Our Story
About Us
The arts are fundamental to the human experience. As a form of creative expression, the arts inspire, enrich, and connect us all. They are also an integral part of healthy communities, and Wood Buffalo is no exception.
The arts are fundamental to the human experience. As a form of creative expression, the arts inspire, enrich, and connect us all. They are also an integral part of healthy communities, and Wood Buffalo is no exception.
Arts Council Wood Buffalo (ACWB) is the leading advocate for the arts in our region. Our mission is to build a thriving community through the arts. We envision a creatively empowered Wood Buffalo, where innovation thrives. We offer life-changing support, opportunities, and programs in Fort McMurray and the surrounding rural communities.
We are the owners and operators of Arts INC, a social enterprise that brings opportunity to the community while ensuring our long term sustainability.
![lady-at-dek](https://artsinc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/lady-at-dek-1024x683.jpg)
![iStock-1393612831](https://artsinc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/iStock-1393612831-1024x681.jpg)
![iStock-1384773101](https://artsinc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/iStock-1384773101-1024x682.jpg)
![poeple-baking](https://artsinc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/poeple-baking-1024x683.jpg)
![Photographs from Arts Council's premier event the buffy's 2019](https://artsinc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/2019-WBEAA-72dpi-243-1024x682.jpg)
![Fort-Chip-2.1](https://artsinc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Fort-Chip-2.1-1024x667.jpg)
Our Mission
To build a thriving community through the arts
Our Vision
A creatively empowered Wood Buffalo
Acknowledgements
Arts Council Wood Buffalo celebrates and supports diversity. We are committed to showing respect for all, encouraging open collaboration and communication, and creating an inclusive environment, free from barriers and discrimination. We welcome the unique contributions each individual brings in terms of education, opinions, and culture, and we do not discriminate, or tolerate discrimination by others, based on race, religion, beliefs, colour, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, veteran status or status as a differently-abled individual, among other things.
We also welcome 2SLGBTQIA+, First Nations, Metis Nations, Inuit, and Multicultural groups and individuals.
Arts Council Wood Buffalo recognizes that we live, work, and create on the ancestral territories of the Dene, Nêhiyawak, and the land of the Metis Peoples. We are all treaty people together in our collective home within the boundaries of Treaty 8. We would also like to recognize the Traditional Knowledge Holders and Elders who are still with us today, and those who have gone before us. It is in their honour and as an act of reconciliation that we offer this acknowledgement.
ACWB would like to thank past and present Board Members, the Traditional Knowledge Keepers, and Indigenous Elders that have helped us write our organization’s Land Acknowledgement. This is a ‘living’ statement to be updated in consultation with our Indigenous partners as we continue on our reconciliation journey.