The Edmonton Heritage Festival is an annual celebration of Alberta's ethnic diversity. It was first celebrated in 1974, when then Minister of Culture, Horst Schmidt , declared the first Monday of August an annual holiday to recognise Albertans' cultural heritage. That year, the first Heritage Festival was held at Fort Edmonton Park .

In 1976, eleven cultural communities combined their resources to hold a one-day display of their traditional dances, foods, and crafts in Hawrelak Park , and in the intervening years, the celebration has grown to occupy all three days of the long weekend. Except for occasional declines due to poor weather, the festival has seen a steady increase in the number of attendees, and nearly thirty years after its inception, the Festival draws nearly four hundred thousand people to celebrate 51 different ethnicities and cultures.

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Edmonton Heritage Festival