Celebrating early-settlers A glowing tribute to early Danish-Canadians
This picturesque park in Dickson is a tribute to Danish history. M
ore than 100 years of Danish history in Canada can be celebrated in a park-like setting in Dick- son. The Danish Canadian National Museum
and Garden is a glowing tribute to the achievements of Canada’s great Danes. The site in 1903 of the first Danish settlement on the
Canadian prairies, Dickson, just north of Innisfail, is a fitting location for a museum that pays homage to Danish heritage, achievements and even plants. Surrounded by 7 ½ acres of gardens, this charming, national museum is contained in a former schoolhouse, built in 1933. With minimal changes to the original building, the museum has several rooms of Danish-Canadian history, artifacts and family stories, along with a reading library and a Hans Christian Andersen story room. While there have been Danes in Alberta for more than
a century, the earliest Danish settlement in Canada dates back almost 1,000 years to the arrival of the Vikings. Across the country, Danish communities can be found
in New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia; but the largest concentration of Danes is found in Alberta. Standard, Tilley and Delum, along with Dickson, are home to a great number of Alberta’s Danish population. The Danish National Museum Society first met in 1992
56 • Fall 2016
to lay plans for honouring the contributions of Danes in Canada. From that meeting sprang the gardens and build- ings that now house the museum displays, coffee house and gift shop. The gardens are an important part of this tribute to
Danish cultural heritage. Danes are traditionally avid gardeners, and many who immigrated to Canada brought their love of flowers, trees and hearty vegetables with them. In fact, the Danish Canadian National Museum’s first garden consisted of potatoes! Today, the museum maintains colourful flower and
vegetable gardens to honour those early Danish pioneers. The gardens are a thoughtful, lively combination of Danish history, climate and native plant life. Historically, small rock walls were built up in front of shelterbelts and filled in with soil to provide flowering plants shelter from the winds of the open prairies. Plants include varieties that thrive in both Canada and Denmark, such as Jacob’s ladder, calendula and columbine. A rose bed features hardy hybrids of the Explorer series,
including the pink and yellow Jens Munk variety. Named after a Scandinavian seafarer, Jens Munk, who arrived at the mouth of the Churchill River in 1620, this hardy rose seems appropriate in a Danish-Canadian garden. Just south of the roses, masses of red and white petunias
localgardener.net
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