Fort Edmonton Park is Canada's largest living history museum and the best way to understand how Edmonton transformed from a fur trading outpost to a twentieth-century city. The park is organised chronologically along a route that moves through four historical periods: the original HBC fort of the 1840s; a street scene from 1885; Jasper Avenue in 1905; and the 1920s era.
Each section uses reconstructed and relocated historic buildings — a church, a print shop, a dentist's office, a saloon — staffed by interpreters in period costume. The 1905 and 1920s sections in particular convey something of what prairie urban life looked like before the car era. Horses pull wagons; the streetcar runs on actual historic track; the shops contain replica period merchandise.
The park sits in the river valley on the south bank of the North Saskatchewan, with walking trails connecting it to the broader river valley pathway system. Allow most of a day to do it properly. The park is open May through early September; check hours before visiting.