Northlands Park Midway Overview

As an organization that proudly considers itself a community member, Northlands Park has been offering midways to people that visit its summer exhibition for a long time.

Midways have an extensive history—with roots going back to 12th century church fairs focused around regional commercial trade. Later, they evolved into grand events stationed at a particular location catering to audiences that moved through the midway's path. Since their beginning, they have worked hard to retain the interest of transitory audiences seeking new and unheard of enjoyment.

With time, midways developed into travelling affairs put on by different, and sometimes flamboyant companies, most often in conjunction with exhibitions or other community events that included agricultural affairs. In the 1920s, the relationship between midway businesses and agricultural events blossomed into happily boisterous occasions in Edmonton.

The Edmonton Exhibition Association (EEA) hired individual shows and independent circuses to entertain its large crowds. As midways gained fame and became more elaborate, the EEA brought them to town. They proved to be very popular and quickly replaced or were combined with previous forms of entertainment.

An historic and prominent midway company that left a positive impact and many cheerful memories for its host, the EEA, and its North-central Alberta audience, was the Johnny J. Jones Exposition company. For a long run in the 1920s, it presented all of the standard components of a midway, and amused summer exhibition visitors.

Conklin Shows, an important and dedicated midway figure in Canada and abroad, has provided Northlands Park’s summer exhibition the best travelling carnival fun since 1976, when the Royal American Shows Company ceased working in Canada.

To experience the Northlands Park midway is to take part in a long and colourful tradition that has amused people through the centuries.

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