Image: Mrs. Trelle drives the tractor while Mr. Trelle operates the binder while harvesting their wheat crop. The Trelles were World Wheat Kings when this photograph was taken. The original negative for this image is at the Glenbow Archives. ca. 1928 (SPRA 107.12)
In 2006, the Grande Prairie Regional College undertook a project to glean personal information from the files of each of the 6,800 applications for land in the Peace River Country up to the end of 1914. These files, created by the Department of the Interior, are held on microfilm by the Provincial Archives of Alberta and British Columbia, and are commonly referred to as the “Homestead Files”.
Beginning in 2014, with generous grants from each of the rural municipalities in northwest Alberta, and organizations like the Peace Country Historical Society and the Grande Prairie Branch of the AGS, the project in Alberta was extended to the end of 1930, and includes information on over 33,000 applications for land by about 28,000 applicants.
The project has been administered by the South Peace Regional Archives and supported by generous grants by Alberta Culture.
To learn more about the details of this project, and how to access and use the information on each of the people who took Crown land in the Peace River Country of Alberta prior to 1931, you are invited to attend this presentation and ask question. Details for the presentation are as follows:
Grande Prairie Museum Community Room
Thursday, June 2
8:00 PM
For more information, contact David Leonard at 780-482-2486 or dwlpeaceher@telus.net.