Intangible Alberta

Growing up, I attended a summer youth camp at Hills of Peace, a campground nestled into a prairie hollow halfway between Czar and Consort. My earliest memories of the camp include rolling hills, the cool lake, quaint cabins, and the monster that terrorized it all: Goatman. 

We never saw him, but we heard his tale every night after the glowing campfire had been doused. A maniacal ex-logger with a makeshift goat leg, as scary as he wa...

A half-century ago, if you stood on the doorstep of the Royal Alberta Museum, you would have looked down what was then 98th street to Hatti’s Harlem Chicken Inn. From the outside, it may have appeared to be an unassuming restaurant. But for Edmonton’s Black community, Hatti’s was more than just a chicken joint — it was a meeting place, where culture and community flourished. 

The story of Hatti’s Harlem Chicken Inn is all around us:...

Do you remember your favourite childhood toy? If you close your eyes and imagine, you may be able to remember how it felt in your hands, what it smelled like, or the excitement you felt on the day you got it. For a moment, you might even feel like you’re transported back to your younger years, a time when your world was as big as your imagination, and a toy wasn’t just a toy, but something more… something magic. 

In this holiday epi...

With a collection of 2.5 million objects going back millions of years, we’re bound to have a few ghosts in our cabinets, right? In today’s Halloween episode, we share three spooky stories from the RAM collections – a stairway from a haunted hotel, an exorcism-proof doll, and a military mystery that led to a freaky fire station. 

Thank you to Lucie Heins, Julia Petrov, and Anthony Worman for sharing these historically eerie stories. 

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The video rental store as an institution spanned a 40 year period, between 1977 to 2017. There was a time when nearly every neighbourhood had its local store, whether it was a mom-and-pop or national franchise. These were not only places to find the newest title for a Friday night or rediscover some old favourite for a cozy Sunday afternoon. Video rental stores were meeting places where you could shoot the breeze while you browsed ...