Saskatchewan Traveller Written By: Dale Buxton


We continue our in the City of Calgary.
The early economy of Calgary consisted mainly with agriculture and the railroad, it was around 1914 that marked the beginning of the oil and gas boom for Calgary.
The discovery of oil was claimed to be the “biggest discovery of oil in the whole British Empire”.
The people of Calgary were very enthusiastic to invest in new oil companies.
Calgary has always been in the “Boom or Bust”, of the oil industry with significant booms in the early years and later in the 70’s.
Between the 60’s and 80’s saw the population double in size due to the booms of oil, however by mid 80’s there was also the oil bust when thousands of people were laid off.
In 1988 Calgary played host to the Winter Olympics and welcomed the world to the city.
At the time Calgary was the largest growing city in Canada.
The Olympics created over a billion dollars into the economy of Calgary, Alberta and Canada and was left with fantastic infrastructure of sporting venues that increased tourism and sporting opportunities that can still be felt today.
Calgary has also invested a great deal of money into the tourism industry with neighbouring resorts only a short distance away.
While in Calgary there are several museums that gives you an in site to the history of the city and surrounding area.
Other activities could include a visit to the fabulous zoo in Calgary as well as “Calaway Park” which features a whole day of fun on different rides and amusement attractions.
If you are a wrestling fan, Calgary is home the the “Hart Family and Stampede Wrestling”, which many of the Hart family made it big in the WWE.
Calgary is also home to the Calgary Stampeders football team as well as the Calgary Flames hockey team.
Some other accomplishments for Calgary has been in the film industry where some of the biggest films like Dances with Wolves, Brokeback Mountain, Doctor Zhivago, Unforgiven, Cool Runnings and parts of the hit series Yellowstone were filmed in the city and area.
Calgary has a long list of notable people that have come from this city especially with popular political figures that have held prominent seats in provincial and federal politics.
Richard Bennett, the eleventh prime minister of Canada was the first from Calgary. Other high ranking politicians include Steven Harper, Preston Manning and Joe Clark.
The weather in Calgary always depends on the mountain winds and for most of the year the weather is quite nice.
Calgary is situated between the Bow and Elbow river and on occasions the rivers swell due to the winter run off of the mountains and can at times flood the areas around the rivers as it did in 2013 that forced the evacuation of around 75,000 residents.
Calgary is a great place to visit and take in some of the culture that is offered and no shortage to the great food establishments that are in the city.
Stay tuned for more adventures os the Saskatchewan Traveller…


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