In the Promised Land of Alberta's North: The Northern Journal of Katherine Hughes (Summer 1909)

Ken Tingley is a historical resources consultant who has worked in
Edmonton on heritage preservation since 1973. He is the author of
several books including Alberta Remembers: Recalling Our Rural Roots.

Katherine Hughes was the first provincial archivist of Alberta. The
Alberta Records Publication Board has published her journal describing a
northern field trip in 1909. It has been published in its manuscript
form for the Historical Society of Alberta, with a valuable introduction
and annotations, maps, and photographs. The editors are Ken Kaiser, a
former government records archivist at the Provincial Archives of
Alberta, and his wife, Merrily Aubrey, Head of the Geographic Names
Program for Alberta. They have done an admirable job of resurrecting
what appears to have been intended by its author as a publishing
venture, but which years ago slipped away into archival purgatory when
Hughes went on to other things. It remains a valuable historical
resource.

Katherine Hughes holds a special place among researchers and historians
in Alberta. On a field trip through Alberta’s northland to collect
archival materials, she travelled alone, one woman among the
predominantly male passengers on steamboats and wagons that transported
her through the vast, largely undeveloped country.

A protégé of Frank Oliver, Minister of the Interior and opinionated
editor of the Edmonton Bulletin, she was appointed the first provincial
archivist just four years after Alberta became a province. Clearly she
was the right woman in the right place at the right time.

Only the first chapter of the manuscript was polished up to draft
standard for probable publication, but the subsequent parts of the text
consist of pithy and sometimes very amusing observations, which are
given more context by the annotations.

Hughes would soon leave Alberta to promote the cause of Irish
independence, an aspect of her life that is gathering broader attention.


During her trip north, Hughes gained the respect of those with whom she
travelled. They often called her Sissisoo, which means plover, or “the
little duck with yellow legs,” as she proudly noted. In those days,
she would have been called plucky. Readers of this book will be
hard-pressed to resist her spirit and energy.