the Fort Edmonton Park experience, when we first came in the 1980s, was a way for us to find community. We had no other family here. We left our family in other parts of the world. So, you come to places like this to build community, connection and friendship.
“What I love about what we’re doing now is that I can finally see myself in the narratives we’re telling. I see the Black narratives and I see the multicultural narratives. I didn’t see that back then. We’ve really transformed over 50 years, from telling a one-sided settler narrative, to really expanding what we do.”
Dalgleish says these narratives were always there, but, historically, the park didn’t do the best job elevating them.
Now, there are many Indigenous interpreters. Black, Asian and Muslim narratives are represented. Compare that to 25 years ago, when there were two Indigenous staff members in all of the park.
“We also tell our staff to share as much of their identities as they want to share,” says Nichol. “And that’s what makes the park really different every time you come. Based on who you talk to, you will get a different perspective. That’s our vision. That’s our goal.”
Dalgleish: “What you take away isn’t a list of facts, but a feeling. The IPE sets us apart, but that kind of spirit was already at work, here. How do we deliver this story and message in an engaging way? Not as a service, not as a teacher, but as an illustrator of the history of Edmonton, which is really a microcosm of our country.”
Park renovations and the move to year-round operation are a $165 million endeavour. Nearly $50 million came from the federal government, and the City contributed over $70 million.
The Indigenous Peoples Experience and the move to multicultural programming isn’t going over well with everybody. There are those who want to hang on the old-school “cowboys and indians” narrative, and they bristle when they see images at the park depicting RCMP officers tearing Indigenous children from the arms of their mothers.
“There’s a lot we didn’t anticipate,” says Dalgleish. “But what I take from that is the commitment from our interpreters. They’re willing to take that blowback and be resolute. It’s emotional for them. It’s not like they’re leather-skinned and it bounces off of them. No. They’re choosing this work despite the perils.”
To support staff, meetings are held every two weeks for Indigenous and multicultural staff members.
“They have a chance for reflection and peer support,” says Nichol. “They can really get out those moments that are icky, but we can also celebrate the accomplishments these team members are having.”
This article appears in the June 2024 issue of Edify
