The program examines the history of forestry and man's relationship with the landscapes in west-central Alberta, providing context for today's challenges and informing today's practices.
Forest History Program
The Forest History Program chronicles the natural and management history of the foothills forest.
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The Last Patrol
Harry Edgecombe was a long service Alberta Forest Service ranger who finished his career as an instructor at the Forest Technology School in Hinton. After retirement, he spent the summer of 1982 on ranger patrol in the Willmore Wilderness Park, traversing many of the trails developed by or travelled on by Jack Glen so many years earlier. Mr. Edgecombe’s report of that summer and his photographs provide an interesting contrast to the times of Jack Glen, reported in the recent book “Mountain Trails” from the Adaptive Forest Management/ History Program.
A Logging History of the Whirlpool Valley, Jasper National Park
The Forest History Program explores an overgrown, but not forgotten, episode in forestry.
Northern Rockies Highway Guide and Ecotour
Explore hundreds of historic points in Jasper National Park and the foothills.
A 50-Year History of Silviculture on the Hinton Forest
This project charts the history of adaptive forest management in the Hinton area since the 1950s. Excerpt from Mountain Trails
Jack Glen, c. late 1930s Jack Glen Sr. (1891–1983) was a forest ranger from 1920 to 1945 in the foothills of the upper Athabasca. Produced by the fRI Research Forest History Program, the free ebook Mountain Trails tells of the adventures, colourful characters and challenges of bringing order and law to a previously untracked and mostly uninhabited wilderness. Below is an excerpt from Chapter One: First Days on the Trail.
2013 fRI Research Forum Recap
Annual Research Forum Sparks Conversations
Forest History Program is born
In the fall of 2012, the Adaptive Forest Management/ History Program of the Foothills Research Institute becomes the Forest History Program of the Institute. This reflects the evolution of a program that began in 1996 as the Adaptive Forest Management and History Program.
The Ecotour app - The Hinton Voice
There was a great article in the December 13 issue of The Hinton Voice on the development of an app for the Northern Rockies Highway Guide. Read the article here.
Ecotour book has an app on the way
An app is in development to take the Ecotour book mobile.
Learning from the Landscape
A book about our first 25 years of research, from the Forest History Program.
Amelia Spanach Interview: Spanach Lumber Company
Peter Murphy's 1999 interview of Amelia Spanach for the Forest History Program.
Judd Groat Interview: Guide, Outfitter, Packer
Part of the Forest History Program Interview Series.
fRI Research 2015–2016 Annual Report
Contains highlights of many of our recent projects.
Kenneth Hall Interview
Part of the Forest History Program Interview Series
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