Ecamp Podcast

In this episode, discover what trees can tell us about Edmonton’s history with Dustin Bajer, take a walk through Spruce Avenue with Wesley Andreas, and learn about a site significant to our city’s 2SLBGTQIA+ community in the 1980s with Darrin Hagen.

The story behind City Hall's remarkable bell tower, a gift from broadcast pioneer Dick Rice that regularly sends gleeful tunes out into Churchill Square.

Toyomatsu Kimura was no farmer! But after discrimination made it hard to run his business in 1920’s Edmonton, that’s what he did—along with other Japanese families. Hear how, from a farming community resident, Chizuko Kimura and researcher Aya Fujiwara.

Historian Kathryn Chase Merritt tells of the colourful history and pungent aroma of the City Market. Imagine open stalls of produce, fresh meat, and everything farmer’s could bring to the centre of town. First located on the south end of today’s Winston Churchill Square, the Edmonton Public library eventually took over the spot in 1967, but the memories remain...  

A mural in the Grandin LRT Station was meant to tell the story of a man but it inadvertently acted as a reminder of the oppression of an entire group of people. We find out the history of the mural, the pain it caused and the healing that came from it.

Professional theatre in Edmonton? Many thought it impossible. And a Fringe Festival in the early 1980s? Brian Paisley tells the story how he lucked out with government money and chutzpah. He's joined by playwright Ken Brown and writer Colin MacLean.

Listen to the conversations forming around the Edmonton Heritage Council’s Charles Camsell Hospital Project. 

Find out how Edmonton helped to create the crowd maneuver, The Wave, loved and loathed across the sports world. We'll hear from writer Michael Hingston and the inventor himself, Krazy George.

Restauranteur Sid Estrin prided himself in coupling remarkable music with amazing food at The Hotbox. And downstairs from Sid's eatery on Jasper Avenue, a legendary gay nightclub that former city councillor Michael Phair remembers as the Studio 54 of the Prairies.

Alberta's capital city was once completely under water. We find out why 11,500 years ago Edmonton was at the bottom of a lake, and what became of all that water.

Jazz and bop and the birth of cool. The Yardbird Suite was the hippest juke joint you could imagine in 1960s Edmonton. Don Hill connects with music legends Tommy and Ida Banks and entertainment writer Colin Maclean over their memories of the club.

One of Edmonton's Chinatown Gates may seem a little out of place. Find out why, back in 1987, it made sense for the Harbin Gate to be constructed where it stands now and how it inadvertently tells the story of Edmonton’s ever-moving Chinatown.

The story of CKUA Radio's baby grand piano—an aged, unexceptional instrument whose cover is adorned with signatures of generations of legendary musicians. Don Hill examines some notables—and the memories surrounding them—with the help of CKUA staff.

The legendary earworm-of-a-song, The Bird Dance has a big Edmonton connection. Find out how the Edmonton band, The Emeralds, made the song their own and made it a certified hit, from founding member Allan Broder.

Writers Daood Hamdani and Richard Awid, and the Canadian Council of Muslim Women’s Zohra Husaini tell the story of the Al-Rashid and the multi-faith effort to build “the first real Little Mosque on the Prairie”.

The city’s former Historian Laureate Shirley Lowe explains the mid-century rationale behind the Metropolitan Edmonton Transportation Study, a failed inner freeway ring proposal that would have paved over our inner city and cherished river valley.

Dr. Russell Cobb expanding on his obsession with Edmonton’s trash history, describing how the city’s peculiar early waste solutions factored into the development of our river valley.