1920s Calgary (Photo: Calgary Public Library)
Here are a few of the texts I referred to in my talk “Calgary @ 50: A City Smitten with Romance” on September 16, 2025 — an event in partnership with the Chinook Country Historical Society and the Calgary Public Library.
E. Pauline Johnson “Tekahionwake”
“Calgary of the Plains,” Flint and Feather: The Complete Poems of E. Pauline Johnson (Musson Book Company, 1922) -- https://archive.org/details/flintfeathercomp00johnuoft/page/n211/mode/2up?q=calgary
Imperial Press Tour visit to Calgary – Calgary Daily Herald’s special feature
“Calgary, the City of Romance and of Opportunity,” Calgary Herald, Aug 19, 1920
John Murray Gibbon
Gibbon’s Tapestry Room speech to Calgary writers: “Calgary Branch Authors’ Ass’n Is Inaugurated,” Calgary Herald, May 9, 1921
John Murray Gibbon’s plaque in Banff National Park https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=881
Katherine Hale
Katherine Hale, Canadian Cities of Romance (McClelland and Stewart, 1922) -- https://archive.org/details/canadiancitiesof00haleuoft
The Morning Albertan’s coverage of Hale’s remarks at the Palliser Hotel in October 1923 – “The Romance of Canada is Essential to the National Life, Says Katherine Hale, Albertan Oct 9, 1923
Winnifred Eaton Reeve (Onoto Watanna)
Winnifred Eaton Reeve, “The Canadian Spirit in Our Literature,” Calgary Herald, March 24, 1923 https://winnifredeatonarchive.org/CanadianSpirit1.html
Winnifred Eaton Reeve, Cattle (The Musson Book Company Limited, 1922; Invisible Publishing, 2023) https://www.gutenberg.org/files/62911/62911-h/62911-h.htm
The Winnifred Eaton Archive — Writings by Eaton Reeve, a biographical timeline and more https://winnifredeatonarchive.org
Shaun Hunter, “Winnifred Eaton Reeve: A Chinese-Albertan Writer in the Era of Exclusion,” Read Alberta, May 19, 2023
Elaine Catley Jubilee poem
Elaine Catley, “In Tribute to Alberta Pioneers,” Calgary Herald, July 4, 1925
Special Jubilee Editions
Albertan Jubilee Edition, June 2, 1925
Herald Jubilee and Stampede Edition, July 4, 1925
Calgary Exhibition, Jubilee and Stampede Souvenir Programme -- https://digitalcollections.ucalgary.ca/asset-management/2R3BF1FGXXEE?&WS=SearchResults&Flat=FP
Calgary’s Historical Pageant: Story of the Events Commemorating Calgary’s 50th Birtday, July 6, 1925 (Market Examiner and Avenue Press, 1925) https://calgary.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S95C505218
Frances Macnab’s 1897 Jubilee memoir, excerpted in the Morning Albertan’s Jubilee edition: British Columbia for Settlers: its mines, trade, and agriculture (Chapman & Hall, 1898) https://archive.org/details/cu31924023507357/page/n151/mode/2up
Further Reading
Jennifer Bobrovitz and Harry M. Sanders, “Historical Society of Calgary: A Lasting Legacy,” Alberta History(Summer 1997)
Marc H. Choko and David L. Jones, Posters of the Canadian Pacific (Firefly Books, 2004)
Lorry Felske, “Calgary’s Parading Culture Before 1912,” in Icon, Brand, Myth: The Calgary Stampede, ed. Max Foran (AU Press, 2008) https://www.aupress.ca/books/120142-icon-brand-myth/
Katherine Govier, Between Men (Penguin Books, 1987)
Mary Graham, A Stunning Backdrop: Alberta in the Movies, 1917-1960 (Bighorn Books/U of C Press, 2022)
Shaun Hunter, Calgary through the Eyes of Writers (Rocky Mountain Books, 2017)
Shaun Hunter, “Winnifred Eaton Reeve: A Chinese-Albertan Writer in the Era of Exclusion,” Read Alberta, May 19, 2023
Jeremy Klaszus, “Calgary At 150: The Forgotten Anniversary,” The Sprawl (June 21, 2025) -- https://www.sprawlcalgary.com/calgary-150th-anniversary
Edward A. McCourt, The Canadian West in Fiction (The Ryerson Press, 1949, 1970)
Gayle Thrift, “To Celebrate the Passing of a Great Era: Historical Pageantry and Commemoration in the 1925 Calgary Exhibition, Jubilee and Stampede,” Alberta History (Summer 2012)
John Turley-Ewart, “Alberta’s separatist angst has bone-deep economic roots,” The Globe and Mail, May 12, 2025.
Guy Weadick, “How I Started the Calgary Stampede,” Alberta History (Summer 2012)