#boab ask

RED: So, ten years on from one of the worst floods in Southern Alberta's history... How do you remember it starting? CAL: It's still unbelievable. I was just walking around downtown and the water was almost up to my ankles by the time I realized what was happening. CARO: The police showed up at my door to make sure I was ready to evacuate that night.

RED: How did it get so bad so fast? CAL: Even though it was a clear day here, the rain on the melting snow in the mountains upstream was so heavy that everything came down fast. People genuinely thought the measurement instruments were broken. CARO: It was the first time the city ever had to use the Municipal Emergency Plan. We did what we could to build temporary barriers and get people out, but you couldn't get downtown for days afterwards.

CAL: Luckily, we were able to meet up and visit some of the rec centres people were evacuated to. You hear stories about disasters hitting and violence erupting and people fending for themselves, but it wasn't like that at all. CARO: People were coming by and dropping off so much food that it was difficult to figure out where to send it all! CAL: Eventually we just started telling people "Come back tomorrow!" It wasn't a problem I'd have ever complained about.

CARO: We weren't always in a place that had power, so it took us a while before we saw the footage of the flooding in places like Bragg Creek and other parts of southern Alberta. CAL: We lowered the water in the Glenmore Reservoir to try to keep up with the flood and keep a supply of safe drinking water for us and our neighbours, but the water was still flowing out of the dam about seven times faster than normal. Watching it spill over like that was awful... CARO: Luckily the water quality was nowhere near as bad as it got during the 2005 flood, but I definitely saw a few people splashing and swimming around in it. You have no idea how much sewage was just floating around the streets, guys! Eugh!

CARO: It was lucky that we have such great neighbours looking after us! RED: Aww, I'm gonna blush! It was the least I could do, luckily we did enough preparation after 2005 to avoid the worst of that flood.

ED: Jeez, "most expensive disaster in Canadian history,"* really? CAL: You know me... always going all out... CARO: Thanks for breakfast, it was nice to sleep on something other than a gym mat too! RED: You betcha! We're nearly done loading the truck, so you guys can rest up.

[ *Until the Fort McMurray Fire in 2016 ]

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CAL: Coming back, downtown was... different after that.

CARO: The clean up was not exactly fun, but you'd have to beat Calgarians looking for a way to help off with a stick. CAL: [laughing] The police were annoyed that people kept getting in the way at the time, but I think just giving people something to do helped make things a lot better in the end. CARO: We like to brag about our can-do attitude and volunteer spirit in good times, but it really makes you cry to see people help each other when we're all hurting like that. CAL: That and it's way easier to deal with a carpet of mould with friends!

RED: So the flood happened, you clean up, sort through the insurance... then what? CAL: I ended up moving into my current apartment after that. I couldn't stand the thought of not being able to see what was happening. CARO: No thanks, I smelled downtown after the power went out and everyone's food rotted. You couldn't pay me to live in one of those high rises!

-- RED: And only two weeks to go before the greatest outdoor show on earth! Did you think of cancelling? CARO: No way - we hadn't cancelled Stampede since the First World War! We were still selling tickets while the grounds were still wet!

CAL: I'm not entirely sure how we did it, although we did have a lot of help from some American friends - and Calgarians, of course! There were some cancellations and it was a little quieter, but opening Stampede meant the world to us.

CARO: We've done a lot to make things safer since the flood. CAL: There's new steel gates on the dam that doubled the water capacity, which helps a lot. CARO: Although we sometimes forget that when we are under water restrictions... shortages are still a big problem.

RED: I saw the barrier along Heritage Drive you told me to look out for earlier. CARO: We hope that one will help keep the roads clear for emergency vehicles if another flood happens. CAL: If you give me a lift downtown, I'll show you a couple of different things we've installed in Eau Clare... CARO: I'll meet you there! CAL: ...I hope you're taking the C-Train because otherwise something is deeply wrong with you. CARO: Enjoy sitting in traffic!

CAL: Can you spot the flood barriers? RED: Those tiered rocks? CAL: That's one of them, but there's another part of Eau Clare Plaza ahead that's a little harder to spot. RED: It looks pretty normal to me...

CAL: These benches are actually fitted over concrete barriers! We have a steel gate we can install between them before a flood hits. RED: Whoa! Subtle, yet effective! RED: Your place in Bowness was hit pretty badly too, wasn't it? Do you have anything like this, Caroline?

CARO: Ah, well, we definitely did some studies but... a lot of the areas affected involve cooperating with private property owners. They want to see how the province manages with building a new reservoir upstream before they commit to anything yet. Stuff like this is pretty pricey - it's already cost well over a billion dollars total to make some of these changes. CAL: It's alright, we're still much more prepared even though we haven't built every project. We know what to pack for an evac, we both have water level alerts set up on our phones... and we've reduced the flood risk of the whole city by about 70% too. RED: That's really impressive!

RED: You hadn't seen a flood like this since the 1890s. Are you worried about another "once in a century" flood any time soon? CARO: The Bow and the Elbow have flooded for our entire lives, and it's not likely to stop anytime soon. CAL: There's still a lot we have to do to improve our relationship with the river, but I think we've come a long way. RED: Let's hope for the best, then! CAL: We can do more than just hope! I'm thinking of building a rain garden... CARO: ...you live almost 30 storeys in the air. CAL: I didn't say its going to be for me! CARO: You are not digging in my yard until you fix my pipes...

Early 20th Century

1920s

Calvin, something needs to be done about this muddy water.

"That's okay, I've resolved only to drink coffee or tea from now on!"

You still need clean water for both of those things.

"...What about whiskey?"

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Calgary's drinking water in the early 20th century, both in spite of and because of its proximity to the mountains, wasn't the cleanest. Some unnamed newspaper* lamented: ”Both the Bow and the Elbow Rivers have become very muddy as a result of the sudden thaw and the water with which cooks boil the potatoes and mothers bath the baby is several shades darker than rain water.”

Water scarcity was a common problem in Calgary due to frequent contamination. Although new sources of water were sought in the 1900s, it was not until 1929 that a feasibility study was conducted to recommend options to the young city. The Glenmore Dam was one of the recommendations -- the cheapest, of course -- but the city still needed to consider how it would be built.

1930s

One of the early considerations was of course acquiring the land it would be built on. Some of the land was bought from settlers, but the city also had to negotiate with the Tsuut'ina (Sarcee) Nation.

JOHNNY ONE SPOT: They want $100 an acre and they won't take a cent less.

L.W. BROCKINGTON: Why man, the citizens would hang this committee from the nearest lamppost if we paid that much for it.

JOHNNY ONE SPOT: Well, maybe that would not be much of a loss.

[ Calgary Herald, May 5, 1931 ]

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The dam was built and the area flooded in 1933. Among other structures, it required the removal of the Livingstone house and barn which survive in Heritage Park today.

"This is the most money I've ever spent on anything, ever!"

"...yes, that includes horses."

There were rumours of funds being used poorly and that the City had bought too much land, but a 1932 investigation did not uncover any major issue. At the time, the dam was the largest public works project undertaken by the City of Calgary. Construction had started in 1931, a sorely needed make-work project during the Great Depression, and the Art Deco style dam made of French marble, Manitoba Tyndal stone, and Medicine Hat brick was operational in January of 1931. There was no official opening, but thousands attended the open house in the following Sunday.

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1940s

In the 40s, the Glenmore reservoir had a reputation as a "swimming, fishing, and picnicking paradise." The problem was: technically, none of those things were allowed given the mounted constabulary-patrolled fence around the entire reservoir during World War II.

"So much for my Sunday afternoon!"

After the war, the city was desperate for public park space. A series of 1946 articles in the Calgary Herald bemoaned that citizens starved for recreation in the beauty of nature were being shooed away from Glenmore Lake and scoffed at the insistence that "pollution" was a hazard worth taking seriously. Surely in this new age of modern science, something could be done! Perhaps some intrepid fishermen would actually help reduce the risk of contamination by stocking the lake with predator trout and removing the coarse fish!

Despite repeated warnings from the City medical officer of 'social disease' such as polio, the Herald pointed to the frequency with which local youths could be seen swimming and playing in the water as further justification not to fear (and besides, think of all the cows upriver! so they claimed). Opinion letters raged back and forth between citizens, some more concerned about further contamination of an already frequently contaminated water supply than others.

By 1949, the dam was "under near constant strain" while only able to serve about half of its predicted capacity of 200,000 Calgarians. The introduction of water meters also raised hackles - according to the Herald, Calgarians used far more water than any Western Canadian city of comparable size, mostly on lawns and gardens.

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1950s+

Several upgrades were added to the reservoir over the next few decades, including an expansion that doubled the reservoir capacity in the 50s, new filter beds and a pumping station in 1965, and a research lab and administrative offices in 1979.

By 1972, the Bearspaw Treatment plant was built on the Bow to help service Calgary's water supply.

[ I don't have the brain space (yet) to go deeper into this part of the research, but do let me know if there's something in particular in the latter part of the 20th century I should look into. ]

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Afterword

Thanks for your patience, I actually started this ask months ago because I have an earlier ask that I wanted to pair it with and both required some digging and a lot of thought. I decided to answer this one first because we could do a sort of chronological look back... (and completely coincidentally I've been doing a lot of research on dam construction in Manitoba for work too.)

Also as always forgive me if i miss some vital context since I have much less on-the-ground experience in Calgary and maybe I've missed something, or maybe I've not addressed the specific part you might be obsessing over, please fill me in if so! :3c

Because this is going to be kind of a two part question and we're going to jump forward to the 21st century in part 2 some more, this part of the ask is more focused on the 20th century and the construction of the dam. I realize that there are recent renovations (muahahaha improved cycling infrastructure? say no more) and I sort of kind of gesture at them here in the first panel.

I have a ton of saved Herald articles on this subject, so if you'd like some more specific citations just let me know. I wanted to get this ask out and over with so I could stop falling down rabbit holes and keeping all the juicy stuff to myself, but I don't have the brain to prepare a complete bibliography.

Overall I had a lot of fun poking into research for this ask and I hope next time I'm in Calgary that I can pay a visit to the reservoir! I haven't been in town in about ten years (getting stuck in traffic on the way to Okotoks doesn't count) so there's a lot of Calgary catch up I have to do.

I already expect this piece to get less engagement because it's (mostly) not in English, and I'm afraid I'm still going to be more annoying and not provide a translation. As previously I will lean into making a statement Windex-style by purposefully not translating what I've written above into English just because the point of celebrating Franco-Albertan heritage month is, well, acknowledging the unique status of French in this country and how there is an expectation to conform to English in this province that needs a little challenging. I hope if nothing else, it strikes your curiosity enough to painstakingly type it into google translate so you can get half of the banter.

Another question that languished at the bottom of the box for over a year! This was because I felt I should make a real effort to write in French, of course, but also because I struggled with the wording of the question and ultimately didn't answer it. The "most" or the "best" are very loaded terms, so I avoided answering them entirely particularly because we have several languages that risk losing native speakers and because there's a lot of bs wrapped up in what "good" french is that I'm not skilled enough to unpack (though you can read what Windex wrote on this matter earlier on this blog... And here as well).

I have to strike a balance between representing the gang here as individuals (and immortals to boot) who have a lot of time on their hands and some interest and investment in learning languages on one hand... but also as representations of "average" people on the other. Francophone travellers aren't going to find many French speakers outside of airports, national parks, or government services in this province, but it still might surprise you considering all the "everyone outside of Quebec hates French" rhetoric that politicians like to fling around. It's more complicated than that, obviously, but I can mostly talk about my own personal experience with French here. I tried to represent both the reality that Franco-Alberta exists (represented by Ed) and the stereotypical resistance to French here (represented by Calvin, though clearly he understands enough to respond here. I also just think he tries to play dumb on purpose so that others underestimate him, it's all part of the image!)

Finally, I don't speak any of the languages (Michif, Tagalog, Punjabi, Cree) represented here so I hope they pass muster for the purpose of this little comic! ;~;b I have also represented Calvin speaking Mandarin previously on this blog!

Ed and Jas were kids in the early decades of the 19th century (the regency era). They didn't really have a sense of the outside world much at all (Ed in particular had a very inflated sense of self importance he has since lost) and moved around a lot to follow the fur bearing animals (typically beavers). I feel like they were often getting into scrapes like this!

Cal and Lil grew up in the 1870s when the Northwest Mounted Police were establishing the Canada-US border. Calvin doesn't realize that his childhood enemy Fort Whoop Up and Lilith are the same person, so he tends to think of Lilith as younger than him. Lilith knows better, of course, but I guess she wanted a fresh start. In some ways, they were both only a bit spoiled as kids, though Lilith was less sheltered.

Jo and Mac didn't really interact much as they were isolated for most of their childhoods and didn't really hit their first growth spurts until the 20th century. It's hard to imagine their childhoods (or that Mac was ever a child haha) but they must have been quite lonely, so I figure they had to have pretty big imaginations to cope during the times Ed wasn't around.

basically: no he's not immortal, immortality doesn't magically rub off on people or pets sadly. I think it makes it even harder for these guys to have pets because their lives are so short in comparison, but of course they're still soft-hearted.