Museums & Historic Sites
Alberta is famous for its outstanding museums and many historic sites and areas. Discover the past through displays and collections, traveling exhibits, special events and interactive heritage activities across the province—fun for the Alberta history buff and the whole family.
Getting Started
Discover Alberta's rich legacy of railways, aerospace, pioneer life, sports and multiculturalism. Start your quest at either Alberta Community Development or Alberta Heritage where you'll find hundreds of museums, historic sites and cultural attractions around Alberta. To get you started, below we've listed some favourite sites around the province.
Alberta Central
In Red Deer, the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame features exhibits on hockey, honoured members, ice and snow sports, interactive games and sports introduced by immigrants in the early 1800s.The Reynolds-Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin brings technology alive through hands-on displays, audio-visual shows, artifact demonstrations, interpreter programs and special events. In the summer you can examine the 1,400 vehicles stored in the museum’s warehouse.
The Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, 25 minutes east of Edmonton on Hwy 16, is an open air museum that features 33 restored historic buildings. Interpreters portray individuals who lived and worked in the area from 1892 to 1930.
Alberta North
At the Grande Prairie Museum restored buildings, farm equipment and exhibits describe life around the year 1909, when the last major land rush in North America brought settlers to Grande Prairie. The museum also features special displays and an exhibit on Aboriginal life.Historic Dunvegan features the restored buildings of Fort Dunvegan, a fur trading post established in 1805, and the St. Charles Mission. Activities include exhibits and guided tours. Its market garden supplies local grocery stores.
At the site of the world's largest single deposit of oil sands, the Athabasca Oil Sands Interpretive Centre portrays the history of the area and also features traveling exhibits and special events.
Alberta South
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is one of the world’s oldest, largest and best-preserved buffalo jumps. The site has an interpretive centre, hands-on activities, special events and archaeological digs.
Frank Slide Interpretive Centre in Crowsnest Pass, highlights the rich history of the Crowsnest Pass amid the breathtaking beauty of the Canadian Rockies. Visitors can experience a variety of interpretive programs, presentations and special events. Displays throughout the Centre feature the 1903 Frank Slide (rockslide-avalanche), the Canadian Pacific Railway, European settlement, early underground coal mining and community life. An award winning audio/visual presentation entitled "In the Mountain's Shadow" is shown daily. Also showing is a docudrama created for the 2003 centennial, entitled "On the Edge of Destruction - The Frank Slide Story."
Fort Whoop-Up Interpretive Centre in Lethbridge. The fort was originally known as Fort Hamilton. Built by Americans in 1869, it was orignally established as a fur trading base. It was one of the earliest and most notorius of the "whiskey forts," dealing in contraband liquor and firearms. It soon earned the name of Fort Whoop-Up. Follow interpretive guides as they lead you through the tumultuous past and use state of the art interactive displays to see what life was like in the real Wild West.
Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village in Pincher Creek is named after the legendary George “Kootenai” Brown, who helped found Waterton Lakes National Park. Revisit the past within the log walls of turn-of-the-century buildings and through thousands of artifacts from ancient dental equipment to children’s toys and Boer War paraphernalia.
Medicine Hat Clay Industries National Historic District offers interpretive walks through its huge pre-1914 facility. The discovery of an abundant supply of natural gas and rich deposits of quality clay led an entrepreneurial Medicine Hat family to create a prosperous business, one of the few to survive the turbulent economy generated by the First World War. Learn about the art of casting, jiggering and stoneware.
Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, located near Drumheller in the Canadian Badlands is home to the world’s largest collection of dinosaur fossils. Here you’ll find an extensive display of dinosaur skeletons. Stand next to one and see how big they really were. There are hand-on exhibits, computer simulations, multimedia exhibits, outdoor displays and special events. Particularly popular is the children’s dinosaur camp.
The Fort Museum of the North West Mounted Police, in Fort Macleod, just west of Lethbridge, preserves the rich and storied history of the the police force established by Sir John A. McDonald in 1873 to combat the lawlessness of the western frontier. When the NWMP arrived in 1874, they built Fort Macleod on an island on the Old Man River, just west of what was left of Fort Whoop-Up. In addition to fighting the whiskey trade, their mission was to secure peaceful relations with First Nations peoples. Treaties were signed with both the Cree and Blackfoot in 1876 and 1877. Known today as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) they have become an icon around the world for all things "Canadian."
Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park is 32 km (20 mi) east of the town of Milk River. An archaeological preserve within the park protects more than 50 petroglyph sites and the largest concentration of rock art on the North American plains. The artists are thought to be the Blackfoot people who settled this area for at least 3,500 years.
Calgary & Area
The Aero Space Museum is home to one of Canada’s most extensive collections of aircraft, helicopters and aero engines. Aircraft on display or being restored include an Avro Lancaster Mark X and a WWI Sopwith Tri-Plane. There is also a large library of aviation books, manuals and magazines.
Fort Calgary (Historic Park) was the outpost of the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) in the late 1800s. Much of the original fort has been reconstructed around an interpretive centre. Winner of a Calgary Heritage Education Award, the site offers a number of programs for children to engage them in learning about the history of Calgary. A favourite is the “NWMP boot camp,” a day-long program where children get to experience the life of a Mountie in 1875, complete with outdoor living skills and old fashioned arts and crafts.
The Glenbow Museum is western Canada’s largest. The collections include artifacts that tell the story of Aboriginal peoples and frontier exploration. The gem stone collections and world culture exhibits are not to be missed. Feature galleries are always changing and often include international traveling exhibitions. The museum houses the largest collection of western art in Canada.
Heritage Park is Canada's largest living historical village. On 66 scenic acres you can journey back in time and experience life as it was at the turn of the century. Three different time periods in Western Canada's history await: an 1860's Fur Trading Fort, a 1880's Pre-Railway Settlement, and a 1910 Western Prairie Town. Hop on board an authentic steam train, visit a blacksmith, enjoy the goodness of home baked fresh bread, discover the fun of old fashioned midways and take a reservoir cruise on the S.S. Moyie.
Museum of the Regiments is actually four museums under one roof—Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians), Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, the Calgary Highlanders and the King’s Own Calgary Regiment. This facility has permanent and changing exhibits to captivate any military history buff.
Canadian Rockies
The 1903 architecture of the Banff Park Museum, with its decorative cross-log construction, is reason enough to stop by. More than 5,000 natural history exhibits—some dating back to 1860—give a glimpse of how animals were studied in the Victorian era.Just south of Banff, the Canmore Museum Geoscience Centre displays historical artifacts, teaches about the local geology, offers guided hikes and brings in guest speakers. The Centre is run by the Centennial Museum Society, which also maintains the restored North West Mounted Police barracks on the town’s main street and a heritage garden.
Cave and Basin National Historic Site commemorates the discovery of the hot springs in Banff that led to the establishment in 1885 of Canada’s first national park. Visit the cave, with its original vent hole, the outdoor basin’s emerald pool, the restored bathhouse, the exhibits and the nature trails.
Edmonton & Area
If you’re a railway enthusiast or looking to take the family on an interesting outing, the Alberta Railway Museum has more than 50 old locomotives and railway cars, including the only complete set of a Northern Alberta Railways work train. In the summer take a ride on a speeder car. Locomotive passenger service is available on holiday weekends.
Take a look at how Alberta's oil and gas industry began: visit the Canadian Petroleum Discovery Centre in Leduc, just south of Edmonton. The Leduc #1 Historical Site relives the now-famous find on February 13, 1947 that heralded the beginnings of Alberta's oil patch and paved the way to our status today as a global producer.
Fort Edmonton Historic Park features 75 structures, many of them originals. The past comes to life from Edmonton’s fur trading days. Costumed interpreters recreate the 1846 Hudson’s Bay Fort and the Native Encampment. Learn about the lives and experiences of the Métis who played a role in Edmonton's development. Overnight accommodation is available right in the park, at the elegantly restored Hotel Selkirk.
At the Royal Alberta Museum the permanent exhibits include the Syncrude Gallery of Aboriginal Cultures, which tells the story of 11,000 years of First Nations settlement on this continent; the Natural History Gallery and Wild Alberta. Feature exhibitions change regularly so there is always something new to see.
Take afternoon tea at the Arbour Restaurant at Rutherford House, the restored Edwardian mansion that was home to Alberta’s first premier. Interpreters in period costume perform household duties of the time and lead tours.
The Telephone Historical Centre is a hands-on museum with an amazing collection of vintage telephone and telegraph equipment. You can even work an early switchboard. Its archives include Edmonton telephone directories dating back to the early 1900s.
More Info...
Alberta has so many excellent museums, heritage and historic sites, it's impossible to list them all here. Click on "Advanced" under the search window at the top right corner of this page. Select the Categories tab, click on Attractions and select Historic/Cultural/Religious Sites/Museums. You can also add a region to narrow your search.
