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 By “archives,” we mean unpublished materials of historical value, which may include photographs, letters, business records, literary manuscripts, diaries, etc. Descriptions of the materials included in a particular archival collection are shown in the collection's finding aid. Archival collections housed in the Peel library include the Chinese Experience in Canada collection, the Indigenous Photograph Collection, and Peel's fur trade collections, as well as materials created and collected by influential twentieth-century Canadian poet Dorothy Livesay, pioneering aviator Clennell ‘Punch’ Dickens, bison activist Martin S. Garretson, pioneering agricultural journalist Miriam Green Ellis, and frontier author-adventurer Roger Pocock.
Getting started: Most student researchers will want to employ a series of keyword searches in the University of Alberta Library catalogue in order to find relevant published materials in both print and digital formats, in all U of A library locations and collections. To examine archival materials, researchers can identify which files might be of interest using the collection’s finding aid. For more information about research in the Peel library, see Finding and Requesting Peel Library Materials.
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 February 1842. Rev John Smithurst Correspondence (FC 3213 L55 019.007).