TRAVEL | MURALS | ALBERTA | CANADA
Murals Tell Us About Canadian Prairie Life in Lacombe, Alberta
The mural capital of the province
Art is a voice. It is used to spread all sorts of messages. Some are loud and proud, others are subtle and mysterious. In the small town of Lacombe, Alberta, Canada, they have used art to bring the past into the present.
Touting themselves as Alberta’s ‘mural capital’, Lacombe (population 13k) took it upon themselves to create a reason for people to stop in this small town. The Lacombe Museum website says this about the project:
Downtown Lacombe is full of history. Lacombe is home to the most intact concentration of Edwardian Buildings in Alberta as well as six Designated Provincial Historic Buildings. The City of Lacombe, along with the help of the Lacombe & District Historical Society began the Lacombe Mural Project in 2004 as a way to share even more of the city’s rich history with residents and visitors. Local muralist Tim Giles began with Phase 1 of the project in 2004 on wall space in the alley between 51st Street and 50th Avenue. Phase 1 features nineteen murals of a variety of buildings and scenes from the 1890s to 1910s. In 2009, Phase 2 began in the alley between 49b Avenue and 49c Avenue. These eleven murals show local scenes from the 1930s to 1940s. Two additional murals were added outside of these alleys as well; one on the 52nd Street Mall and another on the north wall of the Yu-Turn building on 50th Street. As of summer 2015, the murals have been restored by other local muralists.
Walking through the alleyways of this town brings one through a sense of wonder and nostalgia. The life-like murals perfectly depict what life might of been like in this small prairie town at the beginning of the 20th century.
Some walls feature scenes from the farms, others feature old cars and buildings. No matter where you look, you are sure to be swept away by the imagery.
Most of the murals are located in back alleyways and are away from the main streets. If you are planning to go there, it is best to go to the museum website to find the map. In researching this article, I can see now that we missed some of them when we were there.
I took these photos back in April, and had I known that I would have been writing this article about them, I would have taken the time to get better shots. But I think we were wrestling with the sun a bit which is why I stood so close to the wall in the photo above.
The website claims that there are 32 murals in Lacombe, and most were painted by the lucky Tim Giles. He was employed by the city from 2004 to 2013 to recreate historical photos of the town and surrounding areas on the walls. Talk about an artist's dream!
As a mural painter myself, I know how rare these opportunities are for artists.
Because most of the murals are painted on the backs of buildings and in the alleyways, it was a bit difficult to photograph some of them. It meant that I was contending with dumpsters and cars to get clear access to the walls. Here I caught a local throwing out the trash while I captured this image.
Although it looked like a sunny and warm day, you can see that Chris still had his puffy jacket on. April in Canada is still cold!
This interesting mural shows us what life looked like inside the houses as well. This one is very cleverly done.
And I loved the ones with the old cars and storefronts. Life certainly looks a lot simpler back then.
This is surely a classic scene! It somehow is giving the town a bit of glitz and glamour!
And then here we are, back to the outskirts of town and a more rural setting.
I really enjoyed our day walking around Lacombe and am happy with all that we saw. But now that I have actually taken the time to check the website, I can see that I need to go back to check out the rest.
It’s not often you find communities that invest this much into boosting their image with artwork. As an artist myself, I really appreciated seeing these murals and they certainly inspired me.
I applaud Lacombe for taking the initiative to transform its walls and give people a glimpse into the town’s history. If more communities did this, the world would be a more beautiful place.
We editors at Globetrotters are so happy with the response to our ‘street art’ prompt this month and have had a record number of submissions! The deadline to submit stories is August 28th. If you still have some images that you want to show us, I encourage you to get that article written!
Bernie Pullen wrote an article about murals in Christchurch in 2022 and well before we made this a prompt. The city encouraged them during the rebuild after the earthquake:
As we now know, street art doesn’t just have to be painted walls. Michael Rhodes shows us some amazing examples of this in his article:
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