As I mentioned a few weeks ago, working with primary sources is one way to make the past come alive for students. Manitoba.ca offers some cool early Manitoba newspapers to work with.
The Alberta Heritage Digitalization Project also offers online papers, coming from (naturally) Alberta’s past. You can look up a year and pick particular issues of the newspapers available from that year.
There’s no search function, and the collection is incomplete since each individual page of the paper is scanned as a jpeg and then posted. While it’s not perfect, it’s a whole easier than taking your class to the archives, the downtown library, or the university and it exposes them to one more cool resource.
And, by the way, thanks to one of my two faithful readers for pointing out this neat resource.