Speaker Series: A Road Well Travelled - Step into 100 Years of Stories

AMA was founded at Edmonton's Hotel Mack in 1926. Discover How AMA & Edmonton have shaped our roads throughout the Province.
About this Event

A ROAD WELL TRAVELLED: STEP INTO 100 YEARS OF STORIES

What can the history of AMA tell us about the history of Edmonton and Alberta?

The answer, it turns out, is a great deal. When representatives of Alberta's automobile clubs

gathered at Edmonton's Hotel Macdonald in September 1926, they were responding to

something every Albertan understood: the roads were rough, the rules were unclear, and

motorists needed one another. Out of that meeting came the Alberta Motor Association, an

organization whose first century maps closely onto Edmonton's own.

This presentation follows AMA's journey from the earliest days of motoring in Edmonton, when

the city's first automobile arrived in May 1904, through the organization's founding, its decades

of growth, and its Centennial celebrations throughout 2026 and 2027. Along the way, it asks a

larger question: how do the roads we build, and the institutions we create to travel them,

shape the communities we live in?

Edmonton features prominently throughout. The presentation explores AMA's early advocacy

for better provincial roads, many of which were little more than muddy tracks, and its role in

providing motorists with maps, road reports, and emergency roadside assistance. It traces the

expansion of AMA's services as Edmonton grew: from driver education and school safety

patrols to insurance, travel planning, vehicle inspection, and emissions testing.

The story also reflects on the broader forces that shaped both AMA and Edmonton: the

Depression, the Second World War, the Leduc oil discovery and the car-culture boom that

followed, the rise of the environmental movement, digital transformation, and the community

crises that tested Alberta's resolve, including the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire, when AMA

helped thousands of displaced Albertans navigate one of the largest evacuations in Canadian

history.

Through archival photographs, historical stories, video and memorable milestones, A Road Well

Travelled reveals how AMA's first century is inseparable from the story of Edmonton and the

province it has served. For an audience that has spent decades preserving and celebrating that story.

Agenda

🕑: 06:00 PM
Registration

Info: Come meet members and find your perfect seat

🕑: 06:30 PM - 08:00 PM
Presentation by Ethan