“Hard to express how happy I was driving my family home and hearing their thoughts about Packingtown. They were blown away with the entire story and show. They saw themselves in the story you told and felt expansive pride of the place they came from. My Dad was so happy that the story was captured and is being retold in a way he said was “true”. High compliment from him.”

The Project

The community that became known as Packingtown was established in the early 20thC with Fort Road as its commercial centre. Swift Canadian built a meatpacking plant in 1908, followed by Burns (1911-1913) and Canada Packers (1936). Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific railways entered the area and Edmonton’s stockyard became second in size only to Chicago’s Union Stock Yards. By the end of WWII meatpacking was a major industrial employer. Workers lived in the area, congregated in local cafés, and created a community. Packingtown’s significance as a meatpacking district ended in the 1980s: in 1980 Burns, and 1984 Canada Packers, converted their plants into distribution centres. Pocklington Financial Corporation purchased the food assets of Swifts in 1980 and re-branded it Gainers. Following a protracted strike in 1986, he defaulted on huge loans from the Alberta government in 1990. The province acquired then sold both Gainers’ plants to Burns in 1994, who sold the assets to Maple Leaf in 1996. The plant closed in 1997. Today there are few tangible remains of the industry or early community. The Burns plant was demolished in 1988; Canada Packers in 1995; the original Swifts building in 2002. Canada Packers’ brick chimney stack is a lone reminder of the meatpacking era. However it is still possible to evoke the community’s history through sound, imagery and text.

Project organizers are interested in conducting recorded interviews with people who worked in meatpacking or related industries or have interesting stories to share about community life.

For more information, visit the Packingtown Edmonton website.

The Video Ballad

The video ballad Packingtown shares the vibrant people’s history of North Edmonton through original songs and video interviews with people who worked at the meatpacking plants and lived in the community during the height of the meatpacking industry there (early 1900s to 1980s). The 60-minute live music and video performance weaves music and lyrics written by Juno-nominated songwriter Maria Dunn, with video footage, historical photographs, and video interviews collected and edited by videographer Don Bouzek of Ground Zero Productions (GZP) and historian-curator Catherine C. Cole with the support of northeast resident Janice Melnychuk. The performance features Maria Dunn accompanied by Shannon Johnson of the Juno award winning Celtic world fusion band, The McDades.

Background

The community that became known as Packingtown was established in the early 20th century with Fort Road as its commercial centre. Swift Canadian built a meatpacking plant in 1908, followed by Burns (1911-1913) and Canada Packers (1936). Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific railways entered the area and Edmonton’s stockyard became second in size only to Chicago’s Union Stock Yards. By the end of WWII meatpacking was a major industrial employer. Workers lived in the area, congregated in local cafés, and created a community. Packingtown’s significance as a meatpacking district ended in the 1980s: in 1980 Burns, and 1984 Canada Packers, converted their plants into distribution centres. Pocklington Financial Corporation purchased the food assets of Swifts in 1980 and re-branded it Gainers. Following a protracted strike in 1986, he defaulted on huge loans from the Alberta government in 1990. The province acquired then sold both Gainers’ plants to Burns in 1994, who sold the assets to Maple Leaf in 1996. The plant closed in 1997. Today there are few tangible remains of the industry or early community. The Burns plant was demolished in 1988; Canada Packers in 1995; the original Swifts building in 2002. Canada Packers’ brick chimney stack is a lone reminder of the meatpacking era. However it is still possible to evoke the community’s history through sound, imagery and text.