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Alberta

Alberta - home to the native population of First Nations peoples, but also to a vast number of different global nationalities including French, British, Ukranian and Romanian, who ventured out here during the 19th century to find a better home and instead encountered a paradise of freedom and beauty. It is also a province named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, daughter of Queen Victoria.

Provincial Flower

Vibrant and perhaps symbolic of Alberta’s history and people is its provincial flower, Rosa acicularis (Lat.), also known as Prickly Wild Rose, the Prickly Rose, the Artic rose and the Bristly Rose. It is a deciduous shrub growing between 1 and 3 metres tall and is found throughout Alberta and western Canada. Its flowers are a delicate pink with red hips, pear-shaped.

Capital City

Alberta’s capital city, Edmonton, is located on the North Saskatchewan River which boasts with some of the most fertile farm land on the prairies. It has a population of more than 750,000 people and is the second largest city in Alberta and also the least dense, with a population density of only 9.4% compared to New York.

History

The real history of Alberta actually begins almost 10,000 years ago with the aforementioned First Nations peoples. Some historians cite them as the first people to have moved into the area shortly after the last ice age. Those indigenous to the province of Alberta include the Slavey, Kootenay, Chipewyan, Beaver, Cree, Blood, Sarcee, Blackfoot, Gros Ventre and Piegan peoples. These groups can be further divided into two major groups: those who sustained themselves by hunting buffalo on the plains, and those who kept to the forests and rivers, using boats made out of bark and sustaining themselves with locally found fauna that included moose, caribou and fish.

European history in this province with just over 660,000 sq. km of land area first began with a man named Anthony Henday, a fur trader. During his exploration of the area close to Alberta’s capital, Edmonton, Henday encountered the Blackfoot people and initiated a trade in fur whilst spending the winter with them and, subsequently, picking up the art of Buffalo hunting. Mr. Henday may very well be considered the father of modern-day Alberta as the fur trade became one of the most prominent trades in this part of Canada, affecting not only the lives of settlers back then, but also the lives of the First Nations peoples. Where once their lives were semi-nomadic, they too settled, became gatherers and started trading furs with European settlers and explorers in exchange for guns, metal and blankets. This led to an even bigger change within their culture, as they now started to hunt with guns.

The 1881 arrival of the railway in the region had a major impact on the population. In the time of a decade the non-native population of Alberta increased seventeen-fold. Subsequent population booms took place after a 1897 campaign by Canadian minister of interior Clifford Sifton to further encourage Europeans to move to the Canadian west. This campaign was, and still is, of significant importance in Alberta’s history as it saw the arrival of a large number of Germans, Ukrainians and Romanians, all who today contribute to Alberta’s wonderfully diverse population.

It was only on the 1st of September 1905 that Alberta was declared a province, yet at that time still not handed full control over its resources. Only in 1930 did Alberta receive said control, during the time of the great depression – a time that would see many farmers forced from their land due to economic turmoil, large-scale erosion and plagues. Only in 1947 did Alberta receive its long-awaited financial rewards and prosperity with the discovery of oil at Leduc.

Geography

Modern day Alberta is truly a phenomenon of diversity and beauty. Located between the 49th and the 60th parallels, Alberta has become one of the Jewels of Canada, not only through its “diamond in the rough” history but also because of its geographic splendor. With Mount Columbia towering at 3,747m in the Rocky mountains, its largest lakes Lake Claire and Lake Athabasca, the longest rivers being the Peace river and the Athabasca river, it becomes evident why Alberta was chosen as home by so many different nationalities all those years ago and while it still attracts people from all walks of life today.