One of Atlantic Canada’s premier digital media companies had the honour this year to re-digitize a true national icon — The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Raised Media won the contract to redevelop the esteemed publication’s online product, which involved upgrading both the user interface and back end, adding several features and recoding more than 19,000 submissions.

President and co-founder Mike Rizkalla said the project for the Historica Foundation, the organization that oversees the encyclopedia, was a challenge, and the team is proud to have contributed to improving Canadians’ access to their heritage.

 “Everything they do has to do with Canadian heritage, and that appealed to the whole team,” said Rizkalla in an interview.

The brainchild of Canadian publisher Mel Hurtig, The Canadian Encyclopedia was launched in the 1980s with an initial print run of almost 500,000 copies. After a few editions, it was digitized in the late 1990s, and eventually the print and online properties were passed on to Historica, a non-profit group that would manage and grow the publications.

About a year ago, Historica sent out a request for proposals to update the online offering, and about 50 companies from across the country, including Raised Media, applied for the project.

The Halifax firm has quietly been winning contracts for major clients like Pearson Plc, HarperCollins and BlackBerry for eight years, with the goal of using cutting-edge technology to develop games or activities that speak to people. Last year, the company won the competition to develop an online game for the Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch series.

The Raised team collaborated with publisher Anthony Wilson-Smith in reinventing the free online product.

Rizkalla said the online encyclopedia was first produced in the late 1990s, in the days when programmers used vintage PCs and dial-up modems. The Raised team had to recode various features and build a new publishing system and citation engine so editors could work more efficiently.

It added new features, such as online exhibits and an aggregated Twitter feed. There is another that allows Canadians to tell their stories on the site, so the experience is more interactive. The site also features a learning centre for teachers and parents, including classroom resources, quizzes and themed study guides.

 “We chose Mike and the Raised team as partners in the face of some very intense competition,” said Wilson-Smith.

 “If anything, they have actually exceeded expectations. They immediately understood where we wanted to go with the encyclopedia and actually came up with concepts and programs that took us beyond what we initially talked about.”

Historica says the site receives more than six million unique visitors annually accounting for 9.5 million page views.

Rizkalla said his 12-member team loved working with the Historica staff, largely because both parties embraced the opportunity as a partnership. That meant they had to work closely in developing various stages of the project. The creative process took about three months, and development another six.

The new site was launched in October at a reception at an Ontario museum. Rizkalla had never seen a reception to launch a website.

 “We’re in talks about doing a bigger relationship with them,” said Rizkalla. “It feels like they’re the perfect team for us so we’ll see what the new year brings.”