06/09/2026
How can archives support justice-oriented research?
Recently UCalgary Library transformed entries from the Historical CPR Land Sales Register (1881-1927) into spatially accessible data. Every land parcel is tied to its real-world location, which means you can see these sales on a map across the prairie landscape.
The stories behind these entries extend beyond names, places and prices paid. In exchange for building the railway, the federal government granted the CPR 25 million acres of prairie land. Land that, was historically inhabited by indigenous peoples, and granted to the CPR without their consultation.
The CPR's sale of those acres to settlers and land companies was an engine of prairie colonization, reshaping who lived where, who profited, and whose histories were preserved and prioritized. Making this data spatial, opens possibilities for justice-oriented research. It can support mapping the dispossession of lands, ground research and conversation into the colonization of the west in visual forms of evidence, and surface the stories of women, racialized settlers, and those whose presence on the prairies has been historically marginalized.
The database is open to anyone online, whether a scholarly researcher, a community member, anyone curious about the ground beneath their feet.
Image credits: Interns Colin Au Yeung and Paniz Noori spent the summer of 2025 scanning and cross-referencing data for this project.
International Council on Archives - ICA
