The Greatest Game: Hockey in the local Arenas, Founders and Legends
Locally, one of the rites de passage for Canadian boys, and now girls, is the donning of blades, grasping a stick, and heading for the rink. Hockey enthusiast and historian Stan Neufeld brings to life some of the many personalities and teams that have been commemorated in the Hockey Lounge in the Grande Prairie Design Works Centre Arena, and by displays and plaques in the Grande Prairie Bonnets Energy Centre Arena, where the Jr. A. Grande Prairie Storm plays today. Stan points out photographs and some artifacts that are placed to remind us how keen players, coaches, teachers, radio announcers, and parents have made hockey a central youth institution here. Stan takes viewers from the Canadian Army teams through to the famous Red Devils, which included future war service players, teachers, and others who planted the seeds that grew (for six) into careers in the National Hockey and other Leagues. Viewers can find more information by checking www.gphockeylegends.com. Centres of recreation, the rinks and the teams often welded communities together and split some apart in legendary regional rivalries and contests.
Community Builders: Grande Prairie’s Mounted Police
Guests: Scott Haggarty; Brad Marcou
As our RCMP detachment is gradually shifting responsibility to a municipal force, PCHS recognizes the oft-overlooked role constables have played in community building. Most think of police as “arresting officers” and enforcers of the law, but many troubled youth have a much more appreciative memory of how the constables work with them. We focus on the Crime Prevention group in the city, and their work in youth development, in schools, clubs, bike safety programs, and especially as leaders of the local Cadet Corps, both Air and Army. Both of our guests serve as participants and as leaders of the Army Cadets, both in Grande Prairie and in Brad’s detachment of Fort McMurray, and on his return to Grande Prairie. Citizens will find them on community boards, as coaches, participating in Search and Rescue, and on hockey teams. Teaching safety and protection of the rights of others, or camp work with troubled children, members of the Force can still be found building community by their dedicated off-the-beat volunteer work. It has left them with many indelible memories. Those they have influenced will carry positive examples forward to guide their own life choices.
A Fair for Heritage: Teachers and Schools Keeping a vital tradition alive in the Peace
Grande Prairie Community Schools, Social Studies Heritage Fair, May 2025
Though discontinued by the Federal government a few years ago, Susan Thomson, a retired teacher, has kept the occasion and the work of public school students and their social studies teachers focused on a variety of topics in history, civic affairs, sports, engineering, and ethnic culture. Thus, the process of study, inquiry, and presentation, can once again maintain and grow the institution. Dozens of students, organized into teams, gather together annually to present their work for assessment and ranking by teachers, professors, and community leaders. Though the prizes are smaller than they used to be, the students are still keen, and a variety of local professionals in the Historical, Anthropological, Genealogical, Museological, and Archaeological fields demonstrate their results, inspiring and perhaps recruiting youth into those fields of work. Duff and the broadcast team moved their studio to the scene of the Fair, interviewing students, professionals, teachers, and Susan Thomson herself to share knowledge and accomplishments.
Museums in the Peace: A place for time travellers
Duff Crerar and Charles Taws discuss the role and value of our regional Museums, and museums in general, as venues for social studies, sociology, and the integration of material culture – especially technology – and the growth of attitudes and values over the century of settlement in the South Peace. Duff draws on his professional training in material culture and social values, family structure, agriculture, medicine, and the sudden and dramatic arrival of modernity with the railroad, while Charles presents an impressive array of local artifacts that each tell their own story of our past. Each item has its own, quite touching story, inviting us to look past the material to the intention, atmosphere, or ideas that led to the creation and preservation of each. He points to the role of museums in constructing our identity and our sense of belonging, but he also points out that some of the collections should lead us to think over the decisions our ancestors made, which we would probably rethink, looking back. They agree that museums “have soul”.
Local Legions: “The Word for the day is Service”
One of the most venerable institutions across Canada, and certainly in the Peace Region, has been the Royal Canadian Legion. It was founded as the British Empire Service League in 1925 to commemorate in perpetuity the tremendous sacrifices of the First World War, later adding the Second, Korea, and indeed all who have served in the Canadian Forces. Remarkably, by March 1943, the Peace Country had the highest per capita Legion enrolment in the Dominion. Today, Legions, although declining in size, continue to function as cornerstones of our communities. A place for veteran fellowship and commemoration, the Legions became major service centres for the young and growing communities. Integral were athletics for youth, essay and art contests, the Cadet corps, and conducting Remembrance Day ceremonies. Wanda Zenner, a long-service volunteer, has known Legion members from many branches, and reviews with Duff the Grande Prairie, Hythe, Sexsmith, and West Smoky branches. With their ladies’ Auxiliaries, these facilities remain the venues for weddings, Christmas parties, Wild Game suppers, community meetings, club activities, and funerals. Remembering our history, Legions are determined to bring good out of the traumatic evil of war through a persistent ethic of Service.
Fire in the Forest
Few Albertans will forget the days in 2023 when the sky turned red, winds were filled with smoke and cinders, and the media blared that folks were evacuating. Across Canada, the forests were burning, not just in the back bush but next to settlements, villages, homes, and in the parks. In “Fire in the Forest,” we interviewed a retired forester and a former volunteer firefighter from the South Peace Historical Society about the science and behaviour of forest fires, and some of those that seared the region, changed the vegetation for generations, and took lives. The history explored here reveals what it took to fight – or survive – some of the great fires of the South Peace Country. Host: Dr. Duff Crerar, retired historian, with Pat Wearmouth, retired forester, and Doug Spry, volunteer firefighter.
Warming Up to the Cold War: The South Peace Experience
Pat Wearmouth brings us back to the days when the Peace Country was an “air front” bracing for the detection and interception of Soviet nuclear bombers. He explains how the local radar defences were prepared, where our transmitter/receiver was secured in the forest, and how the Air Force and Civil Defence operated a service base for the radar line in nearby Dawson Creek. Duff Crerar picks up with the Civil Defence planning, which began in the 1950s and peaked with a bomb shelter in Grande Prairie and volunteers in local towns preparing first aid, fire, and damage rescue, and most importantly, coordination of civil government in the event of nuclear disaster. During two national exercises, the Grande Prairie Civil Defence workers integrated a network for regional response, with disaster preparation scenarios which were probably far too optimistic, but provided a sense of agency – that something could be done, if everyone, guided by the CD team, pulled together.
On Wings of Discipline
With the assistance of Squadron Archivist Mrs. Lora Frantizek, Bryan Lynch, and Paul Galway, Duff Crerar narrates the history and evolution of all the air cadets who have been such a credit to our community. The 70th Anniversary of the founding of the Grande Prairie Air Cadet Squadron in 1951 was an occasion to commemorate generations of the city’s and region’s young men and women who formed the 577 Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets. Led and mentored by serving and retired regular and auxiliary forces members and RCMP staff, with added support from Rotarians and businesses, these young recruits learned teamwork, leadership, and discipline that lasts throughout their lives.
Some were attracted to join the regular forces, while others pursued private licenses or related aviation careers, but it was their shared love of flight that united them. The precision of the drill was a core activity that grew into a marching band, marksmanship, civic projects, then glider flights, air show attendance, military visits, provincial and national competitions, summer camps, and even biathlon events. Involvement encourages general aviation interest for cadets, not military recruitment; however, from the Cold War years to this day, modern technology is often in the state’s hands.
