You can help save priceless CNE memories with your donation – large or small

The CNE Foundation is on a mission to help ensure the rich history of the CNE is preserved for future generations. Thousands of CNE archival negatives in the Alexandra Studio Collection are deteriorating due to Vinegar Syndrome and it’s a race against time to digitize them before the images are lost forever.

With the support of the CNE community, the CNE Foundation can continue to raise the funds needed to complete the digitization and save these priceless images.

Please click here to learn more about our CNE Archives Project.

You can help save the CNE’s history with your donation, large or small. Donations of $20 or more are eligible for a charitable tax receipt.

Thank you for your support.

2021 summer digitization project

In 2021, we officially launched the CNE Foundation’s “CNE Archives Project” – an initiative aimed to digitize and preserve more than 64,000 at-risk archival photo negatives in the Alexandra Studio collection.

Through funding and individual donations received, we were able to bring on two archives digitization interns last summer. During their time with us, the team scanned and rehoused thousands and thousands of photo negatives in the CNE archival collection that were at risk due to Vinegar Syndrome. This causes them to crack and lose their content. In total, the team scanned 4,389 negatives and rehoused 8,566 negatives.

We are grateful for the financial contributions from funders and individual donors, which enabled this important work.

2022 joint project with Canadian Heritage Photography Foundation

This year, we are thrilled to work in partnership with the Canadian Heritage Photography Foundation (CHPF) on a joint project: Preserving the Legacy of the Canadian National Exhibition: Digitizing Photography from the Alexandra Studio Collection 1977-79.

This joint initiative will enable the digitization and preservation of 8,000 at-risk archival photo negatives from the CNE’s Alexandra Studio collection. Public access to the images will be available through both foundations following completion of the project.

The CNE portion of the Alexandra Studio Fond consists of 109,032 cellulose acetate photo negatives and captures a visual record of the iconic Canadian National Exhibition event through the years 1947 to 1983. The CNE Foundation and CHPF project focuses on a selection of the images, from the years 1977 to 1979.

We are grateful for the opportunity to work with the CHPF team to save CNE memories for future generations.

This project has been made possible in part by Library and Archives Canada’s Documentary Heritage Communities Program.

Please click here to view the media release.