Heritage Park as it once was (Photo: Calgary Public Library Postcards from the Past)
As a child, I experienced Heritage Park as a place of make-believe. Last fall, I saw the park as a storied landscape of a different kind. I had just put the finishing touches on my book Calgary through the Eyes of Writers and was looking for literary connections between the works of poetry and prose I’d collected in the book, and the Park’s exhibits.
Here are a few of the many literary links I discovered, and recently shared at the Park’s Speaking of the Past lecture series.
First Nations Encampment:
Photo: Heritage Park
David Thompson, The Travels, 1850 Version (Vol. 1)
Peter Fidler, Journal of a Journey Over Land from Buckingham House to the Rocky Mountains in 1792&3
I. G. Baker Store:
Frederick Niven, The Flying Years (1935)
Gleichen School & S. S. Moyie:
E. Pauline Johnson, “Calgary of the Plains” (1913)
E. Pauline Johnson, “A Night with North Eagle” in The Shagganappi (1913)
Photo: Heritage Park
Calgary Town Hall:
Rudyard Kipling, Letters to the Family (1908)
Prince House:
Katherine Govier, Between Men (1987)
Colonist Car:
Georgina Thomson, Crocus and Meadowlark Country (1963)
Streetcar system:
Isabel Paterson, The Shadow Riders (1916)
Photo: Heritage Park
Eugene Coste Park:
Barb Howard, Whipstock (2001)
Famous Five Centre:
Nellie McClung, The Stream Runs Fast (1945)
Montefiore Institute & Switzer Store:
Norman Ravvin, Café des Westens (1991); Hidden Canada: An Intimate Travelogue (2001)