(Red Deer Archives P789/On This Spot)

By rdnewsNOW staff

take a walk back in time

Interactive history walking tour app launches in Red Deer

Jun 22, 2021 | 4:54 PM

Red Deer has been added to an interactive walking tour app that allows users to step back in time.

Users of the free On This Spot app will be able to view 20 historic photos of Red Deer and stand in the footprints of the photographers who took them. Users can compare the changes between past and present with historic photographs that date from the 1900s to the 1960s and dramatically illustrate the transformations Red Deer has undergone over the years.

App developers say this content is just a preview of planned expansion of walking tours and photography in the city.

The photos will be available on the On This Spot app or online at https://onthisspot.ca/cities/reddeer.

The app is designed to make high-quality local history accessible to the widest possible audience, and encourage people to visit—or plan to visit— Red Deer.

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“Smartphones can make local history vastly more accessible and engaging, and COVID has only accelerated an ongoing trend towards adoption of these digital technologies. Now anyone with a smartphone can see Red Deer through the eyes of people a century or more ago, creating an exciting and tangible connection with the past,” said Andrew Farris, CEO of On This Spot.

“The tour and photographs aren’t just for tourists, but for people who have called this community home theirentire lives. This experience is especially popular with young people, and we hope this becomes a fantastic educational tool for people growing up in Red Deer, and it encourages them to see and think about their community in a new way.”

Other local communities featured in the app include Blackfalds, Lacombe, Alix, Bentley and Eckville.