Accessibility

The Fort Heritage PrecinctAccessibility

If you require special accommodations for your visit to the Fort Heritage Precinct, please refer to the information below. You can also give us a call at 780-998-1783 or email us at [email protected] to discuss additional possible options.

Persons with limited mobility

The Warden’s Residence, North West Mounted Police Fort, and Canadian Northern Railway Station are all accessible for visitors using manual wheelchairs or walkers. Please note that power wheelchairs may have difficulty navigating over small doorframe lips in some areas.

The Historical Village is not wheelchair accessible, as all of the buildings require ascending steps to enter.

The Fort Heritage Precinct is an outdoor site so some pathways are not paved, but are still manageable for most persons with wheelchairs or walkers.

Persons with visual impairments

  1. Visitors can choose to physically explore the site and listen to their guide as they go.
  2. Visitors can choose to sit with their guide in one location and listen to the entirety of the tour from there. Depending on preference, our tour guides can focus on descriptive language and narratives to further enrich the tour experience. We love to tell a good story!
  3. Visual aids such as magnifying glasses or flashlights are available on request.
  4. Visitors can request large-font or high-contrast copies of our tour notes.

Unfortunately, we are not able to offer tactile experiences with our artifacts and objects during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At this time, our guides are not able to provide physical support to our visitors (such as placing a hand on the shoulder or arm for guidance).

Persons who are hard of hearing

We have a number of options for visitors who are hard of hearing. They include:

  1. Voice-to-text technology. During the COVID-19 pandemic, tour guides will speak into a device equipped with a speech-to-text program, and then step back so that visitors can read the text while allowing for distancing.
  2. Written tour notes. Guides will give visitors a sheet that summarizes the information for each building. This option can be combined with speech-to-text technology in order to allow guests to easily ask questions throughout their tour.

Unfortunately, we are not able to offer a lip reading option during the COVID-19 pandemic due to a staff-wide mandatory mask policy.

If there are additional options that would work best for you, please let us know! We are happy to accommodate as much as we can.

"The tour of the Precinct was really interesting and very engaging for the children. There were so many hands on activities for them to participate in that they were always engaged. I love that they are allowed to touch and explore many of the items around the precinct. That makes such a difference to keep them engaged, on task and motivated. The learning connections between what we talked about in school and what we saw were evident in the conversations between the kids and the interpreters."