Disguise was a strategy used by many early hunters to sneak up on their prey
Ukrainian Women Cutting Logs, Athabasca, ca. 1930
John Owen ploughing with oxen
  • Spear points from the Clovis phase found in present-day Alberta.<br/>Source: Historical Resources Management Branch, Archaeological Survey

    Clovis phase spear points used in present-day Alberta.

    Clovis phase spear points represent the oldest hunting technology in Alberta, and indeed all of North America. These fluted, jagged stone points would be attached to a bone or wooden shaft and used to hunt enormous prey such as mammoths and mastodons.
    Source: Historical Resources Management Branch, Archaeological Survey

  • Diagram of an atlatl (spear-thrower)<br/>Source: Courtesy of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

    Atlatl (spear-thrower) technology emerges in present-day Alberta.

    Atlatls were used by early hunter’s to increase the velocity of their projectile weapons. Spears or darts thrown with an atlatl could deliver devastating wounds to an animal, allowing the hunter to kill the animal from a safe distance.
    Source: Courtesy of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

  • Representation of an early hunter drawing a bow<br/>Source: Courtesy of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

    Bow and arrow technology reaches present-day Alberta.

    Bow and arrow technology in North America appears to have developed first in the Arctic before spreading south throughout the continent. The bow and arrow was ideally suited for use in the wide open spaces of the Great Plains, and was widely adopted across the region.
    Source: Courtesy of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

  • Petroglyph of a mounted hunter chasing a bison, Milk River<br/>Source: Royal Alberta Museum

    The ‘Horse Revolution’ begins in present-day Alberta.

    Horses were brought to North America by Spanish colonists in the sixteenth century. From the Spanish colony of New Mexico, horses spread across North America, reaching present-day Alberta in the 1730s. The adoption of the horse had a significant impact on the hunting/transportation patterns of Plains First Nations peoples.
    Source: Royal Alberta Museum

  • Swimmers Enjoying the Banff Hot Springs, ca. 1935<br/>Source: Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, v263-na-3562

    Rocky Mountains National Park is established by the Canadian government.

    One of the main attractions of the new park was the site’s natural hot springs. The luxurious Banff Springs Hotel, built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1888, pumped water from the hot springs into its swimming pools and treatment rooms. Tourists flocked to the site to take advantage of the water’s supposed therapeutic healing powers.
    Source: Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, v263-na-3562

  • Calgary Water Power Company hydroelectric plant, n.d.<br/>Source: Glenbow Archives, NA-4477-44

    The Calgary Water Power Company opens Alberta’s first hydroelectric plant.

    The company was owned by entrepreneur Peter Prince, who also ran the Eau Claire & Bow River Lumber Company. From 1894 to 1905, the company was the major electricity provider for the city of Calgary.
    Source: Glenbow Archives, NA-4477-44

  • The city power plant in Edmonton, 1912<br/>Source: Glenbow Archives, NC-6-271

    The City of Edmonton purchases the Edmonton Electric Lighting Company.

    The decision in favour of public ownership was made after repeated disruptions in service from the privately-owned utility. Edmonton was the first major urban centre in Canada to own its own electricity utility.
    Source: Glenbow Archives, NC-6-271

  • Changing the name from Calgary Power to TransAlta, 1981<br/>Source: Photo courtesy of TransAlta

    The Calgary Power Company is formed.

    The founder of the company, Max Aitken, was initially drawn to the region by its vast hydroelectricity potential. The company would develop into Canada’s largest investor-owned utility. In 1981, the company changed its name to TransAlta Utilities Corporation, in order to better reflect its provincial reach.
    Source: Photo courtesy of TransAlta

  • Calgary Power’s power house at Horseshoe Falls on the Bow River, ca. 1912<br/>Source: Glenbow Archives NA-3544-28

    Alberta’s First hydroelectric dam opens at Horseshoe Falls.

    Owned and operated by Calgary Power, the Horseshoe Falls Dam was the first of two such facilities built on the Bow River system prior to the First World War. A second hydroelectric dam began operations at Kananaskis Falls in 1913.
    Source: Glenbow Archives NA-3544-28

  • Ghost Hydroelectric Dam, 1935<br/>Source: Glenbow Archives, NA-5663-44

    The Ghost Hydroelectric Dam begins operations

    This massive facility was the largest hydroelectric dam in Alberta at the time it was built. The Ghost Power Plant more than doubled the amount of electricity generated by Calgary Power, which was already the province’s main energy supplier.
    Source: Glenbow Archives, NA-5663-44

  • Rural electrification crew at work near Irma, 1951<br/>Source: Glenbow Archives, NA-4160-20

    The first Rural Electrification Association (REA) in Alberta is established in Springbank.

    Over the next two decades, a total of 416 REAs would be established across the province. These organizations would play a crucial role in the spread of electricity to rural Alberta.
    Source: Glenbow Archives, NA-4160-20

  • CCF Advertisement in the People’s Weekly, August 14, 1948, urging people to support public utility ownership<br/>Source: Image courtesy of Peel’s Prairie Provinces, a digital initiative of the University of Alberta Libraries

    Voters of Alberta narrowly reject proposal for public ownership of electricity utilities.

    The 1948 provincial election included a plebiscite concerning ownership of electricity utilities in Alberta. Rural areas largely voted in favour of public ownership, while urban voters (particularly in southern Alberta) supported a continuation of private ownership. In the end, the vote was extremely close, with public ownership defeated by a mere 151 votes.
    Source: Image courtesy of Peel’ Prairie Provinces, a digital initiative of the University of Alberta Libraries

  • Five of the turbines installed at Cowley Ridge Wind Farm<br/>Source: Photo courtesy of TransAlta

    Cowley Ridge Wind Farm begins operations near Pincher Creek.

    Cowley Ridge was Canada’s first commercial wind farm. A total of fifty-two wind turbines were installed in 1993-94. In 2000, the project was expanded with the addition of fifteen new (and much more powerful) turbines.
    Source: Photo courtesy of TransAlta

  • Aerial view of Drake Landing Solar Community<br/>Source: Wikimedia Commons/CA-BY-SA-3.0

    Drake Landing Solar Community opens near Okotoks, Alberta.

    Drake Landing is North American’s first fully integrated solar community. This award-winning initiative uses solar heating technology to provide the community with the majority of its space heating and hot water needs.
    Source: Wikimedia Commons/CA-BY-SA-3.0

  • AAdvanced Energy Research Facility, Edmonton, 2011LT<br/>Source: Photo Courtesy of Enerkem

    The City of Edmonton announces the launch of the ‘waste-to-biofuels’ project.

    The waste-to-biofuels project will convert garbage into biofuel by harvesting carbon from the waste material. The project includes an Advanced Energy Research Facility, which opened in 2012.
    Source: Photo Courtesy of Enerkem

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Animal Power in Modern Alberta: Agriculture

The opening of the Prairie West for agricultural settlement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ushered in a new era in Alberta’s history. Settlers from eastern Canada joined tens of thousands of immigrants from Europe and the United States in the rush to claim homesteads in “The Last Best West.” The population of Alberta exploded from 73,000 in 1901 to just over 495,000 by 1916. The majority of this population growth occurred in rural Alberta, as agriculture became the driving force behind the province’s booming economy. Wealthy investors took advantage of generous land lease terms offered by the federal government and established huge ranching enterprises in southern Alberta. More common, however, were the individual settlers who took up farming on their homesteads, focusing either on intensive cultivation of a single grain crop or balancing their production between grain, vegetables and raising livestock or poultry.

By the time of Alberta’s great immigration boom (1900-1913), agricultural technology had advanced to the point that steam power had been widely applied to farm machinery. A fixture in early twentieth-century rural Alberta was the entrepreneur who invested his money in steam-powered machinery and hired his services (along with his work crew) out to local residents. Despite the expense, pioneer farmers were often eager to retain the services of the custom plowman, whose steam-powered machine broke the sod much faster than an animal-powered alternative. Likewise, entrepreneurs who owned steam-powered threshers found a ready market among pioneer farmers after the harvest. By 1910, gasoline-powered tractors had also made their first appearance in the Prairie West, offering farmers another technologically-advanced alternative to traditional animal power.

Without question, steam- and gasoline-powered machinery contributed greatly to the development of agriculture in early twentieth-century Alberta. At the same time, however, motorized machinery did not completely displace horses and oxen on Alberta farms. Modern steam-powered machinery may have been powerful, but it was also expensive, difficult (and often dangerous) to operate, and prone to mechanical failure. Furthermore, while investing in such machinery made sense during times of prosperity, the economic downturn of 1919-25 and the Great Depression made farmers cautious and slowed the transition to full motorized power. In addition, many farmers distrusted the new technologies and preferred to continue using animals on their farms. Despite the advantages offered by modern technology, only a minority of Alberta farmers owned such machinery up through the 1930s. It wasn’t until the end of the Second World War that motorization replaced animal power on the majority of Alberta’s farms.

In addition, horses were invaluable to the work done on Alberta’s ranches. From cattle drives and roundups to more mundane day-to-day tasks, ranch hands depended on horses to carry out their responsibilities. Though the image has been heavily romanticized, the extent to which the cowboy has become embedded in the fabric of Alberta’s popular culture speaks to the importance of the animal in the province’s ranching history and economic development.

Animals were thus crucially important to the growth of agriculture in Alberta up through the first half of the twentieth century. Farmers harnessed the power of labour-saving machinery, but horses and oxen continued to be widely used for work on the farm. A similar story presents itself in the history of transportation in Alberta, where animal power was gradually, but not completely replaced by motorized vehicles in the first half of the twentieth century.

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