In late August, over 700 Hollinger boxes were moved from Madonna House, the Provincial administrative offices in North York to St. Patrick’s Monastery in downtown Toronto. The numerous artifacts and larger items, including a pew from St. Patrick’s Church, are receiving special treatment and are slowly being transferred by car over the next few weeks.

The planning and preparations for this move began back in June 2025 following the announcement to relocate the whole of the Provincial administrative offices. A detailed inventory of the archives was conducted over the course of 2025, and the more fragile records and items were securely wrapped and packed away.

This year was focused on preparing the new space in the monastery for the incoming records, a space that was currently occupied by a large library. This library was the accumulation of several parish and college libraries from the Edmonton and Toronto Provinces, and had been collecting dust for the past decade. The decision was made to downsize and relocate the library across the hall from the archive space.

The next four months were spent sifting through the shelves and pulling 134 banker boxes of books for retention, and then the next three months were spent packing the remaining books into 320 boxes. Some of these were sent to the Redemptorist Province in Vietnam while the rest are being donated to the University of St. Michael’s College.

During this period, I also worked with Carr McLean to retrofit the existing library shelving to house archival boxes. The new shelves were installed in June 2026, and the old shelving was used in the new library space.

The final packing of the archives happened in the days before the move on August 21. With the assistance of the Provincial office staff and MC Havey, the Edmonton-Toronto Province archivist from 2000-2019, all the boxes were packed into rented blue bins in order to better protect them during the move.

The weeks following the move have been spent unpacking the records and conducting an inventory in order to ensure that everything survived the move. When the weather permits, we have also slowly been bringing down the more delicate records like artifacts, AV materials and relics.

With the move largely done with, the Provincial Archives can now turn its focus on the records of the former Yorkton and Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré Provinces, and help to determine the future plans for them. At the very least, the new space has plenty of room to spare for them!