E. J. (Ted) Hart

Ted Hart graduated from the University of Alberta with a Master’s Degree in Western Canadian History in 1972. Recruited to work in the nascent archives at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, he learned the archival profession on the job under the direction of the late Maryalice Stewart and through the first of the archives summer school sessions taught by the late Jim Parker at the University of Alberta. In 1976, Ted became Head Archivist and in 1979 the Executive Director of the Whyte Museum.

Ted attended the founding meeting of the Association of Canadian Archivists at the University of Alberta and, with a handful of other Alberta archivists, created the Archives Society of Alberta in 1981, serving as its founding president. Ted’s responsibilities as Executive Director at the Whyte Museum precluded direct involvement in its ongoing activities, but he has remained a keen user of archives from a research perspective, now having written a dozen books, mostly on the history of the Canadian Rockies.

He retired from the Whyte Museum in 2010, the same year in which he became a fellow of the Association of Canadian Archivists.