Purchase Mount Royal University: A Work of Art, today!
Don't miss out on this beautiful commemorative art book, telling the story of MRU's first 100 years, using our mural mosaic images. Available at the Mount Royal BookStore until supplies last.
Leave your lasting legacy
Donate to the centennial mural project and receive your own piece of history.
Nature illuminated
Mount Royal’s collection of archival educational materials includes a series of glass lantern slides created by renowned local botanist William Copeland McCalla (1872–1962). He was also a teacher, farmer, photographer and the author of an illustrated book, Wild Flowers of Western Canada.
The glass slides feature the flora of Alberta, on which McCalla was a respected authority, and were likely used in biology classes from the early to mid-1900s, after Mount Royal became a junior college affiliated with the University of Alberta.
Glass lantern slides, created in 1849 so that photographs could be projected onto a wall or screen, were made by developing a photographic image onto an 8 x 10 cm glass plate. The image was then hand-coloured or tinted using paints and dyes.
The Mount Royal slides include highly detailed renderings of local wildflowers such as asters, crocuses and irises.
McCalla's meticulous and delicate hand-colouring elevated his glass slides to the level of fine art — so much so that the Provincial Archives of Alberta held an exhibit of his work in 2007, entitled Immortal Nature’s Ageless Harmony: The Botanical Lantern Slides of William Copeland McCalla.
His slides are also found in the collections of the University of Calgary, the University of Alberta and the Whyte Museum.
This page regularly showcases the collections of the Mount Royal University Archives. Thanks to the Director of the Archives, Patricia Roome, PhD, and her staff for their assistance in selecting artifacts and conducting research.