Archival Collections
Bruce Peel Special Collections houses both rare books and archives. By “archives,” we mean unpublished materials of historical value, which may include photographs, letters, business records, literary manuscripts, diaries, etc. To sample Peel's archival collections, you may want to check out the archive of influential twentieth-century Canadian poet Dorothy Livesay or that of early bison activist Martin S. Garretson, the archive of pioneering agricultural journalist Miriam Green Ellis or that of frontier author and adventurer Roger Pocock, or you may want to explore Peel's fur trade collections.
Access: Researchers may discover Peel's archival collections by searching the U of A Library catalogue or the online finding aid. Researchers must request archival materials by email in advance to ensure the materials have been retrieved from storage and are available.
Online: Selected archival materials can be viewed in digital collections such as U of A Library’s Peel’s Prairie Provinces hosted on Internet Archive.
Collection Formats: 19th Century, 20th Century, Art Work, Correspondence, Ephemera, Manuscripts, Newspapers, Photographs, Postcards -- click to see other collections with this format
Artist's proof of "The Incendiary." Dorothy Livesay Archive (PS 8523 I95 Z46 4.4).
Correspondence from "Buffalo Bill" Cody to Martin S. Garretson pasted into a scrapbook from the Martin S. Garretson Bison Archive (uncatalogued).
Selections from the David McKnight fonds (PS 8237 M6 D38).
Correspondence from Alex Matheson to Robert Bell dated 2 June 1883. Robert Bell collection (QE 22 B45 A4 1.22).
Correspondence from Anne Alsop to Rev. John Smithurst, 17 Feb. 1842. Rev. John Smithurst Correspondence (FC 3213 L55 019.007).