(submitted photo/City of North Battleford)

By Angela Brown

Annual event

City Archives Week display focuses on River Valley history

Feb 5, 2024 | 5:37 PM

People will have an opportunity to learn about the history of the picturesque North Saskatchewan River Valley at the City of North Battleford’s Archives Week display this year. The event is one of many in the province, as part of the Saskatchewan Archives Week celebration.

The North Battleford display, “Our Evolving River Valley,” will run at Discovery Co-op Mall from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday to Saturday.

Then, on Feb. 12 from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. organizers plan to hold an open house at the Archives Department at the Don Ross Centre in room 111 for people to get an inside look of the city’s archives holdings.

City Historic Archives Department Manager Leah Garven said the display at the mall will be staffed by volunteers each day.

“The display theme they’ve been working at for about four or five months now,” she said. “It’s been a unique theme. In the past years the volunteers focused on a select decade. Now, they’ve moved into more of a specialized category. They had fun looking at different ways to view the River Valley, through the history, the geology, the maps and the development that’s occurred along the River Valley.”

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Garven said visitors will be able to view a variety of unique items selected by the volunteers.

The history of the collection is essentially from time immemorial, from the trade era, to current times.

“They’ve done a huge map with the timeline on it,” Garven said. “It’s quite impressive. I’m very excited to see the whole display completed.”

The event includes many images and stories about the history and development of the area over the years.

“They are looking at human’s use around the river, so lots of photographs of people around the river, the bridges, the building of the bridges, some of the trade, and the steam boats,” Garven said. “It has got quite a bit. There’s photographs from wagons, to car, to train.”

During the open house event to follow, people will have an opportunity to see some of the archives holdings, and ask the acting archivist, Aleksi Anseth, how to access the files as well.

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angela.brown@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @battlefordsNOW