Edmonton in The Time of Exclusion
Journey of the Horse and the Mah Society of Edmonton are excited to be selected for a collaboration with the Chinese Canadian Museum. We are now the Edmonton location to collect Chinese Immigration (C.I.) certificates for The Paper Trail Collection - a digital archive of these precious certificates.
Next scanning days are
May 5, 19, 24, 25, and 26 or by appointment
JUNE 30, 2024 DEADLINE
Our scanner is ready and we have until June 30, 2024
to add precious C.I. certificates to this archive.
We urge you to start looking now for any certificates that may be in your posession. You don’t need to be a Mah, you don’t need to be from Edmonton, you don’t even need to be Chinese to have a certificate added. If you have a C.I. certificate, we’d really like to ensure that it’s scanned, preserved, and the memory of it’s owner is not forgotten.
“The Paper Trail collection is the largest research collection of Chinese immigration certificates that were issued to identify and register Chinese people in Canada, which included immigrants and their Canadian-born children,” says The Paper Trail’s archivist June Chow.
Led by community historian and curator, Catherine Clement, The Paper Trail project seeks to commemorate the era of exclusion that was “the darkest and most despairing period in Chinese Canadian history.” Scanned C.I. certificates and details about the individuals who once owned them make up the new digital archive.
Please take some time to read about this important project at
1923-chinese-exclusion.ca/the-project/
To learn more about the different C.I. certificates, visit
1923-chinese-exclusion.ca/c-i-certificates/
To peruse the certificates that have already been added, visit
If you have a certificate for scanning or questions, please email us at