The Story of Calgary

Michael Payne is head of the reasearch and publications program,
Historic Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development, and
co-author of A Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

This book is one several histories produced in honor of the centennial
of Calgary’s incorporation as a city. It offers a brief overview of
the city’s history from the prehistoric to the present. Stenson
actually spends little time on the 90 million years of Calgary’s
prehistory, but nonetheless the ambition of a book that covers such a
period in 64 pages (including the index) is noteworthy. Each fully
illustrated chapter covers a decade from the past century—hence the
story moves with some of the breakneck speed of Calgary’s signature
chuckwagon races.

The overall result is somewhat disappointing as history. Most of
Stenson’s anecdotes have appeared elsewhere, and the book reads like
an extended magazine article. What makes the work interesting, however,
is Stenson’s willingness to try to understand what makes Calgary
distinctive. He uses Robert Gard’s fictional creation Johnny Chinook,
or at least some of Chinook’s observations, as a way of interpreting
how Calgary has been shaped by history and, in particular, by its
boom-and-bust economy and its population of “schemers and dreamers.”
Some of this has been covered before, but Stenson is able to get beyond
the stereotypes of cowboy entrepreneurs, blue-eyed sheiks, and
right-wing populists. He concludes by noting some of the city’s
continuing contradictions. According to the author, Calgary seems
perennially slightly “out of sync with the rest of Canada”—but
proudly so.