This vintage Medicine Hat, Alberta postcard was mailed on this day 108 years ago. It was stamped December 27, 1905 and sent to Chicago, Illinois. Not only does this postcard show the city as a mere town, it was printed before Alberta was a province (which happened in 1905). The card says Medicine Hat, Assa (Assiniboia) which was a district of the Northwest Territories.
This familiar view of the South Saskatchewan River is also dated by the single track C.P. Rail bridge, and the lack of the Finlay Bridge (which wasn't built until 1908). Our natural gas reserves were already becoming our claim to fame as noted by the slogan 'The Gas Town of the West'. As though the sparse hill in the background doesn't emphasize this point enough, the changes over the last century have been amazingly dramatic.
Thank you to all of you who have spent so much time with me this year. It's been a pleasure to share my work with you, and I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Now get off the computer and go spend some time with your family.
Earlier this year I began the long process of transferring my uncle's home videos from VHS. I wrote about the project back in June. It was only during the last few weeks that I finally finished transferring the digitized files to an external hard drive. These are the earliest home videos I have of my childhood, and the oldest footage is from Christmas Day in 1989 at my grandma and grandpa's house.
Over the next few months I hope to go through more of the footage and share some of the highlights centered around my family. In the meantime, this seems like a good place to start and the right mix of Christmas nostalgia to make you feel all warm and fuzzy. And in case you need clarification, I'm that cool kid in a suit.
