Rossdale Burial Site

Photo: City of Edmonton Archives.

Rossdale is one of Edmonton's oldest neighbourhoods. It borders the North Saskatchewan River, and includes a sacred site where the native people who lived around Fort Edmonton buried their dead. 

Photo: public domain.

Epcor power company owned this plant until it closed in 2011-12. Until 1970, it was the only power plant in the city. Much of the building was built as part of an aid program during the Great Depression in the early 1930s.

Traveling back in time to the 19th Century, the hustle and bustle of this urban area would be replaced by a view of the river, Fort Edmonton located just below where the Legislature is now, and the nearby encampments of Indigenous peoples, possibly members of the Dene, Blackfoot, Cree, Saulteaux and Nakota Sioux, and Métis nations, as well as Europeans.

Resting here at the Traditional Burial Ground and Fort Edmonton Cemetery in the River Crossing area are some of Edmonton's first European settlers -- French-Canadian, English, and Scottish -- as well as Métis and First Nations people. 

This memorial’s architectural commemorative symbolism of metals that stain like blood, broken pathways, the four cardinal directions in a tipi structure with an incomplete circle, and spears of light marking this territory, make for a powerful reminder of a past not yet resolved. The walking path with the wildflowers within the site represents the Métis people.