CPR Willingdon train station now open at St. Paul Museum; monument unveiled

Last weekend was the first opportunity for residents to go inside the former CPR Willingdon station, which has a new home at the St. Paul Museums. 

The grand opening for the season Sunday of the People’s Museum and Historical Museum was a day of activities, and the culmination of approximately 18 months of work to renovate and restore a piece of local history. 

Alice Bourget, curator for the People’s Museum, described how the station moved from the Shandro Museum to St. Paul in December 2023. 

“Inside the museum is not only history about the train, but also history about the CN station that was here in St. Paul,” Bourget told Lakeland Connect.

St. Paul’s connection to rail has a unique background, where homesteaders and businessmen travelled and nailed spikes in the ground themselves to ensure that the community would have access to this critical infrastructure.

“In the late 1920s CN Rail decided that they would terminate the CN Rail line in Spedden, and it would then turn north and go to Cold Lake. It wasn’t going to come to St. Paul at all,” said Bourget.

“The citizens of St Paul, the farmers and the business people, said, we can’t have that, because we need a way to move our goods. Whether it was the grain that they were growing or to get goods for their stores. They actually got together and they went to Spedden and spent a number of days and weeks building the rail line from Spedden to St. Paul. That’s how St. Paul got a CN Rail Station.

“We’re displaying that history inside the station.”

Fundraising is a key piece of how these historical artifacts are rejuvenated.

Bourget said that teams have helped fundraise $100,000.

Monument unveiled at Lagasse Park

The Francophone monument is now a part of Lagasse Park, relating to arts & culture and education. The ACFA (Association canadienne-française de l’Alberta) sponsored the history-sharing piece.

 

Lise Belliveau, Lorraine Hétu, Marie-Anne Marchand, Cecile Biélech, Jeannette Letourneau, and Germaine Champagne, are now memorialized as you step foot into the living history of the Museums, in a beautiful stained glass remainder of their countless volunteer hours.

In total, it’s decades that these women have poured into local history.