Vacation in Canada, eh? 1: Fort Macleod, Alberta
By Peter Coffman
It might mean changing your summer vacation plans to stay here in Canada and explore the many national and provincial parks, historical sites, and tourist destinations our great country has to offer. (Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, February 2nd, 2025, exhorting Canadians to travel in Canada)
“You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”, sang Joni Mitchell. Well, Canada’s not gone, despite the efforts of a hostile foreign despot. So we can celebrate what we’ve got while it’s still here. And one of the things we’ve got is beautiful and varied historic buildings, towns and cities. Places we can go for our next vacation. In fact we’ve got way more of them, I think, than most Canadians realize.
That’s right in my wheelhouse. Through my job as an architectural historian, I’ve been able to visit quite a few of them. I’m going to share some with you in a series of blogs – blogs about beautiful and historic places we could visit instead of, you know, visiting that other country. My touchstone, as always, will be architecture. I’ll start with the town where Joni Mitchell was born: Fort Macleod, Alberta.
The fact that it’s Joni Mitchell’s birthplace is, all by itself, reason enough to go to Fort Macleod and gaze in awe. But I bet that not many people outside Alberta (maybe not even many outside Fort Macleod) know that its Main Street was Alberta’s first Provincial Historic Area (designated in 1984). It’s a small place with a big history.
The Niitsitapi
Before Fort Macleod was Fort Macleod, it was just ‘Macleod’. But long before that, for millennia, it was the traditional territory of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) nations. Their cultures were closely tied to the presence and abundance of the bison. To feel that relationship deep in your bones, you only have to drive 22 km to Head-Smashed-in Buffalo Jump. This haunting and beautiful place is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that I’ll write about in a future blog.
The Wooden Frontier Town
Incorporated in 1892, the town was originally built mostly of wood. Thanks mainly to a disastrous fire in 1906, only three wooden commercial buildings from this era survive. One is the C.W. Stevens Building, built in 1879 and moved to its current site in 1980. It has served as a post office, masonic lodge, bank, newspaper office, and carpentry workshop.
The 1906 fire decimated the town’s commercial core and changed the rules. From then on, buildings on the main street had to be brick or stone rather than wood. But even before the fire, the prosperous town had started to use more durable – and more fashionable – building materials.
Architecture of Prosperity
The Grier Block, built in 1902, was the first building in Macleod to house multiple commercial businesses. It’s a brick building. But look at the second story:
That beautifully detailed carved stone upper façade is… not carved stone. Or even stucco. It’s pressed metal.
Faux façades like this were meant to add a touch of class(icism) to buildings of otherwise more modest status. They were prefabricated (in this case in St. Louis), and shipped in pieces – a modular system that could be ordered to fit any building. Because they were prefabricated and easily shipped, you can find them all over the country. There’s another very much like this one near Ottawa, in Carleton Place. And one with some small variations in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. And a couple of real stunners in Dawson City, Yukon. There’s another blog (or two) to be had about those, so stay tuned.
If you want real stonework, then just walk half a block south to the Queen’s Hotel, built in 1903. The sandstone was local, and the craftsmanship was from Scotland, the homeland of local stonemason Murdo MacLean. The hotel’s clients came to Macleod on the Calgary and Edmonton Railway, which had been bringing people and prosperity to the town since 1892.
How the Have-Nots Lived
Not every building of note from this period is a grand or even public one. Built in 1907, the Chow Sam Boarding House bears witness to Macleod’s original Chinatown. Chinese workers who stayed on after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway formed the first Chinese communities in Canadian cities and towns. They faced systemic racism and worked in low-wage jobs, which meant many of them lived in boarding houses such as this. The Chow Sam Boarding House is the last building standing from one of Canada’s earliest Chinatowns.
Note the ‘boomtown façade’ – the upwardly mobile front wall that extends well above the actual roofline. You may have noticed this at the C.W. Stevens Building as well. This kind of façade was meant to make a cheap, modest, hastily-constructed building look a little less cheap, modest, and hastily-constructed. We’ll be seeing more of these in blogs to come.
Moderne Comes to Macleod
Maybe you’re getting a bit tired of all the Olde Tyme stuff, and crave something a bit more modern. Fort Macleod’s got you covered there, too. Behold the former Greyhound Bus Terminal, built in 1938:
This building is as clean, sleek, streamlined and uncluttered as the wondrous modern machines that rolled into and out of it. It looks almost like it’s ready to join those machines on the open highway – or maybe even on the airport runway.
The Jewel in the Crown
Many small Canadian towns have their favourite ‘showpiece’ building – the one they make sure that every visitor goes to see. My guess is that Fort Macleod’s is the Empress Theatre, built by contractor J.S. Lambert in 1912.
For over a century, the Empress has been a true gathering place – not just for Fort Macleod, but for southern Alberta. It has hosted movies (originally silent, with Mr. and Mrs. Fred and Mary Cutler providing live music), theatre, vaudeville acts, concerts, lectures, even political rallies. And I have it on the best authority – no less than Juno Award-winning singer/songwriter James Keelaghan – that the place is haunted by a ghost known to interfere with performers on stage. But really, with a history like that, how could it not be haunted?
The Empress is full of charming details, grand gestures, and above all, stories. Don’t forget to look up and see the neon tulip on the pressed-tin ceiling. It was added in the 1930s by the then-owner, Daniel Boyle, at the behest (the story goes) of his wife.
Only in Canada, eh? Given a choice between all this and some time-share condo in a Miami suburb, I know which I’d pick.
There will be more to come in this travel series, so start packing your suitcase.
Peter Coffman, History & Theory of Architecture program
peter.coffman@carleton.ca
@petercoffman.bsky.social