Thanks to the efforts of Thea Hawryluk, we welcome Les Kozma from The Canadian Northern Society to speak on the role and impact of railways in the settlement of Alberta and Western Canada. Les has been researching various aspects of western Canadian railway development, architecture, and operations for over 50 years. He has authored or co-written five books, numerous formal reports and over a hundred articles.

Railways were the economic engine of the West; and they were transformative – enabling a dramatic shift from a fur trading economy to one of agriculture and industry – impacting the landscape of western Canada, both for the White settlers and for the First Nations people whose lives were irrevocably changed. Railways facilitated the movement of western products to market, returning essentials, manufactured and finished goods from the eastern industrial heartland. This is the story of railways in Alberta, and their influence and impact on the immigration to and the settlement of this province in the seven decades between 1880 and 1950.