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The City of Edmonton Heritage Collection represents the stories, people and activities of Edmonton.
We have shared some of the 60,000 artifacts from our collection online in a searchable catalogue. Our collection is large, so not all artifacts are currently available online, but visit frequently as we add more records.
Search the City of Edmonton Heritage Collection.
We collect for many of the same reasons that people do. But we do it on a larger scale. And we do it on behalf of the citizens of Edmonton, so we have different responsibilities for managing and taking care of it.
Ultimately it shows us what we think matters. The process by which society as a whole determines which objects are kept or not kept, which stories are re-told and which fade away, is the making of traditions.
The Heritage Collection has over 60,000 artifacts. They can be found on exhibit at the John Walter Museum, Fort Edmonton Park, on loan to other museums and collections, and in storage at the Artifacts Centre.
The Artifacts Centre is the home location for the Heritage Collection. It is a storage facility that is not open to the public. However, the collection is available for research purposes upon request.
Artifacts are generally, three-dimensional objects made or altered by humans. If you’re looking for archival documents (photographs, paper records, audio/visual recordings) please visit the City of Edmonton Archives.
The City Heritage Collection began in 1958 when the Edmonton Historical Board and the Northern Alberta Pioneers and Descendants Association agreed to establish a cooperative museum called the Historic Exhibits Building.
The foundation of the collection is formed from a donation of approximately 600 artifacts from the Northern Alberta Pioneers and Descendants Association, and the purchase of over 7000 artifacts from the Great Northwest Pioneer Village that was in nearby Stony Plain.
In 1973, the displays at the Historic Exhibits Building closed, though the building it was in continued to house the City of Edmonton Archives. In 1974, the 1846 Fort at Fort Edmonton Park opened. The artifact collection was stored at the old Cromdale bus barns until 1976. That year, the collection moved to the recently vacated O’Keefe Brewery, where it remains to this day. From 1976 on, this storage facility has been known as the Artifacts Centre.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, collecting focused on finding artifacts for the displays at Fort Edmonton Park and John Walter Museum. Consequently, we mostly collected artifacts from before 1929, and which focused on the buildings at these sites. As a result, we have many artifacts that are household goods, business equipment, furniture, tools, and to a lesser extent vehicles, textiles, and product packages.
In addition, the Artifacts Centre collects gifts to the mayor and councillors, and items significant to the history of Edmonton, for example, artifacts from the 1978 Commonwealth Games.
Why we collect and what we collect continues to change. We want to use community engagement practices, the Art of Inclusion and the Facets of Sustainability to help us decide the future of our collection.
Most artifacts come from donations by individuals or groups. Sometimes we buy artifacts to enhance our historical displays.
We make records and track all of our artifacts and artifact donations in paper and digital files.