A Little Bit Ritchie Episode 3 Transcript: Bound by the Rails
Hello, and welcome to A Little Bit Ritchie, the local history podcast curious about all things Edmonton. I’m your host, Lydia Neufeld. To celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of the Ritchie Community League, every month this year, we’ll dive into a new sector of local history to discover what makes Ritchie—Ritchie!
The Ritchie Community League respectfully acknowledges that the land where we gather is Treaty 6 territory and Metis Nation of Alberta Region 4. This land has been a traditional meeting ground for many Indigenous peoples. The territory on which Ritchie stands has provided a travelling route and home to the Cree, Blackfoot, Saulteaux, Métis and other Indigenous peoples.
This podcast analyzes the history of the land, and we begin with the understanding that the community, currently known as Ritchie, exists on stolen land. Throughout this year of centennial celebrations, the Ritchie Community League is working to explore what the land means to the community and how we can create a future on this land that assists in undoing the processes of colonization.
A Little Bit Ritchie is more than entertainment and celebration. It is also a mutual learning method. The league has developed a Reconciliation Committee, which aims to understand the history of the lands we call home. The Committee reflects on the Community Leagues’ existence in Ritchie and its relationship to the land. We hope to learn more about the area’s rich Indigenous history and build stronger relationships with communities and residents present today. Educational opportunities will be available for the community through readings, discussions, and guest speakers. If you’d like to get involved, share stories or educational resources, or learn more, please visit our show notes for more information.
Today on A Little Bit Ritchie, we’re talking transportation! This episode includes a quick overview of the famous railway that connected Canadians across the nation—the Canadian Pacific Railway—and we’ll address the displacement left in the train's wake. Next, we’ll take a look into Sleeping Car Porters’ lives, working conditions, and activism. Then we will chat about the Edmonton Yukon Railway, one of the lesser-known railways in the region. To conclude, we’ll discuss how the rail lines shaped the contours of modern-day Ritchie, and we will finish with a tale of early immigration and settlement that hits close to home.
Speaking of settling in Ritchie, we are thrilled to announce our March community partner: Doughnut Party.
When you cross the threshold of Doughnut Party, it’s like walking into a room full of your closest friends. Owners and Doughnut Pioneers Matthew and Simon began their pastry careers slinging doughnuts at farmer's markets under the name Moonshine Doughnuts. In January 2017, in response to their great success and high demand, the pair opened their brick-and-mortar shop in Holland Plaza, and three years later, they opened their storefront in Ritchie. This February, Doughnut Party celebrated its second anniversary in Ritchie, and the team has loved every minute. At Doughnut Party, every delectable dessert is made entirely in-house from scratch.
Doughnut Party is working on a Ritchie Mural on the side of their building, hoping to complete it by the first Friday in June: National Doughnut Day and the beginning of pride month. The mural represents the Doughnut Party brand, not as an advertisement but as an artful gift to the Ritchie community and will serve as a symbol of acceptance for all.
Every weekend during March, you can stop by Doughnut Party’s Ritchie location to pick up a Ritchieberry Fritter: a delectable fritter featuring wild berries and vanilla glaze!
Steam-powered railways were revolutionary for transportation in nineteenth-century Canada and ultimately led to the nation’s unification. The iron horse was crucial for industrialization; the tracks created new opportunities, united regions, and established a demand for resources and technology. The Canadian Pacific Railway—CPR for short—facilitated settlement in the West and played a vital role in the advancement of Confederation.
With funding from the Canadian government, the CPR began construction on the rail line in 1881.1 Between the years of 1882 to 1883, tracks were placed across the Alberta prairies, from Medicine Hat, through Calgary, to Banff.2 In 1885, the CPR installed a line between Medicine Hat and Lethbridge. “The ‘Last Spike’ was driven into the earth on November 7, 1885,” in Craigellachie, British Columbia. In June of 1886, the first train chugged down the tracks from Montreal and arrived on July 4 in Port Moody, B.C.3 From coast to coast, Canada was “secured by the strong embrace of the iron bands.”4
To bring this massive project to life, the federal government allotted the operation 25 million dollars, 25 million acres of land grants, “tax concessions, rights-of-way, and a 20-year prohibition on the construction of competing lines on the prairies that might provide feeder lines to US railways.”5 The railway was a massive feat for a nation of only three and a half million citizens.6 Though the transcontinental line unified Canada, the railways that stretch across our country are tarnished by the stains of racism and discrimination.
Treaties 1 through 7, written and signed between 1871 and 1877, granted the Canadian Government possession of the land and allowed for the construction of the CPR. The Crown’s Commissioners informed Indigenous people that the Queen desired to create settlements on the land.7 The Dominion established treaties to gain land rights from Indigenous people, for the alleged purpose of “peace and good will between them and Her Majesty, and that they may know and be assured of what allowance they are to count upon and receive from Her Majesty's bounty and benevolence.”8
The Plains and Wood Cree, and all other Indigenous people inhabiting the district outlined in the treaties, “hereby cede, release, surrender and yield up to the Government of the Dominion of Canada, for Her Majesty the Queen and Her successors forever, all their rights, titles and privileges, whatsoever […].”9 The permanency of these treaties was not in accordance to the traditions of the Indigenous Nations that signed.10
Before the CPRs construction between Edmonton and Calgary, government officials surveyed lands east and south of Strathcona to create a reserve for the Papaschase Band. We will be devoting an upcoming episode to the history of the Papaschase Band and their relationship to the lands that became Ritchie; therefore, this episode only contains a condensed history that discusses the relationship between early CPR construction and the Papaschase band.
Please note that we discuss historical sources that use derogatory and dehumanizing language about Indigenous peoples in the upcoming section. We will link the references in this episode’s show notes and include a time-stamp in the description which provides the option to skip this section.
When Treaty 6 was signed, the Papaschase band was promised reserve land on the North Saskatchewan river’s northern shore (modern Rossdale and Downtown). However, settlers in the area were scornfully outspoken against the Band and their disapproval of the reserve’s location. Therefore, the government relocated the Papaschase Reserve to a much smaller parcel of land in the Ritchie area.
White settlers were still not happy with this decision. The basis of the settlers’ arguments against, stemmed from racist beliefs and a desire to hold land around Edmonton and Strathcona, considered more valuable for white settlers.
The Edmonton Bulletin included two particularly prejudiced arguments within an 1881 article. The piece argued that “it is disadvantageous to all parties to have an Indian reserve so close to a business centre...because the land is needed by better men.”11 The points of the petition indicate the racist and white supremacist values that prioritized white society in the early development of Strathcona and the western edges of Ritchie. Indigenous people and their rights to the lands were seen as an “obstacle to colonization,” particularly with the rise of immigration to the Edmonton area in the late 1800s.12
These racist arguments had a relationship to Edmonton and Strathcona’s economic and industrial expansion. Due to the desirability of the lands on which the south-side reserve was to be located, colonial settlers deemed it:
“a matter of the greatest importance to the town that the Indians should be induced to remove from their present situation. It would be for the benefit of the Indians to remove them further from civilization, as the too close communication with whites is not conducive to making them good agriculturalists.”13
This article continued to parrot the belief that supposed ‘progress’ required the displacement of Indigenous peoples to make space for the advancement of settler-colonial society, including train tracks. The Papaschase Band was driven from their reserve on the premise of settler greed. Simultaneously, squatters stole reserve land, and the government used coercion and force to remove members of the Papaschase Band shortly after the reserve was established.
In 1890, the Edmonton Bulletin published an article that outlined how the expansion of railways throughout the West was related to the intentional displacement of Indigenous peoples. This article articulated the intention “to locate a town site on the reserve and boom it in the east as the terminus of the C&E railway. [...] It may not be out of place to mention that although a nominal terminus may be located short of the river, the railroad cannot…afford to stop short of the river, so that a terminal town in the Indian reserve is an impossibility.”14 Edmonton-Strathcona and the economic promises of the railway line insidiously contributed to the displacement of Indigenous peoples. (breathing room
The Indian Act, established in 1876, was a set of regulations that formed a policy for interaction between the Federal Government and Indigenous peoples. Though it was not the case of the Edmonton portion of the CPR line, the government used the Indian Act to displace Indigenous peoples to further the development of railway infrastructure. This document contains and promotes the exploitative and paternalistic values that have historically shaped the relationship between the Federal Government and Indigenous peoples.15
Specific to railways, the Indian Act, since its inception, allows for the expropriation of reserve lands for public works projects. The specifics of the 1876 Indian Act were that:
“If any railway, road, or public work passes through or causes injury to any reserve belonging to or in possession of any band of Indians, or if any act occasioning damage to any reserve be done under the authority of any Act of Parliament, or of the legislature of any province, compensation shall be made to them therefore in the same manner as is provided with respect to the lands or rights of other persons; the Superintendent-General shall in any case in which an arbitration may be had, name the arbitrator on behalf of the Indians, and shall act for them in any matter relating to the settlement of such compensation; and the amount awarded in any case shall be paid to the Receiver General for the use of the band of Indians for whose benefit the reserve is held, and for the benefit of any Indian having improvements thereon.”16
While it is a flaw to speculate about historical events and outcomes, in the 1880s, the Indian Act would have allowed the Government to push the development of the Edmonton-Strathcona CPR line through the Papaschase Reserve lands, which would have resulted in the displacement of reserve residents. For an example of this type of the CPR’s complicity in displacing Indigenous peoples, look to Bob Joseph’s book 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act for reference to the displacement of the Squamish Nation.
The train tracks snaked through the countryside and connected cities and provinces, facilitating the growth of small settlements outside of Calgary and Edmonton.17 Fort Calgary was established in 1875 by the North West Mounted Police, who “carved out a wagon trail” to Lone Pine, McDougalls' Trail, and Fort Edmonton.18 The trail facilitated the northern commercial Fur Trade and the whiskey trail, which connected Fort Benton, Montana with Lethbridge, and subsequently, other Alberta settlements.19 The route was named the Calgary-Edmonton Trail—or C&E Trail for short—and at the time of its establishment, there were no recorded European settlements between Calgary and Edmonton.
The C&E Trail ran alongside an ancient glacial corridor that stretched north-to-south for several kilometres between the boreal forests to the rolling hills.20 The trail’s name varied depending on the specific traveller and their destination. Such nicknames included the Old North, Bow River, Fort Benton, and Overland Trail.21
With the construction of the Calgary and Edmonton Railway— or C&E Railway—in 1890-1891, the direction of the historic trail shifted to accommodate the new train tracks, which would later “become incorporated into the CPR's vast system of rail.”22 While the destinations were the same, the Railway “decided on its own route…to accommodate preferred locations for communities. North of Poplar Grove (modern Innisfail) to south Red Deer, the railway was built a couple of kilometres east of the C&E Trail.”23 The rail line between the two forts facilitated a boom in the transportation of people, business, government, and goods.
In Strathcona, the C&E Railway Company bought up the land that would surround the railway line and created the Calgary-Edmonton Townsite Company.24 The Townsite intended to become part of the ‘New Edmonton.’25 This plan meant that Strathcona would be developed to reflect the template of many other railway towns, with the cultural centre on the West of the tracks and the industrial centre to the East. However, Strathcona didn’t follow this pattern. Instead, residences began to spring up to the East, in the early site of Ritchie.26
A steam engine barrelled down the line from Penhold to Calgary and marked the first passenger train ever to grace the tracks. By August of 1891, regularly running passenger cars roared down the railroad between Calgary and Edmonton for over one hundred years, until 1985.27 A passenger aboard the train could complete a trip from one fort to the other in four to five days, at a fee of $25—roughly twelve days of work, as a “good” wage at the time was $2/day.28
The Railway had a profound impact on the Canadian landscape and the development of cities. Rail lines brought yards, tracks, stations and hotels, rendering the iron horse a central part of a city’s infrastructure.29
In 1908, the CPR constructed a train station in the area to welcome and support arriving travellers: The Strathcona CPR Station.30 Built during “a time of substantial local growth and optimism,”31 the Edwardian-era station became known as the “End of Steel.” It was the furthest North the rail lines could extend without constructing bridges that stretched over the North Saskatchewan River.32 The station provides a visible reminder of the strides in early, local development and gives us a glimpse into what would have been the first sight of Ritchie for newcomers in the early 1900s.33 Architecturally, the End of Steel boasts flairs of Classical and Renaissance Revival style with timber details.34 A grand tower sets the Strathcona Station apart and offers a prominent silhouette.35
“The heritage value of the Strathcona CPR Station lies chiefly in that it reflects the importance of the railway to the basic patterns of rural and urban development in Alberta.”36
The early railways assisted with the amalgamation of Edmonton and Strathcona in 1912. The High Level Bridge opened in 1913 providing a second connection between Edmonton and Strathcona. However, the Strathcona CPR station remained the CPR’s most northern divisional point37
The Strathcona CPR Station remained active until 1980. These days it’s home to the restaurant MKT.
The Strathcona CPR Station had its share of issues with racism and discrimination. In 1910, “The Lounger” published a racist joke in their newspaper, and Black men employed at the Strathcona station informed The Lounger of the joke’s discriminatory nature. However, despite awareness of the joke’s racist qualities, the newspaper published it again in 1917.
The employees were Sleeping Car Porters, historically Black men who tended to wealthy white passengers aboard luxurious Sleeping Cars. This job was one of the few available to Black Canadian men in the early 1900s. On the railway, Black men worked exclusively as Porters.38 The profession was established in the United States in 1867 after the invention of George Pullman’s Pullman Palace Car Company.39 Pullman Cars were extravagant and luxurious compared to regular passenger cars, boasting rich walnut wainscotting, shivering crystal chandeliers, and silk shades all in saturated technicolour.40
The Pullman Palace Car Company arrived in Canada in 1870, bringing the tradition of Sleeping Car Porters across the border. Between 1916 and 1919, 500 Black porters arrived in Canada to work for the CPR. They came from the United States, England, Africa, and the Caribbean.41 “New arrivals felt very unwelcome. They recognized the familiar stench of racism.”42
The 1996 documentary The Road Taken states: “[Porters] were the caretakers of cultural nuances. Philosophers and diplomats, who knew the land geography of the human spirit. Some earned degrees in Science, languages and religion. They travelled with and were travelling books.”43
A porter’s duties included “ironing clothes, shining shoes, carrying passengers’ luggage, setting up and cleaning sleeping berths, preparing baths, cleaning spittoons, packing suitcases, tending to children, and other personal chores.”44 On trips sometimes six days long, porters were on call 24 hours of the day, catering to every beck and call of the white passengers.45
Though the success of the Sleeping Car is widely attributed to the experience porters created, a porters’ time on the train was less than enjoyable. “George Pullman modelled his train service on enslavement-era servitude.”46 All porters were referred to as “George,” affirming their subservience to passengers, “their namelessness an echo of earlier dehumanization during the era of slavery.”47
Porters’ dedicated work yielded little compensation. Experienced Canadian porters earned between $75 and $85 a month, though conductors took home about $268 per month.48 There was no opportunity for a porter to be promoted on the train. The roles of conducting, and engineering, were exclusive to white men, and “white railway workers and trade unionists allied with management and the state to erect a racially stratified occupational structure that confined Black workers to poorly paid jobs such as laying tracks and portering.”49
Porters living conditions on the train further demonstrate the discrimination they faced. While other white crew members, conductors, and passengers slept in relatively spacious and comfortable arrangements, the porters’ sleeping conditions were far less than ideal. They slept in the smoker's quarters, surrounded by a privacy curtain, for a three-hour rest period.50 At mealtimes, Porters were separated from other staff and passengers,51 and their food was often spoiled.
To make ends meet, Porters began to accept tips. Former CPR Sleeping Car porter Stanley G. Grizzle stated that he “felt uncomfortable every time [he] extended [his] open palm to receive a tip... it was the same kind of approach as begging—dehumanizing, demoralizing and degrading.’"52
Porters could not join the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees, which was the largest and most powerful railway union in Canada.53 In fact, the unions 1908 constitution stated that only white people could be members.54
In 1917, Winnipeg porters John Arthur Robinson, J.W. Barber, B.F. Jones and P. White founded the Order of Sleeping Car Porters—or OSCP for short—organized by and for Black Canadians as a method of extending unity and collective strength. The OSCP was the first Black railway union in North America.55 Shortly after its creation, The OSCP applied to the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees, but they were denied as the union did not believe it was necessary.
In Riding the Rails, Jenny Carson notes the rejection “[revealed] that White Canadian workers were no less racialized or racist than their counterparts to the South.”56In 1919, after an intense uphill battle, the OSCP negotiated contracts for porters on the CNR and joined the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees after they removed their "'Whites-only' clause."57 However, there was still no equality for Black members in the union as they were offered "segregated membership for lower-paid positions."58
South of the border, American porters were experiencing similar issues with racism and discrimination on the tracks and within railway unions. In August 1925, porters in the United States established the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Philip Randolph, a Black American Socialist and the Chairman of the 1963 March on Washington, led the American Brotherhood.59 Randolph was an undeniable asset due to his media ties, which he used to draw attention to the porters’ poor working conditions.60
The American Federation of Labour awarded the American Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters an international charter, and in 1939, CNR porters joined the Brotherhood. After lengthy and illicit communications, in 1942, the Brotherhood set up offices in Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg. Canadian porters unanimously voted for the support of the Brotherhood “ending the twenty-year domination of the company union.”61 The group applied pressure to the provincial and federal governments to establish laws that protected workers from discrimination and “fought for employment, housing, and human rights for all.”62
In 1945, the Canadian branch of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters negotiated its first collective agreement with the CPR, securing salary increases, a week’s worth of vacation pay, overtime pay, and shorter working hours. Additionally, porters were given the right to hang signs in their cars that stated their names. The Brotherhood further negotiated improved sleeping and working conditions and transparent disciplinary measures. Carson asserts, “Grizzle describes the victory as nothing short of miraculous. It was the first time in Canadian history that a trade union organized by and for Black men had signed a collective agreement with a white employer.”63
In 1964, Black Canadians were finally able to work in other streams at the CPR and the CNR, like engineering and conducting.64 However, Black men still faced racism and discrimination at the hands of their white co-workers and passengers. Porters’ actions were a catalyst for the recognition of the rights of Black Canadians to equal employment.65
An interesting side note about Stanley Grizzle: In the 1960s he became Canada's first Black Citizenship Judge.
To learn more about Sleeping Car Porters and their heroic efforts, the documentary The Road Taken provides an excellent overview. Additionally, we recommend Stanley Grizzle’s memoir, “My Name’s Not George: The Story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in Canada.”
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The CPR united cities across Canada. Trains facilitated transportation to the nation’s heartland at speeds never seen before. Locomotives drew newcomers to the prairies and brought about massive agricultural, industrial, and settlement booms. Though the draw of the capital “Edmonton” attracted settlers to the area, international railways didn’t stop in Edmonton but in Strathcona.
The first railway constructed in Edmonton, before its amalgamation with Strathcona in 1912, was The Edmonton Yukon and Pacific Railway, or EY&P for short.66 The railway was built in 1902 to simply serve as an Edmonton area freight and passenger railway. Originally named the Edmonton District Railway in 1896, the rail line changed its name in 1899 and is affectionately referred to as “The shortest railway with the longest name.”
The EY&P was supposed to unite Edmonton and Strathcona. However, on the larger goal of extending to the Yukon, it failed. In 1899, the EY&P fell into the hands of William Mackenzie and Donald Mann, railway entrepreneurs with the Canadian Northern Railway Company who had big dreams of expanding the line up to the north, as denoted by the railway’s new name.67 While Mackenzie and Mann fantasized of extending the line up to the northern territories, only twelve kilometres of railway were ever constructed, and the line never stretched outside of Edmonton’s city limits.68
The Federal Government recognized the promise Edmonton possessed. Between 1898 and 1900, the Government designed and facilitated the construction of a railway bridge crossing the North Saskatchewan River, which connected Edmonton and Strathcona for the first time. This bridge was named the Inter-Urban Bridge, but after the construction of the High Level Bridge in 1913, the Inter-Urban Bridge became known as the Low Level Bridge. Until that point, the only way across the River was aboard one of John Walter’s ferries, which only sailed when there was no ice on the water.69
“From July 1901 until freeze-up, a crew led by Malcolm MacCrimmon used animal-pulled devices to grade a railway bed through Mill Creek ravine. The crew used horses and mules to pull scrapers and wagons. [They] used scows on the river to transport equipment and supplies. Malcolm expected the EY&P job to last only two or three months, but wet weather and a shortage of workers slowed progress. [...] The summer of 1901 was particularly wet, with rain almost every day. The ground became soggy. Sections of the railway roadbed slid into the ravine three different times.”70
While the citizens of Edmonton were excited to form a connection with the CPR in Strathcona, those south of the river were not impressed.
The EY&P’s tracks crept along the Inter-Urban Bridge, connected to the Calgary and Edmonton line in Strathcona, and sped parallel to Mill Creek Ravine, however not without a struggle.71
In Oct. 1901 the federal government urged the CPR to allow for the joining of its Calgary & Edmonton line with the EY&P. “A CPR crew, accompanied by a Strathcona constable, arrived and stopped the EY&P workers from making the connection. When [EY&P Superintendent] Pace ordered the crew to press ahead, the constable pulled out a warrant for his arrest. During the brief standoff that followed, a CPR train came down the line from Strathcona station. The EY&P men stood aside and watched in surprise as the train stopped right where the connection was to be made. With the train sitting there, the connection could not be made. [...] However, when the regular 5:30 PM run from Calgary came through, the parked train had to move. After the Calgary train had passed the point in dispute, Pace and his crew came out of the bushes. Before the CPR train could get back, the crew lifted the tracks and made the connection.”72
After an intense and gruelling construction process, the EY&P’s debut iron horse charged down the tracks on October 20, 1902, spearheaded by a Canadian Northern Locomotive 26. “A crowd celebrating the big event was carried on a flatbed. [...] The rail line’s roadbed was still not secure. Workmen hurriedly chopped down trees and banged them under the railway ties to prop up sagging sections of rail as the train made its first run.”73
This was the first train ever to cross the North Saskatchewan into Edmonton.74 Check out our show notes for an image of this event. After its debut, the EY&P operated four passenger trains a day, which cost 25¢ per ride.75
In 1907, the rail line connected with the Canadian Northern Mainline at its station on 104 Avenue, but in 1911, the trek north had still not been achieved. After a run of 26 years, the EY&P cancelled its passenger service in 1929. In the years that followed, the primary function of the line was to haul freight.
In 1952, Edmonton officials asked the CNR to abandon the EY&P so the city could begin constructing a highway north of the river. Lieutenant Governor J.J. Bowlen ceremoniously removed the first spike from the rail line on April 29, 1954, and deconstruction was completed in May. All but 96 metres of the newly developed 5-kilometre long track was abandoned or demolished. Of the original 7 kilometres, 2.7-kilometres running from Edmonton to Strathcona were abandoned. The 4.4-kilometres that remained continued to serve the Gainers Meatpacking Plant in Ritchie. In 1953, the Low Level Bridge was converted from a train bridge to a highway bridge. When the Gainers Meat Packing Plant closed their doors in the 1980s, the EY&P ceased operations entirely.76
Edmonton City as a Map Project notes that the trestle bridge stretching across Mill Creek Ravine is one of the last physical landmarks of the EY&P. To see photos of the trestle bridge, take a look at our show notes, and to learn more about the EY&P, we recommend Tom Monto’s book, “Old Strathcona: Edmonton’s Southside Roots.”
German settlements made up the third-largest cultural group in the greater Edmonton-Strathcona area in the early 1900s. Perhaps this was in part due to the Immigration Hall on 80th Avenue and 100th Street. Most of the ‘German’ immigrants arriving in Strathcona in this period came from Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Romania, with fewer than one-fifth coming from Germany itself.77
As a result of the rail lines dividing East and West Ritchie, residents were quite transient and boarding houses were common in the area. German settlements came with the construction and completion of the C&E Railway. In response to the manufacturing industries forming in South Edmonton that complemented the agriculture surrounding the area, “German-speaking settlements spread across the land between Edmonton, Wetaskiwin, and Camrose.” In 1885, the Canadian census recorded an encampment of German people on the northern banks of the North Saskatchewan.78
Perhaps in response to homesickness, there was a push from the German-speaking communities to keep their language alive and connect with others from their mother country. By the start of the twentieth century, there were roughly thirteen German-speaking collectives in the Edmonton area, and though the collectives were united by their language, they were divided by religion.79
The church on 81 Avenue and 100 Street is representative of immigration trends in Ritchie. Before they had a formal church, Anglicans who settled in Strathcona held Sunday services in the train station waiting room.80 In 1893, members of the community came together and formed Holy Trinity Anglican Church on 81 Avenue and 100 Street.
The original wood-framed church was built on land donated by the Calgary-Edmonton Townsite Company.81 A few years later, the Anglican church moved to its current site at 84 Avenue and 100 Street. With the rise in German immigration, there was a new demand for a church for these recent migrants. In 1902, German immigrants founded Trinity Lutheran Church on the original site of the Anglican Church, at 81 Avenue and 100 Street.
“German Moravians founded a religious home in Strathcona when they purchased [a former] Baptist church in 1904. The Moravians used that building until 1908 when a cornerstone was laid for a new church at 99 Street and 84 Avenue [...]. ”82
Moravians were a Protestant denomination who immigrated from Volhynia, Russia, now part of Ukraine. The Moravian's relocation to Alberta granted them the freedom to practice their religion and own land, “a privilege not enjoyed in Russia.”83 The Moravians relocated from South Edmonton to an area to the northeast of the city limits and established the community of Bruderheim. However, many people began to feel isolated in Bruderheim, “the heavily timbered nature of the land drove several families to return to South Edmonton,” to an area known as Bruederfeld, which is now part of Mill Woods.84
These immigration patterns went on to influence particular developments in West Ritchie. Ritchie became a landing pad, a temporary neighbourhood where many people would stay for a few months and then never return.
By the early 1910s, 1/5th of the people living in West Ritchie spoke German, and it was the centre of German culture in Edmonton. At the end of WWI, a new wave of Germans flocked to Strathcona, primarily settling in Ritchie and Hazeldean. The Gainers Meat Packing plant employed many of these German immigrants.85
Dane Ryksen, a historian and the creator of the blog Forgotten Edmonton has a wonderfully detailed blog post about the Minchau family, who were essential in the development of Edmonton’s German community.86 August and Carolina Minchau, a German couple who arrived in Strathcona in the early 1900s, purchased a parcel of the Papaschase Reserve land near modern Ellerslie Road and 50th Street. On this land, the couple built a homestead and a farm. After finding prosperity in the agricultural industry, they extended their hands to relatives in their homeland, offering support to any of their family members who joined them in Strathcona.87
In 1907, their eighteen-year-old nephew, Adolf Minchau, accepted their offer and sailed across the Pacific ocean to come to Strathcona. When he arrived, Adolf helped his aunt and uncle on their farm and worked alongside Edmonton pioneer John Walter, learning the Millwrights trade.88 Later, Adolf apprenticed with a blacksmith. In 1911, after absorbing all he could from his mentors, Adolf opened a blacksmith shop at 7711-99 Street. Here, he found himself swaddled in the familiar cloth of his homeland; Ritchie was a bustling hub for German settlers.
Nine years later, in 1920, Adolf purchased a parcel of land in an industrial district just east of the Strathcona CPR Station in West Ritchie. The shop stood at 8108 101 Street, and until recently, remnants of Adolf's original signage cast a ghostly shadow on the building's graffiti-embellished facade. In September 2020, the Minchau Blacksmith Shop was demolished. Despite the best efforts of Heritage Forward, a local historical activist group, the structure "wasn't deemed provincially significant"89 and had many structural flaws.
As noted by Ryksen: “It’s easy to write off Adolf’s building as nothing important, too boring, too young, or just one of many blacksmiths that once lined city streets. While Minchau’s blacksmithing shop may not have been anything significant architecturally, it was significant for the place it held within the city’s cultural history. Minchau’s shop spoke to the history of Edmonton’s Germanic community and the trials it faced. It spoke to the history of a man, representative of many who came seeking opportunity. It spoke to a field which has long lost its prominence in society. It spoke to the history of development in Edmonton’s Southside.”
To learn more about the Minchaus and their endeavours, take a look at Dane Ryksen's article titled, “The Minchau Blacksmithing Shop,” we have linked this article in the show notes.
While the histories of the CPR and its relationship to the displacement of Indigenous peoples, the experiences and advocacy of Sleeping Car Porters, and the EY&P’s stunted development are all independent stories, they are all tied to the land of Ritchie by the rail ties that bounded the neighbourhood throughout its development. The contours of Ritchie were formed by the ‘iron ribbon’ that surrounded the neighbourhood’s perimeter on three sides. Tracks from the EY&P snake through Mill Creek Ravine and into the communities boundaries, and Ritchie straddles the CPR station to the east and west.
As a small Western Canadian neighbourhood, Ritchie saw changes in greater Canadian history from its doorstep. In this way, Ritchie’s relationship with historic movements was a microcosm of the more significant impacts of these events.
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of A Little Bit Ritchie. If you enjoyed the episode, please give us a rating and a review! A Little Bit Ritchie is brought to you by the Ritchie Community League Centennial Celebration Committee. Erin Fraser and Seghan MacDonald chair the committee. This episode was researched by Linnea Bell, and written by Elyse Colville. A Little Bit Ritchie is produced by Castria Communications and Media Solutions. This project is supported by the Edmonton Heritage Council and the City of Edmonton. Thank you to Tierra Connor for creating our artwork.
To see photos of the locations and people mentioned in this episode, detailed show notes, a transcription, and references for this episode, visit the link in our description. And don’t forget to pop by Doughnut Party in Ritchie to try a delightful Ritchieberry Fritter!
If you have a story you would like to share in a future episode of A Little Bit Ritchie, send us an email at community-planning@ritchie-league.com.
On our next episode, we will talk about Ritchie’s rich recreational history, from playgrounds to the history of sports programs. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of A Little Bit Ritchie! I’m Lydia Neufeld.
Endnotes
1. Marsh, “Railway History in Canada.”
2. Alan Vanterpool,“A Brief History of Alberta’s Railway,”
3. Marsh, “Railway History in Canada.”
4. “Canadian Pacific Railway, 1886,” Medicine Hat Times, 1886 June 24.
5. Marsh, “Railway History in Canada.”
6. Marsh, “Railway History in Canada.”
7. Roger Duhame, F.R.S.C., “Copy of Treaty No. 6 between Her Majesty the Queen and the Plain and Wood Cree Indians and other Tribes of Indians at Fort Carlton, Fort Pitt and Battle River with Adhesion,” (Ottawa: Queen's Printer and Controller of Stationery Ottawa, 1964).
8. Duhame, “Copy of Treaty No. 6.”
9. Duhame, “Copy of Treaty No. 6.”
10. Olive Patricia Dickason, Canada’s First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1992), 275.
11. “Those Petitions,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 1881 Jan. 31, 1.
12. Christian, “Indian Reserves Again,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 1882 Apr. 29, 3.
13. “South Side Reserve,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 1884 Aug. 2, 2.
14. “Indian Reserve,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 1890 June 14, 4.
15. Bob Joseph, 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality, (Port Coquitlam, BC: Indigenous Relations, 2018), 16-19.
16. Joseph, 21 Things, 32-33.
17. The Forth Junction Society, “Rise and Fall of Passenger Rail.”
18. John T. Moore, “Calgary and Edmonton Trail (C&E Trail) - Historical Perspective - Forth Junction,” Forth Junction Heritage Society, 2015, http://www.forthjunction.ca/c-and-e-trail.htm.
19. Moore, “Calgary and Edmonton Trail (C&E Trail).”
20. Moore, “Calgary and Edmonton Trail (C&E Trail).”
21. Moore, “Calgary and Edmonton Trail (C&E Trail).”
22. Alberta Register of Historic Places, “Strathcona Canadian Pacific Railway Station,” Alberta Register of Historic Places, Accessed 2022 Feb. 6, https://hermis.alberta.ca/ARHP/Details.aspx?DeptID=1&ObjectID=4664-0106
23. Moore, “Calgary and Edmonton Trail (C&E Trail).”
24. Tom Monto, Old Strathcona: Edmonton’s Southside Roots, (Edmonton: Crang Publishing, 2011), 117.
25. Monto, Old Strathcona, 119.
26. Monto, Old Strathcona, 120.
27. The Forth Junction Society, “Rise and Fall of Passenger Rail.”
28. The Forth Junction Society, “Rise and Fall of Passenger Rail.”
29. Marsh, “Railway History in Canada.”
30. Monto, Old Strathcona, 120.
31. Alberta Register of Historic Places, “Canadian Pacific Railway Station, Strathcona.” Alberta Register of Historic Places, Accessed 2022 Feb. 6, https://hermis.alberta.ca/ARHP/Details.aspx?DeptID=1&ObjectID=4665-0844
32. Alberta Register of Historic Places, “Strathcona Canadian Pacific Railway Station.”
33. Alberta Register of Historic Places, “Canadian Pacific Railway Station, Strathcona.”
34. Alberta Register of Historic Places, “Strathcona Canadian Pacific Railway Station.”
35. Alberta Register of Historic Places, “Strathcona Canadian Pacific Railway Station.”
36. Alberta Register of Historic Places, “Canadian Pacific Railway Station, Strathcona.”
37. The Forth Junction Society, “Rise and Fall of Passenger Rail.”
38. Marsh, “Railway History in Canada.”
39. Donna Coombs-Montrose, “The Porter: Building a Better Canada for All,”
40. Channon Oyeniran, “Sleeping Car Porters in Canada,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 2020 Dec. 3, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sleeping-car-porters-in-canada
41. Coombs-Montrose, “The Porter.”
42. Coombs-Montrose, “The Porter.”
43. Selwayn Jacob, The Road Taken, directed by Selwayn Jacob (1996; Edmonton: Selwayn Enterprises, Inc. and National Film Board of Canada; 2022), Video stream, https://www.nfb.ca/film/road_taken/.
44. Jacob, The Road Taken.
45. Carson, "Riding the Rails,” 276.
46. Marsh, “Railway History in Canada.”
47. Coombs-Montrose, “The Porter.”
48. Jenny Carson, "Riding the Rails: Black Railroad Workers in Canada and the United States,"
Labour/Le Travail, 50, no. 1 (Fall 2002): 277.
49. Coombs-Montrose, “The Porter”; and Carson, "Riding the Rails,” 276.
50. Jacob, The Road Taken.
51. Jacob, The Road Taken.
52. Carson, "Riding the Rails,” 277.
53. Coombs-Montrose, “The Porter.”
54. Oyeniran, “Sleeping Car Porters in Canada.”
55. Marsh, “Railway History in Canada.”
56. Carson, "Riding the Rails,” 278-79.
57. Oyeniran, “Sleeping Car Porters in Canada.”
58. Oyeniran, “Sleeping Car Porters in Canada.”
59. Coombs-Montrose, “The Porter.”
60. Coombs-Montrose, “The Porter.”
61. Carson, "Riding the Rails,” 279-80.
62. Jennifer Kelly, “Black Communities in Alberta,” Alberta Labour History, 2020, https://albertalabourhistory.org/black-communities-in-alberta/.
63. Carson, "Riding the Rails,” 279-80.
64. Coombs-Montrose, “The Porter.”
65. Jacob, The Road Taken.
66. Vanterpool,“A Brief History of Alberta’s Railway.”
67. “The History of the Edmonton, Yukon & Pacific Railway,” by R.F. Corley, 1968 Apr. 26, MS-25 Box 1, File 2, Raymond F. Corley fonds, City of Edmonton Archives, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 1.
68. “The History of the Edmonton, Yukon & Pacific Railway,” 1968, 1.
69. Edmonton Nature Centres Foundation, “Mill Creek Ravine North - Edmonton,” ENCF, Accessed 2022 Mar. 11, https://encf.org/walks/mill-creek-ravine-north/.
70. Monto, Old Strathcona, 191.
71. Vanterpool,“A Brief History of Alberta’s Railway.”
72. Monto, Old Strathcona, 192.
73. Monto, Old Strathcona, 192.
74. “The History of the Edmonton, Yukon & Pacific Railway,” 1968, 1.
75. “The History of the Edmonton, Yukon & Pacific Railway,” 1968, 1.
76. Josée Thibeault, “À la découverte du ravin Mill Creek,” Tourisme Alberta, 2019 Dec. 17, https://tourismealberta.ca/a-la-decouverte-du-ravin-mill-creek/.
77. Monto, Old Strathcona, 181.
78. Csorba, “History of West Ritchie.”
79. Csorba, “History of West Ritchie.”
80. Monto, Old Strathcona, 130.
81. Monto, Old Strathcona, 141.
82. Monto, Old Strathcona, 181.
83. Csorba, “History of West Ritchie.”
84. Csorba, “History of West Ritchie.”
85. Monto, Old Strathcona, 193.
86. Dane Ryksen, “The Minchau Blacksmithing Shop,” Forgotten Edmonton, 2021 Mar. 15, https://www.forgottenedmonton.com/blog/the-minchau-blacksmithing-shop
87. Monto, Old Strathcona, 118.
88. Ryksen, “The Minchau Blacksmithing Shop.”
89. Emily Mertz, “Historic A. Minchau Blacksmith Shop in Edmonton torn down - Edmonton,” Global News, 2020 September 14, https://globalnews.ca/news/7334268/historic-a-minchau-blacksmith-shop-old-strathcona-demolition/