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Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village
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Overhead view from the grain elevator. Shows corner of "railway avenue" and "main street" in the townsite. Visible is the train station, hotel, lumber yard, and blacksmith, and in the far background, the rural school.
Home Grain Co. Elevator, build circa 1921, restored to 1927 look.
An actor interpreter from the Village
The Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village (Ukrainian: Село спадщини української культури, Selo spadshchyny ukrayins’koyi kul’tury) is an open-air museum that uses costumed historical interpreters to recreate pioneer settlements in east central Alberta, Canada. In particular it shows the lives of Ukrainian Canadian settlers form the years 1892 to 1930. Buildings from the surrounding communities have been moved to the historic site and restored to various years within the first part of the twentieth century.
"The Village", as it is colloquially known, makes very strong commitment to historical authenticity and the concept of living history. The Village uses a technique known as first-person interpretation which requires that the costumed performers remain in character at all times (or as much as is feasibly possible). Actors answer all questions as if they believe it is 1928 or whatever year their building portrays. Although this technique is off-putting for some visitors at first, it allows for a much stronger experience of immersion in history than traditional third-person interpretation where the actor acknowledges that he is, in fact, in a museum.
The Village is located east of Edmonton on the Yellowhead highway on the eastern edge of Elk Island National Park.
Monuments
Buildings
The Historic Site is divided into thematic areas: the Overview, the Farmsteads, the Rural Community, and the railway-centred Town site.
Note: the spellings used for names and locations are those from the year the building portrays, and may not match those in use today
Name (indicates family name of original owners or name of original town location) and year restored to:
Overview
The overview gives in introduction to Ukrainian immigration to Canada by showing the homes of two important Ukrainian Canadian families. Iwan Pylypow was the first Ukrainian immigrant to Canada, his third house in Canada is preserved here. His family was Galician. The second house is that of the Hawreliak family, Bukovynian clan who settled in the Shandro area. By the 1920s this family was quite successful, and the house preserved here has ten bedrooms and a cistern that provides water to the kitchen. The family also became politically active, and the nephew of the owner of this house, William Hawrelak later became the first Ukrainian Canadian mayor of Edmonton.
Farmstead
Shows different farms from different eras and areas at different stages of development.
The newly arrived immigrants
- Lakusta Barn (1918)
- Lukusta Granary (1918)
- Grekul House (1918-1919)
- Roswiyczuk Granary (1918)
- Makowichuck Barn (1918)
under construction
The later immigrants
- Slemko House (1919)
- Slemko Granary (1919)
- Slemko Barn (1919)
- Roadside Shrine
Ukrainian-Canadian farmers
Rural community
Town site
See also
External links
Coordinates: 53°34′5.49″N 112°47′39.95″W / 53.5681917, -112.7944306 (Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village)
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