Kozub Janice - A Calgary album glimpses of the way we were

A CALGARY ALBUM

Mark & Janice Kozub

Glimpses of the
Way We Were

Copyright Mark Kozub and Janice Kozub, 2001

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency.

Publisher: Anthony Hawke

Editor: Julian Walker

Design: Jennifer Scott

Printer: Transcontinental

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Kozub, Mark

A Calgary album: glimpses of the way we were

ISBN 0-88882-224-3

1. Calgary (Alta.) History Pictorial works. I. Kozub, Janice. II. Title.

1 2 3 4 5 05 04 03 02 01

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program, The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

Printed and bound in Canada.

Printed on recycled paper.

www.dundurn.com

Front Cover Photo: Glenbow Archives, Calgary, Canada NA-3354-9 Photographer: Davis, J., Calgary, Alberta

Back Cover Photo (left): Glenbow Archives, Calgary, Canada NB-50-62 Photographer: Sambrook, I.W., Calgary, Alberta

Back Cover Photo (right): Glenbow Archives, Calgary, Canada NB-16-417 Photographer: Oliver, W.J., Calgary, Alberta

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To our parents, grandparents, and all other hard workers and daydreamers alike who breathed new and vibrant life into the prairies

FIRST OF ALL, A BIG THANKS must go to Jo-Anne Christensen and Dennis Shappka, authors of An Edmonton Album: Glimpses of the Way We Were, for laying the groundwork. (We still owe you dinner!) Our appreciation also goes to Tony Hawke, a publisher with vision and insight.

As well, the mammoth job of searching for just the right photographs was made infinitely easier by people like Lisa Atkinson, Archival Program Manager at the University of Calgary Archives and Pat Molesky at the Glenbow Museum. The staff of the latter must have spent countless hours putting together what is a thoroughly comprehensive web-based archive.

Finally, we would like to thank hospitable Calgarians like Sandra Runge and Robert and Suzanne Toth. (Thanks for the fine photograph, Rob!)

THERE IS SOMETHING WE LEARNED WHILE researching and writing this book. With our cushy Friday nights of Chinese take-out and videos, our generation has lost the rough grit that characterised the settlers of Alberta. Sad, but true. While the twenty-first century arrives fraught with its own unique forms of stress (pollution, downsizing, ever-changing technology), life in the 1880s was particularly difficult especially here in Alberta.

Back then, this undefined part of Western Canada was considered to be best left alone unless you were a hardened trapper. Those with vision, however, braved the elements and became pioneers of a way of life known as much for its hardships as its sense of promise.

Calgary, to this day, stands as a monument to the struggles of the pioneer. If John Glenn, the first rancher to settle at First Creek in 1873, could have crafted himself a time machine this resourceful man did, after all, build the first stone fireplaces for the old Bow River fort would he have believed his eyes? Just how baffled would this pioneer be by this hustling, bustling city full of cars, cell phones, Web surfers and software developers? And what exactly would he make of the nostalgic cowboy hats donned during the famed Calgary Stampede?

Its quite possible that the pioneers who built this city would prefer the slower life, the good old days when relaxing meant taking a leisurely walk in the field.

Few can argue the fact that the lives of twenty-first century adults are, to say the least, more comfortable than those of John Glenns time. We may never comprehend how hard our parents worked or how back-breaking the chores of our grandparents were. All we know for certain, as we look at the new and ever-changing landscape of this sprawling city, is that we are still filled with a sense of promise. The pioneers of yesterday are gone, but their spirit lives on, a spirit captured on film in these glimpses of the way we were.

A trip back to 1891, a time when Calgary was hardly the urban metropolis it is today.

B3191, Provincial Archives of Alberta Photographer: Brown, Earnest

UNTIL NEARLY THE END OF THE nineteenth century, the popular line of thought amongst politicians and the general public was that Western Canada (or Ruperts Land, as it was known) only held allure for those who preferred life under extreme conditions. Or as Sir George Simpson, governor of the Hudsons Bay Company, told a British Royal Commission in 1857: the West should be left to the trapper and trader. Forever.

Fort Calgary, 1876

Glenbow Archives, Calgary, Canada ND-8-252
Photographer: Oliver, W.J., Calgary, Alberta

F-Troop, North West Mounted Police at Fort Calgary, 1876

Glenbow Archives, Calgary, Canada NA-354-10 Photographer unknown

Captain E.A. Brisebois of the North West Mounted Police, photographed here in 1876, tried in vain to ensure that the Bow River fort was named after him. Instead, it was named Fort Calgary. The name Calgary is thought to have been derived from a Gaelic word meaning Bay Farm.