Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village

Located 25 minutes east of Edmonton on Highway 16, the Ukrainian Village is a giant outdoor museum depicting the lives of Ukrainian settlers from the years 1899 to 1930.  Interpreters play the roles of early settlers using accents, dressing in period clothing  and studying the family histories to bring a very unique, realistic feeling to the experience. The buildings are brought in from surrounding communities and a reclamation team is constantly researching historical facts and carefully bringing the buildings and artifacts to their original state.

I actually volunteered for several years at the Village when I was younger and will never forget the appreciation I gained for how settlers once lived.  No power, no phones, feeding the chickens, 6 siblings per bed… things we would never consider today.  Imagine a family or 4 or 5 living in a tiny shed sized home called a ‘burdei‘. These straw and mud huts usually served as a temporary home until a more robust log home could be built but it still would have been an incredible hardship that early pioneers faced to start their new lives in Canada.

On August 8th The Ukrainian Village celebrates its annual Ukrainian Day.  The 3,200 in attendance enjoyed Ukrainian music, dance and of course delicious food.

Tags: cultural, events

This entry was posted on Monday, August 9th, 2010 at 6:07 pm and is filed under edmonton-area. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.