Calgary

Known as "the heart of the New West," Calgary is the largest city in the province of Alberta. Its population of around 1.5 million residents (2020 estimate) makes it the third largest city in Canada, following Toronto and Quebec. Calgary is located in southern Alberta, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where the Bow and Elbow Rivers meet. The city was founded in 1875 as a fort of the North West Mounted Police, a predecessor of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Calgary experienced an economic boom during the twentieth century, first as a transportation hub for agriculture and cattle and later as the center of the province's oil and natural gas industries. Today, Calgary is also a major financial center, and home to many corporate headquarters. Also known as "Cowtown," Calgary maintains much of its cowboy heritage.

Landscape

Calgary is located in the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains, in the Bow River valley, and residents enjoy magnificent views of the mountains. Shortgrass prairie surrounds the city. The city's location is at the Bow's confluence with the Elbow River and Nose Creek. The city's growth has been affected by the location of the rivers, as well as by the location of railroads.

Calgary has grown tremendously since World War II, in large part because of the discovery of oil and natural gas in the region. There are many high-rise buildings, and Calgary is the second most popular site in Canada for corporate headquarters, following Toronto.

The city has also sought to make Calgary more livable in the winter by building a series of enclosed walkways downtown. Calgary has sought to control growth by means of zoning and urban planning. There are many hiking and biking trails.

People

The Calgary metropolitan area's population is primarily white (66.3 percent, according to data from the 2016 census), with a majority having English or Canadian ethnic origins. The city's largest minority groups include people of South Asian (8.9 percent), Chinese (6.5 percent) and Filipino (5.1 percent) descent. The percentage of visible minorities increased considerably with steady immigration in the 2000s and 2010s. Many professional people live in Calgary because of the city's status as a corporate center.

The city's culture reflects its heritage as a "cowtown," although it is becoming increasingly cosmopolitan. The most popular cultural event is the annual Calgary Stampede. Called "the greatest outdoor show on earth," the event features a ten-day rodeo and festival. The event draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to the city each year. The festival was established in 1912 by American cowboy Guy Weadick.

Calgary is home to many professional sports teams. These include the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames and the Canadian Football League's Calgary Stampeders.

Major sports venues include Stampede Park (home of the Calgary Stampede) and the Scotiabank Saddledome, which has a seating capacity of more than nineteen thousand. The city hosted the Winter Olympics in 1988. Canada Olympic Park continues to offer world-class sporting facilities for a number of winter sports, including ski jumping.

Calgary is governed under a mayoral system of government. The mayor and city council members are elected for three-year terms. The city also has an Administrative Leadership Team (ALT) with a city manager. Like most of Alberta, Calgary tends to be politically conservative. This is in contrast with its archrival Edmonton, which is known for being somewhat more liberal.

Economy

In the early twenty-first century, Calgary was Alberta's wealthiest and fastest growing city. For decades, its main economic rival has been Edmonton, the provincial capital. This rivalry extends to efforts to attract businesses to the city, as well as in the quest for government funds.

Much of Calgary's wealth is based on petroleum, first discovered in 1914 at Turner Valley. Other discoveries of petroleum and natural gas were made during the 1920s and 1930s. Calgary was the site of the province's first oil refinery. The biggest oil find was at Leduc, in 1947. This marked the true beginning of the oil boom.

The oil industry suffered a depression in the 1980s but enjoyed boom times in the early 2000s due to rising energy prices nationally and worldwide. By the 2010s the city sought to diversify its economy away from reliance on oil and gas, though they remained major contributors to gross domestic product (GDP). Many corporate headquarters are located in Calgary, including most of the country's oil, natural gas, and coal companies.

Other important industries are agriculture, cattle, timber, high technology, financial services, and tourism. The University Research Park is a leading research center.

Calgary is a major North American media market. There are several major newspapers based in the city, including the daily Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun. Public broadcasting includes the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Alberta Educational Television Network.

Calgary is a major transportation hub for Western Canada, with many miles of railroad track. The city is located near the Trans-Canada Highway, the main east-west route across the country. Calgary International Airport is a major Canadian airport. Calgary Transit, the municipal light-rail system, opened in May 1981 and has one of the highest per capita riderships in North America.

Landmarks

Calgary's skyline is dominated by tall skyscrapers, reflecting the city's status as the home of many corporate headquarters. The 247-meter (810-foot) tower at Brookfield Place is country's tallest outside of Toronto. The Calgary Tower, a 191-meter (626-foot) observation tower, is one of the city's most recognizable landmarks.

Calgary is home to several major museums that focus on the history of Alberta and Western Canada. The Glenbow Museum, the largest museum in Western Canada, includes an art gallery, library, and archives of Western Canadian historical material. The Heritage Park Historical Village portrays life in Alberta during the frontier era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Fort Calgary Historic Park includes a reproduction of the fort built by the North West Mounted Police in 1875, as well as an interpretive center. Located at the fort is the 1906 Deane House, later operated as a restaurant, home of a former fort superintendent.

Other major museums include the Alberta Science Centre, which includes a large theater showing science films. City parks include the Fish Creek Provincial Park and Nose Hill Park. The city has a large zoo as well as a botanical conservatory known as Devonian Gardens.

The performing arts are well represented in Calgary. Calgary Centre for Performing Arts houses three theater companies and the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. Opera is provided by the Calgary Opera Association. The Calgary International Jazz Festival is another major attraction. Country music is also popular; the city has been nicknamed the "Nashville of the North."

Calgary has several major institutions of higher learning. These include the University of Calgary; though founded in the 1960s, it has become one of Canada's major research universities. Mount Royal University was established in 1910. The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology was established in 1916. Other educational institutions include Bow Valley College and the Alberta College of Art.

History

The southern Alberta region where Calgary now stands has been inhabited by native peoples for approximately twelve thousand years. First Nations historically in the area included the Blackfoot, Sarcee, and Stoney peoples. The location at the confluence of the Elbow and Bow rivers made it a popular meeting place for many peoples.

Europeans began arriving in the late 1700s, due to the fur trade. David Thompson, a fur trader and explorer with the North West Company who visited the region in 1787, is the first recorded European to visit the Calgary area. In the mid-nineteenth century, when white settlers began arriving, the territory was part of "Rupert's Land," owned by the Hudson's Bay Company.

Bison hunters from the United States began arriving in the 1860s. Calgary was a popular watering hole for bison. They were followed by whiskey traders, who sold alcohol to the native people in exchange for buffalo skins. Sam Livingston, a rancher, had settled in the region by the early 1870s. He is considered the first recorded settler of the Calgary area.

Permanent white settlement began in 1875, when the North West Mounted Police established several forts in the Northwest Territories, including Fort Calgary (originally Fort Brisebois). Inspector Ephram Brisebois, commander of the NWMP's F Troop, named the fort after himself. Due to his unpopularity, however, in 1876 the post was renamed Fort Calgary, in honor of Calgary Bay in Scotland. The name was chosen by former NWMP Colonel James Macleod, who had left the force to become a civil magistrate at the fort.

In 1883, Fort Calgary became part of the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which connected the Canadian West with Ontario and Quebec. A town grew up along the railroad, and within a few years became an important transportation hub for shipping cattle and agricultural products. Calgary incorporated as a town in 1884 and became a city ten years later.

Calgary thrived during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a major center for meatpacking and shipping agricultural products. The city gained such amenities as electric lighting and a sewer system in the 1880s and 1890s. The first institutions of higher learning were established in the years surrounding World War I.

In the early twentieth century, during the push for Alberta provincehood, Calgary was proposed as the provincial capital; that honor, however, went to Edmonton when Alberta became a province in 1905.

In 1912, American-born cowboy/promoter Guy Weadick hosted the first Calgary Stampede, which brought rodeo riders from all over North America to compete for cash prizes. Over the years, this became one of the most recognizable parts of Calgary's "cowtown" culture.

Oil was discovered at Turner Valley in 1914, marking the start of the petroleum industry in Calgary. Other discoveries came in the 1920s and 1930s. The immense Leduc oil reserves were discovered in Alberta during the late 1940s. This brought immense prosperity to Calgary.

In the decades after World War II, the city's population grew dramatically. This prosperity may have been fueled by oil, but Calgary became an important center for other industries as well, including construction and financial services.

The city became an especially important source of oil in the 1970s, during the OPEC oil embargo. After a decline in the 1980s, the petroleum industry recovered and enjoyed a boom that continued into the early twenty-first century. The growing number of immigrants in the 2000s and 2010s, especially from Asia and the Middle East, also boosted the economy.

Trivia

• Fannie Sperry (1887-1983), a Montana "cowgirl" who later worked for Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, took part in the First Calgary Stampede in 1912.
• During World War II, Calgary became an important center for production of war materials. An air base was set up to train pilots for the Royal Canadian Air Force.
• The Calgary Stampeders, of the Canadian Football League, have won seven Grey Cup championships. The first was in 1948, against the Ottawa Rough Riders.
• In 2010 Calgary elected Naheed Nenshi as mayor, making him the first Muslim leader of a major city in North America. He was reelected in 2013 and 2017, and won the World Mayor Prize in 2014.

Bibliography

"Building for a Changing Calgary." Business in Calgary, vol. 25, no. 6, 2015, pp. 22–23, issuu.com/businessincalgary/docs/bic‗june2015‗lo/22. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

Foran, Max L., and Mark Sholdice. "Calgary." The Canadian Encyclopedia, Historica Canada, 20 Feb. 2020, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/calgary/. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

Sandalack, Beverly A. The Calgary Project: Urban Form/Urban Life. U of Calgary P, 2006. Print.

Smith, Donald B. Calgary's Grand Story: The Making of a Prairie Metropolis from the Viewpoint of Two Heritage Buildings. U of Calgary P, 2005. Print.

Smith, Donald B. Centennial City: Calgary, 1894–1994. U of Calgary P, 1994. Print.

"The Charms of Calgary." The Economist, 18 Mar. 2010, www.economist.com/the-americas/2010/03/18/the-charms-of-calgary. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.