The Lougheed House National and Provincial Historic Site is hosting several events to celebrate the history of Halloween in southern Alberta. Museum curator Cassandra Cummings has put together a free pop-up exhibit on the grounds to the south of the home called “Tricks, Treats & Traditions,” featuring photos, newspaper clippings and fun facts on the history of Halloween and it’s practices in the province. “There’s some really great photos and news articles there that we sourced from lots of different archives, including the Glenbow Historical Archives and the Esplanade in Medicine Hat,” she said, including several handmade costumes, as well as several fairytale princesses and Red Riding Hoods. Cummings found records of children in Vancouver first dressing up in costumes for Halloween in the late 1800s. There’s also records of the residents of the Lougheed House in costume. “In 1908, Dorothy Lougheed dresses up as the Dominion of Canada and people are dressing up as flags but very pop culture and politically related, always from the beginning,” Cummings said. Cummings even found records dating back to the early 1900s when the term ‘trick or treat’ was first used. “As I was doing the research for the exhibit, we really kept coming across this 1927 in Blackie Alberta, High River, Calgary and Lethbridge,” she said. “And we’re like, wow, the origins of this phrase are in southern Alberta, how cool is that?” But she also came across findings from a researcher in New York who traced the phrase back to Ontario, where it was first uttered in 1917 along with articles from Edmonton and Red Deer where kids were saying ‘trick or treat’ on Halloween as early as 1922. “It’s been exciting to kind of trace the history of the phrase and where it comes from,” she said. “We don’t totally know the origin or why they started saying trick or treat, but it’s fun to kind of follow the thread. We haven’t found anything else since, new sources are digitized all the time, so it’s possible there’s an earlier record than 1917.” Cummings says in the early years of celebrating Halloween, southern Albertans focused more on the trick side — creating mischief rather than pursuing a treat. “There was lots of gate stealing, lots of pranks and then slowly, the traditions related to trick or treat heavy on the treat kind of come in over time,” she said Cummings and staff at the historic 1891 home say they’re asked numerous times by visitors about ghosts. “I think because we have the Victorian mansion, people do ask us if it’s haunted,” she said. “I personally have never experienced anything, and we have nothing to suggest historically that there is perhaps some other spirits here.” Learn more about Halloween events at Lougheed House here.
