Every place should have a History Laureate ……..

Now, we are all familiar with the idea of a Poet Laureate, so why not one for history?

And here I take my line from the City of Edmonton,  which was “Canada’s first municipality to appoint a Historian Laureate…… who ….. is the City’s official ambassador on historical matters and promotes the history of the city and its citizens by documenting, researching, interpreting and speaking about the people, places and events that have created Edmonton's distinctive heritage and character.”*

The post lasts for two years, is a paid position, and the “post holder undertakes to, maintain a continued dialogue with community through social media platforms, and the Edmonton Historical Board and the Edmonton Heritage Council”.

Along with producing  at least one written document, or other documentation, which can be audio or video and two public presentations for specific events or occasions as agreed upon in each year of the two-year term.

And “develop a work plan, writing activities and public presentations in consultation with an advisory committee established by the Edmonton Historical Board and the Edmonton Heritage Council”.

I came across it by pure chance yesterday with the announcement on Monday of the 7th Historian Laureate, who is Amber Violet Paquette.  

She is the city’s first historian laureate of Indigenous decent which according to one press account promises a new direction for the projects, because after  “kicking off with a couple of relatively traditional historians, subsequent appointees have employed a wider variety of approaches — from Marlena Wyman’s sketches of Edmonton architecture to Chris Chang-Yen Philips’s podcasts on bits of local history, to Danielle Metcalfe-Chenail’s work on the jagged past of the Charles Camsell Hospital.

Two of the last three appointees have been in their 20s, while a lot of the recent work has gone beyond civic boosterism into history that is complex and uncomfortable”.**

And if you want to learn more I suggest you follow the links to the City Council’s page and the newspaper article devoted to Amber Violet Paquette.

Of course here in Manchester there are a plethora of organizations which in their different ways do much the same work, of which the charity Manchester Histories is one I have been involved in. 

It “delivers projects, events and activities with communities that reveal, share and celebrate Greater Manchester's diverse histories and heritage. 

We also host Manchester Histories Festival.

Manchester Histories is a growing and dynamic charity that works collaboratively with people, organisations, and partners to reveal, share and celebrate Greater Manchester's diverse Histories and Heritage.

Manchester Histories works throughout the year delivering projects, training, exhibitions, events, networks and more with communities to recognise, explore and value histories”***

And that pretty much is that, leaving me just to say I look forward to reading about how Ms. Paquette, develops the story of the indigenous people of Alberta, and the links with modern day Edmonton.

But I couldn’t close without mentioning The Neon Sign Museum, which is the first of its kind in Canada, and features a collection of functional historic signs that tell a story about Edmonton’s neon past. 

The City of Edmonton has collected 20 neon signs, all of which have been restored and installed on the east wall of the TELUS building and the south wall of the Mercer Warehouse building on 104 Street and 104 Avenue, Edmonton.****

And before anyone points out that there are no pictures of Ms. Paquette, or the indigenous peoples of Alberta, that is simply because I have yet to acquire permission to include them.

But I have made requests, so as they say watch this space.

Pictures, the Canadian heartlands, 2011, Lori Oschefski, statue of Emmeline Pankhurst, 2019, from the collection of Andrew Simcock, Neon Museum, courtesy of Edmonton City Council, Manchester Histories, courtesy of Manchester Histories, the Albert Memorial, 2019 and Manchester History Festival, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

* Role of the Historian Laureate, Edmonton City Council,6 https://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/edmonton_archives/historian-laureate.aspx

** Edmonton's historian laureate program a success story too few know about, Keith Gerein, Edmonton Journal, May 23, 2020, https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/keith-gerein-edmontons-historian-laureate-program-a-success-story-too-few-know-about/

***Manchester Histories, https://manchesterhistories.co.uk/aboutus/default.aspx

**** The Neon Museum, https://www.edmonton.ca/city_government/edmonton_archives/neon-sign-museum.aspx

He was always part of my life........The Kenora Cenotaph

He was always part of my life. 

He is not laying in repose, nor displayed on bended knee, nor with his head bowed. Instead, he stands atop a roughly sculpted piece of granite, on a base of solid blocks of stone, looking towards the northeastern skies, forever silent, forever vigil.  Wearing a soldier’s uniform and great coat, he stands firm - boldly - a constant reminder of what was and still is.

A list of names, etched on a bronze plaque, is attached to the locally hewn granite.

It is the Roll of Honour: the names of the ninety soldiers from my small home town of five thousand, whose lives were taken in the Great War, in partial payment for the freedoms my country continues to cherish and value.

No other names have since been added, but there could be many, for the fallen from World War II was a much longer list.

This place of remembrance was created by Creber Brothers, of Toronto, Ontario, to the specifications of the Memorial Committee.

The entire cost of $8,000 was raised in less than one year by the townspeople: door to door canvasing, a carnival, teas, bazaars, and musical  performances in the little local opera house. All contributed to this community project.


Ever since that warm autumn day, September 7, 1924, this soldier has stood on the lawn in front of the courthouse in Kenora, Ontario - just one of the many memorials across this nation, dedicated to those who served, but never returned.

His nameless face is gazed upon, and most often remembered, when people gather around him on Remembrance Day, every November 11th.  We have placed wreaths and crosses at his base, said prayers, played The Last Post, and sung the traditional remembrance song, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”


I think of those who have died and all who have served in battles, conflicts, wars, and during peacetime.

I think of my relatives who served in World War II: both my parents – my mother in the Canadian Women’s Army Corps, my father with the 8th Canadian Infantry in Italy and, later, Belgium; my aunt, a nurse in France; and, my five uncles, one of whom was severely burned when his plane was downed near the English Channel.

I think of my husband, now deceased, whose sense of duty, commitment, pride and loyalty to his country, were formed in his fourteen years with the Canadian Armed Forces – without a single shot being fired. Like his grandfather before him, Wayne was mustard gassed, but not in the fields of Ypres.  Instead, it was on the training fields in Suffield, Alberta in 1968. The horrors never seem to end.


One monument, this one cenotaph, has been a focus for me but once a year; yet its story, and the memories it evokes, will continue to be a place where I can think upon and express gratitude to those it represents.
“It is not a new bereavement, but one which time has softened. Nature has already decorated their graves with memorials of her love; for over the humblest, she has bidden grasses to grow, poppies to bloom, and the butterfly and the hummingbird to wave their little wings– ancient emblems of immortality.”  Kenora Miner and News, September 16, 1924, p.1.

© Susan (Hillman) Brazeau, Lloydminster, Alberta

Pictures; Cenotaph Photo: By C. Linde, 1924, Lake of the Woods Museum Collection, all other photos from the author’s Family Collection