Reflecting On The Past: One-Room Schoolhouses
Last summer on our road trip to the Majorville Medicine Wheel we happened upon a tiny one room schoolhouse in the middle of nowhere. We quickly stopped the car and got out to explore. It was both a haunting and memorable experience. It was an instant reminder of how much the world has changed over the past 100 years, especially in Alberta where we are in the middle of a teachers strike and some would say an education crisis.
Over the past few months this innocent one-room schoolhouse has been the catalyst for much reflection on my past in Alberta. Indeed, it pays to take the road less travelled.
Liberty School sits all alone along Township Road 194
You can enter the building at the back if you dare.
Valleyview
One of my earliest experiences in Alberta, back in 1980, was when I visited a one-room schoolhouse on the Hutterite colony near Valleyview (founded in 1971) where a new friend was teaching Grades 1 to 8. To say it was an eye-opener is an understatement.
I was shocked to find a one-room schoolhouse still in use. And yes, our friend lived in a small room in the school (she used to come to our apartment for the “luxury of taking a bath”). Not only that but the colony and a nearby homesteader (who lived in a 15 foot by 10 foot log cabin, with a wood stove and no electricity) were still breaking the land to create virgin farmland. What a naïve city boy from the east was I!
Link: A guide for teachers New To Hutterian Colony Schools
Link: The Arrival of the Hutterites in Alberta
Liberty School
Fast forward to August 2025, when on a road trip to the medicine wheel at Majorville (which no longer exists) about 150 km southeast of Calgary we happened upon the Liberty School literally in the middle of nowhere. We were able to explore the schoolyard as well as get inside the abandoned building.
Turns out the school opened in 1909 and operated until 1939, when the province phased out one-room schoolhouses. It was then used as the community hall until the 70s. While the exterior is in reasonable shape, the inside is in very poor shape. Wandering the schoolyard, we found the cupola that once held the bell used to ring in each new school day, buried in the grass. Surprisingly, the land surrounding the school, isn’t very flat as you might expect given the schoolyard would have been used by the children to play games. It would appear the building is just being left to slowly and sadly fall apart.
Overall, the experience was a stark reminder of the hardships prairie pioneer families and teachers s faced not that long ago.
Liberty School is literally in the middle of nowhere.
Grand Trunk School
I am reminded of the one-room schoolhouse experience almost every day when I look out my front window and see the Grand Trunk school next to the park across the street from our house. It a constant reminder that it was not just the rural prairie pioneers who struggled to educate their children, but also those in the cities also.
The expectations of the public for education and schools have grown exponentially over the past 100 years. Note: Calgary didn’t even have its own university until 1966, now it has four. I can’t help but wonder where our education system will be in 10 or 20 years from now, let alone 100 years.
Grand Trunk School today. Note the two blank rectangles in the triangles above the stairs; this where the school’s name would have been. It is located next to Grand Trunk Park, which would have been the school’s playground.
Last Word
One of the things I think I love most about the one-room schoolhouses is they actually look like houses and not institutions. They have a pitched roof, an inviting front door and in the case of the Grand Trunk School a lovely porch. I realize they are no longer practical and you can’t live in the past, but it nice to be reminded from time to time how the world has changed - sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.