Nicole and Jason Harcus ask whether the hill in Gallagher Park used to be a dump once upon a time.

Listen to the episode first, then read more below.

Jason volunteers at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, and one of his friends mentioned that the main Folk Fest hill in Gallagher Park used to be a dump. He and his wife Nicole were curious whether that was true. So we took a trip down to the area together with their kids.

We met Ken Tingley (Edmonton’s first historian laureate) at the Muttart Conservatory, which was built in the Cloverdale just downhill from the hill in question. Ken wrote a book called Heart of the City exploring the history of Cloverdale.

We also met Russ Cobb, a University of Alberta-based professor and author who wrote a series of articles about the history of garbage in our city called Edmonton: A World Class Dump.

Further Reading:

• Heart of the City: A History of Cloverdale, From Gallagher Flats to Village in the Park by Ken Tingley
• Edmonton: A World Class Dump, Part One – Grierson Dump (Edmonton City as Museum Project)
• “Every winter, a blizzard of ‘black snow’ blows onto Strathearn” – Edmonton Journal, August 7, 1968
• “Incinerator keeps on smoking as old city ‘joke’ lingers on” – Edmonton Journal, August 6, 1968
• “DDT being burned at city incinerator” – The Gateway, February 26, 1970
• Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things by William McDonough and Michael Braungart
• Let’s Find Out, Episode 5: The Ravine Reveal

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