Calgary, Heart of the West

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

In August, 1875, 50 horsemen of the North-West Mounted Police set up shop in a likely location from which to impress Yankee whiskey peddlers and other undesirables by their presence: their commander, Col. James Macleod, built a fort and called it Fort Calgary after his home in the Scottish Highlands. In 1883, when the railway arrived, the little fort in the middle of nowhere became a busy place; by 1884, it boasted a population of 4000.

Now, a hundred years on and then some, booming bustling Calgary is busy preparing to host the 1988 Winter Olympics. Here is the queen city of the West in a series of glowing colour photographs of people at work and play.

Minimal but interesting text; photographs by a National Press Photographer of the Year.