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Growing interest in Airdrie’s past

HistoricalTours
Kim Cheel will lead a walking tour highlighting Airdrie's historical locations this summer, and hopes to inspire residents to dig into the city's past. Photo by Ben Sherick/Rocky View Publishing

A local resident hopes to challenge the notion that Airdrie does not have a rich historical legacy by offering a series of walking tours that will reveal the city’s past by highlighting locations that played an important role in the development of the city.

“Sometimes, our history can define our present,” said creator and guide Kim Cheel. “I don’t think Airdrie has a very strong identity. I think people just know it as that place that’s 20 minutes away from Calgary.”

The idea for the tours sprouted from another of Cheel’s undertakings, the Airdrie Ghost Walk, which sees actors depict spooky events from the city’s past. In 2018, Cheel tried to incorporate some of Airdrie’s historical figures into the walk.

“While people appreciated the living history aspect of it, they wanted to still have that spooky nature in the Ghost Walk,” she said. “Instead of combining the two for this coming year, I decided to separate them. So, if people want the scare and the ghost stories, I can do that for this year, but if they still want to learn the history of Airdrie, that’s going to have to be a separate endeavor.”

One challenge in uncovering the city’s roots, according to Cheel, is that some of Airdrie’s story has been lost – historical buildings have been torn down, and events haven’t been documented.

“Our recorded history does leave much to the imagination, not to mention the fact that there’s not been a lot of preservation plans in place by the municipality,” she said.

Though the City of Airdrie continues to implement its 2018 Cultural Action Plan – which includes preserving the municipality’s historic resources such as 89 built-heritage resources and 39 archeological resources – Cheel said the current scarcity of historical records and buildings has presented obstacles for her in preparing for the tours. She believes it is also a challenge the community as a whole must address. One of her goals with the tours, she said, is to inspire Airdronians to start digging to uncover forgotten aspects of the city’s history.

“Maybe they have relatives that they can start having conversations with, or we can reach out to the City and say, ‘We want this. Do you guys have this in your archives that you’ve forgotten you’ve had?’” she said.

Additionally, she said, she would love to see the tours lead to greater preservation efforts to enshrine the city’s history going forward. And hopes, as residents take time to learn the story of Airdrie, it will instill a greater sense of community identity and heritage.

Cheel’s tours will take place three times a week throughout summer, with dates varying weekly. The route of the walk begins at Jensen Park and loops past 15 points of interest. Participants will stroll past and learn about Airdrie United Church, Heloise Lorimer’s house (now the Royal Canadian Legion), the shuttered Canada Post building and the site of the Old Hotel. Cheel noted participants are sure to recognize names such as Dr. Edwards, Heloise Lorimer and A.E. Bowers, as these have been incorporated into local school names.

“This walking tour gives you the opportunity to understand the history of some of these older places,” Cheel said.

Tickets for the tours cost $15 and are available online at eventbrite.ca by searching “Airdrie History Tours.” Ticket sales close 30 minutes before events begin.

“Tours will only run if tickets are pre-purchased,” Cheel said. “You can’t just show up and pay cash and expect the tour to run.”




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