A Fort Era Reading List

Calgary’s Fort Era  — 1875-1914 — was a time of dramatic change in the city. We can see those decades through the eyes of prose and poetry writers: those who were there and those who imagined the era later. In this chapter of the city’s literature, you’ll find the voices of Mounties and ministers, women and Indigenous peoples.— and more.

Here are a few of the memoirs, novels and poems I mentioned at my talk at The Confluence at their Hot Dogs & Hot Takes on History speaker series on April 17, 2025. I’ve also included a few suggestions for further reading, and links to online versions of books where available.

You can find excerpts from some of these texts in my book Calgary through the Eyes of Writers. I’ve marked those with an asterisk.* 

Works I mentioned in my talk

Cecil Denny, The Riders of the Plains: A Reminiscence of the Early and Exciting Days in the North West(1905)

* Cecil Denny, The Law Marches West (1939; 1979; 2004)

Cecil E. Denny, Denny’s Trek: A Mountie’s Memoir of the March West (2008)

John McDougall, Opening the Great West: Experiences of A Missionary in 1875-76 (1970)

* John McDougall, George Millward McDougall: Pioneer, Patriot and Missionary (1888)

*George Kerby, The Broken Trail: Pages from a Pastor’s Experience in Western Canada (1909)

Richard B. Deane, Mounted Police Life in Canada: A Record of Thirty-One Years Service (1916; 1973)

Ralph Kendall, Benton of the Royal Mounted (1918)

Ralph Kendall, The Luck of the Mounted (1920)

Lyn Hancock with Marion Dowler, Tell Me, Grandmother (1985)

Lyn Hancock, The Ring: Memories of A Métis (2010) https://lynhancock.com/the-ring/

*Isabel Paterson, The Shadow Riders (1916); The Magpie’s Nest (1917)

*Frederick Niven, Canada West (1930)

*Frederick Niven, The Flying Years (1935, 1945, 1974, 2015)

*Mrs. Arthur Spragge (aka Ellen Elizabeth Cameron), From Ontario to the Pacific by the C. P. R. (1897)http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/1695.html

*E. Pauline Johnson, “Calgary of the Plains” in Flint and Feather (1912)

E. Pauline Johnson, “A Night with ‘North Eagle’” in The Shagannapi (1913)

E. Pauline Johnson, “The Riders of the Plains” in Canadian Poets, John Garvin, ed. (1916)

Katherine Govier, Between Men (1987)

An important pre-Fort Era read

*David Thompson, The Travels, 1850 Version in The Writings of David Thompson, Volume 1, William E. Moreau, ed.  Thompson captures the oral history of a Cree Elder while camped near Springbank in the winter of 1787.

Contemporary fiction that explores the Fort Era

Eric Nicol, Dickens of the Mounted: The Astounding Long-Lost Letters of Inspector F. Dickens NWMP (1989) – Check out the backstory here.

* Nancy Huston, Plainsong (1993)

Fred Stenson’s Western Canadian history trilogy: The Trade (2000), Lightning* (2003), The Great Karoo (2008)

Guy Vanderhaeghe’s Western Canadian history trilogy: The Englishman’s Boy (1996), The Last Crossing* (2002), A Good Man (2011)

A few historians who explore the Fort Era

Hugh Dempsey, Crowfoot: Chief of the Blackfeet (1972)

Jack Dunn, The North-West Mounted Police: 1873-1885 (2017)

Dick Harrison, “The Mounted Police in Fiction,” in Men in Scarlet, ed. Hugh Dempsey (1974)

Henry C. Klassen, “The Mounties and the Historians,” in Men in Scarlet, ed. Hugh Dempsey (1974)

Grant MacEwan, Colonel James Walker: Man of the Western Frontier (1989)

Donald B. Smith, “Bloody murder almost became miscarriage of justice,” Calgary Herald, July 23, 1989.

Donald B. Smith, Seen But Not Seen: Influential Canadians and the First Nations from the 1940s to Today (2021). Book includes insights into the lives of John McDougall and Pauline Johnson

Keith Walden, Visions of Order: The Canadian Mounties in Symbol and Myth (1982)

W. O. Mitchell Lived Here

Last week, on a warm August evening, more than a hundred people gathered in Calgary’s Roxboro Park across the street from the longtime residence of the celebrated and beloved Canadian writer W. O. Mitchell.

The occasion for this summer celebration? Historic Calgary Week and the recent addition of the Mitchell Residence at 3031 Roxboro Glen Road to the City of Calgary’s historic resources inventory.

Several special guests joined me to share Mitchell memories on our impromptu grassy stage. Freehand Books displayed copies of their beautiful 75th anniversary edition of Mitchell’s 1947 prairie classic Who Has Seen the Wind. (You can read more about the novel’s Alberta connections over at Read Alberta.)

Mitchell and his wife Merna’s home office (Photo: Mitchell family)

We kicked off the evening with W. O. himself and a recording from 1976. We then dove into W. O.’s long association with Calgary, going back to 1930s when Mitchell was scratching a living in the city during his apprentice years and living at the local YMCA. After two decades in High River, in 1968 the Mitchells moved to Calgary. Here on Roxboro Glen Road, W. O. raised orchids in his solarium and led what has been called his “three-ring circus life as writer, teacher, and performer/celebrity.”

A few of the guest speakers who helped celebrate Mitchell in Roxboro Park

Mitchell’s son Orm and his wife Barbara travelled from Peterborough to be part of the evening — not only are they members of the Mitchell clan, they are W. O.’s biographers. Their two-volume account of Mitchell’s life is a comprehensive, compelling read. In the park, Orm regaled us with stories and memories, including the family’s move to Calgary, a visit from Dustin Hoffman, and more.

Calgary-based researcher Gillian Sissons recounted the history of Mitchell’s house and neighbourhood. (You can find more of her research on the City’s historic resources inventory site.)

W. O.’s Roxboro novel

Poet Rosemary Griebel spoke about her connection to Mitchell in Castor, Alberta, then read a passage of W. O.’s 1988 novel Ladybug, Ladybug…— a story that unfolds in a house like Mitchell’s in a neighbourhood like Roxboro.

Mitchell was not only a prolific writer and performer, he was a beloved mentor and teacher. Three of his former students shared their memories: publisher Glenn Rollans, Shirlee Smith and Rea Tarvydas standing in for Beth Everest.

Author and literary historian George Melnyk remembered visiting Mitchell at his home in the last years of Mitchell’s life. There, he proposed the idea of naming a book prize in Mitchell’s honour. The plan took hold and since 1996, the City of Calgary W. O. Mitchell Book Prize has become an integral part of the city’s literary culture.

The audience also chimed in with Mitchell memories — a former neighbour, students, and colleagues.

The Mitchells in their living room circa 1977 (Photo: Mitchell family)

Next time you’re walking in Roxboro Park, stop and pay homage to W. O. Mitchell — an unforgettable, irascible, much-loved writer whose life, work and legacy live on in the city he called home for thirty years.

If you’d like to help continue Mitchell’s legacy for new generations of Alberta writers, consider contributing to the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s W. O. Mitchell Scholarship Fund. Each year, the Fund supports a novelist and a playwright in the Guild’s Mentorship Program.

3031 Roxboro Road SW, 1967 (Photo: Mitchell family)

Storied Alberta Place Names

My latest for Read Alberta — https://readalberta.ca/articles/storied-alberta-place-names/

Historic Calgary Week 2024

W. O. Mitchell Lived Here 

 Thursday, August 1, 7 to 8:30 pm

The celebrated author W. O. Mitchell (1914-1998) spent the last three decades of his life in Roxboro, writing seven novels and leading a lively literary life. Join me along with special guest speakers in the park across from Mitchell’s house to share stories about his life, work, and the neighbourhood he put on the page.

This event is part of this summer’s Historic Calgary Calgary Week. No registration required but lawn chairs highly recommended and Mitchell memories warmly welcomed.

Meet at Roxboro Park (opposite 3031 Roxboro Glen Road, SW)

Photo: W. O. watering orchids in his Calgary greenhouse circa 1975 (Courtesy of the Mitchell family)