Patrick Kolafa
The Drumheller Mail
The Boomtown Trail was awarded by the Governor General of Canada for its hard work and unique ways of showcasing the area.
The Boomtown Trail Community Initiatives Society is a development organization serving East Central Alberta in communities brought together by its unique boomtown architecture. It encompasses member communities in the Highway 21, 9 and 56 corridors.
They were awarded the Governor General History Award for Excellence in Community Programming for its program “Bringing History and Culture to Life.”
“We have always been aware of the deep importance of this program to our region and we knew it could have broader reaching implications nationwide. We had no idea of just how important and how broad the reach. We have been contacted by organizations from coast to coast enquiring about the program and we are aware of a number that are implementing part or all of it in their communities,” said Boomtown Trail CEO Ken Duncan.
“The success of this program is due solely to the values and the hard work of all of the volunteers who have participated. Without them we would not even have a program let alone an award.”
The "Bringing History and Culture to Life" is based on the idea that each community in the area as a “Colourful 5,” a cast of interesting historical characters in each community.
Bill Cunningham, member of the Boomtown Trail executive said Bob Willis developed the character Gabriel Dumont, Louis Riel’s lieutenant for the Prairie Steam Train. Using this as a template, other historic characters were developed in different communities.
“Now the Village of Delburne has a lady who plays the first town telephone operator, and a young lady from Camrose plays Irene Parlby one of the Famous Five, whose life, much of it was spent around Alix,” said Cunningham.
“What they do now with these characters is they will get three of them together on an evening and have dessert theatre. A couple communities have also done a “walk among us” which is a full day event centering on their main street downtown, for example.”
Duncan recalled Phillippe Mailhot, one of the judges, in the presentation said, “There was an unprecedented number of submissions for this year’s award. So, the task for the judges was not an easy one. But, Boomtown Trail stood out because of its creativity and commitment to community engagement.”
Members of the executive, administration and a couple of the characters travelled to Ottawa to receive the award. There were a number of events on November 18 and 19, sponsored by Canada’s History magazine.
