CALGARY - Canadian Rockies: Including Banff and Jasper National Parks - page 441

Attending the Calgary Stampede is a vacation in itself for tens of thousands of visitors
each year, but you will want to plan ahead by making accommodation reservations and
getting tickets well in advance. Even if you're not a rodeo fan, if your itinerary has you in
Calgary in early July, plan to visit the Stampede grounds for the day (no advance tickets
required), just to say you've experienced the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth.
HISTORY
In addition to being one of Canada's largest cities, Calgary is also one of the youngest;
at 140 years old, it has a heritage rather than a history. Native Blackfoot people moved
through the area approximately 2,000 years ago, but they had no particular interest in the
direct vicinity of what is now Calgary. Approximately 300 years ago, Sarcee and Stoney
natives moved down from the north and commenced continual warring between tribes.
White settlers first arrived in the late 1700s. David Thompson wintered in the area, then
the Palliser Expedition passed by on its way west to the Rockies. But it wasn't until the
late 1860s that any real activity started. Buffalo had disappeared from the American plains,
and as hunters moved north, so did the whiskey traders, bringing with them all the prob-
lems associated with this illegal trade.
Fort Calgary
The NWMP established a post at Fort Macleod soon after they came west to quell the
whiskey trade. In 1875, a second fort was established on a terrace at the confluence of the
Bow and Elbow Rivers. Inspector J. F. Macleod, who took over command of the fort in
1876, coined the name Calgary. It comes from Calgary Bay, a remote village on the Isle of
Mull in Scotland said to translate from Gaelic as “garden on the cove.”
The Coming of the Railway
For many years, the Canadian Pacific Railway had planned to build a northern route across
the continent through Edmonton and Yellowhead Pass. But eventually the powers in the
east changed their minds and decided on a southern route through Kicking Horse Pass.
This meant that the line passed right through Fort Calgary. In 1883, a station was built on
an alluvial plain between the Bow and Elbow Rivers. A town site was laid out around it,
settlers streamed in for free land, and nine years after the railway arrived, Calgary acquired
city status—something that had taken its northern rival, Edmonton, more than 100 years to
obtain.