"Rat Control in Alberta" print (1954)

Alberta has two provincial slogans: the official "Fortis et Liber" and the unofficial "Rat Free Since 1950". Both are questionable, but one of them resulted in the incredible Rat Control in Alberta booklet, first published in 1954 and revised in 1961. Copies are rare. I've never seen one in real life, and I can find only two low-quality copies online. 

So, how did I get my hands on a pristine version to make cover reprints from? Well, I made it. You can find a heavily stickered and marked up complete copy of the entire 1954 booklet right here on the Internet Archive, and I highly recommend checking it out—the (uncredited) illustrations alone are worth a visit. Whoever drew it had a great sense of humour and knew their way around a pen. The other copy I can find online is a clean but low-resolution copy at the excellent Vintageedmonton.com.  

Besides my usual restoring tricks, I used the low-res stickerless cover as a reference to completely redraw and rebuild the stickered-over but higher resolution Internet Archive version. Sometimes it pays to be an artist well-versed in cutting and pasting.

The logo at bottom left presented a bit of a challenge. The original shows a little boy with a rifle wearing a single-feather headband, and he’s carrying a rat by its tail. I’m guessing their intent was to match the non-English sounding acronym “KROOA” with a “historic Hollywood indian” mascot, a stereotype well-described in Thomas King’s The Inconvenient Indian. So, I thought I'd give him a more period-accurate 1954 Albertan headgear—a cowboy hat—and let the viewer decide who, exactly, that rifle-bearing rat-holding boy is. 

A booklet cover reproduction available at 12x18" or 24x36" on Epson Enhanced Matte 192 gsm paper printed with Epson UltraChrome XD2 archival ink. Sold in an open edition, unframed. The Province of Alberta Department of Agriculture logo has been removed and the Minister of Agriculture wordmark on this cover has been replaced with the words ”Alberta Farming Forum” due to Section 9 of the Canadian Trademarks Act.