Did you know – St. Albert has an impressive record collection?

It seems like every community has or wants to have a claim to fame, some unique feature to put it on the map. Legal is the French mural capital of Canada, for instance. Edmonton has the biggest mall in the country.

St. Albert has a few such points of pride or notoriety, depending on the eye of the observer, even though none of them are prominent enough to make it onto the street-side sign as you enter the city.

For example, this is the home of the Father Lacombe Chapel, which holds the title of being the province’s oldest building, according to Alberta Culture’s website at www.culture.alberta.ca.

For that matter, St. Albert is the oldest non-fortified community in the province. This means it was established as a place for people to put down roots and settle, while places like Fort Edmonton and Fort Saskatchewan were only around as trading posts or military bases. At one point, it was even the largest agricultural settlement west of Winnipeg, according to the city’s website at www.stalbert.ca.

Because of its population and its significant religious presence, St. Albert became the home of the Episcopal See in the province, as decreed by Pope Pius IX. This made it Alberta’s first diocese in 1871, before that designation was transferred to Edmonton’s St. Joseph’s Basilica in 1912.

Since the village of St. Albert was such a religious centre, Father Lacombe soon saw that the river was an obstacle to many who wanted to attend services. He determined that a bridge should be built. The result became the first bridge west of the Great Lakes.

That bridge played an integral role in not only the agricultural and industrial development of the area (the province’s first grist mill was located close by, right on the banks of the Sturgeon River) but also in the community’s celebrations.

According to Oblate archivist Diane Lamoureux’s story found in last February’s issue of Archival Connections, the newsletter of the Catholic Archivist Group, the first telephone call in Alberta was made to the mission, and “the first fireworks were used for the 50th anniversary of the ordination of Fr. Lacombe in 1899.”

Carol Watamaniuk first became involved in civic administration as the city’s recreation superintendent in the mid to late 1970s. Part of this portfolio involved cultural programs, but only a few, she said.

She soon determined that the demand for more similar programs necessitated a new department to guide the city’s cultural life. She talked it over with then city manager Bob Byron, describing it to him as a “desperate need.”

Years later, they discussed the events surrounding the department’s inception. She described Byron’s initial take on her comments.

“The way I said it … he thought that we must be the only one around that didn’t have a cultural department,” she began. “It became a joke between Bob and I. He said, ‘I thought for sure everybody else had one’ and then it turned out that we were cutting edge.”

St. Albert became the first city in Alberta with a cultural services department, with Watamaniuk at its head. She believes it was also the first in the country.

“I can’t prove it but I think it was the first in the country. It was so unusual to have a municipal cultural department that I started getting calls from people across the country to speak at their conferences. To them, it was a new concept. It was just the model for the country.”

But St. Albert’s recreational life didn’t falter. Now the city can also boast of one of the largest ground level outdoor splash parks in North America. The city’s website describes the Woodlands Water Play Park as being 1,100 square metres and “attracting up to 2,000 people per summer day.”

Not far away, the Red Willow Badminton Club also gives the city a place on the world stage. What’s billed as the world’s largest badminton racquet stands proudly right at the centre’s parking lot entrance. Although the structure isn’t officially recognized by the Guinness book, any Google search always brings back this result at the top.

Club owner Jean Folinsbee said the landmark might not be well-known, but people still know it’s there.

“I’ll look out there and I’ll see cars stopped and I’ll see people posing out there.”