Royal Canadian mint launches Amber Valley silver coin [Video]

An Alberta historian is hoping a new coin encourages Canadians to learn more about Western Canada’s Black history.

The Royal Canadian Mint is paying homage to Alberta’s Amber Valley, one of the oldest Black settlements in Western Canada.

“I hope people can appreciate the contributions that our people have made to this country, you know, and in particular out in that area,” said historian Myrna Wisdom, a founding member of the Black Settlers of Alberta and Saskatchewan Society.

Wisdom’s grandfather was one of the first African American settlers who came to northern Alberta in 1910, looking to flee the segregationist laws and escalating violence of the Jim Crow era.

At the time, the Canadian government was offering free land under the Dominion Lands Act to anyone who wanted to help settle the west.

“That’s when they sent up a few scouts,” Wisdom said. “They didn’t come here in the wintertime, …