Acknowledgements

This work started with the research I conducted for my master’s thesis, and so I must thank Donald B. Smith, my supervisor and great friend ever since, for setting a high standard for the historian’s craft. He remains a great source of inspiration. At Parks Canada, I am indebted to Steve Mahlins, with National Historic Sites, and, particularly, to historian Meg Stanley, for all their help. I am grateful to Pamela Holway for her many suggestions for improvements to my drafts. I am also grateful to Peter Midgley for his copy-editing. I must also acknowledge the anglers, conservationists, and fish biologists who took time to read and give comments on drafts and who caught a variety of blunders on my part. Larry Cromwell, Lorne Fitch, Dale Kastelen, Mark Konnert, Bruce Masterman, Les Oystryk, Jim Stelfox, and Kevin van Tighem all helped me a great deal, and I can’t thank them enough. I’m also appreciative of Don Smith and Warren Elofson’s reading and commenting on the final manuscript.

Many individuals at the Glenbow Archives (now the Glenbow Library and Archival Collections at the University of Calgary) have provided inestimable assistance over the years. Thanks must go to Doug Cass, Lindsay Moir, and Susan Kooyman, still remembered for their amazing work at the Glenbow. Marcia Slater, also at the Glenbow, and then Katelin Karbonik guided me in the back rooms of the Glenbow to view and photograph the museum’s early rods, reels, and tackle, especially those of the Boyce collection. Allison Wagner, senior rare books and manuscript advisor at the University of Calgary, was also very helpful. Members of the staff at Library and Archives Canada patiently shepherded me through the records of the Department of Marine and Fisheries (now Fisheries and Oceans Canada), where this book really got its start. A grant provided by the Alberta Heritage Resources Foundation helped me undertake additional research many years ago. This book could not have been published without a book publishing grant from the Heritage Preservation Partnership Program of Alberta Arts, Culture and Status of Women.

A special thanks must go to the Eleanor Luxton Historical Foundation in Banff. The work I joined in the directors' activities and initiatives was inspirational while I was writing early drafts of this book. For their vision of Western Canadian history, I can't thank enough Astrid Bell, Marjory Gibney, Harvey Locke, Bill and Dianne Luxton, Peter Poole, and Terry White. Many colleagues have also helped me develop, correct, and refine my thinking about fish. Matthew Evenden’s work on fisheries and aquatic life in the Bow River prompted me to reread my sources within their respective watersheds. Colleagues within the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE), and especially Alan MacEachern and others, have meaningfully influenced how I think about people, places and ecological change in Alberta’s historic fisheries. I am also grateful to the people I met when I conducted research in the Highwood River area many years ago—ranchers, farmers, and people from High River and Longview who helped me see their river, and the rivers of the Eastern Slopes, for what they really were: social meeting places as well as waterways. During that project, it was a pleasure to receive guidance from both Lillian Knupp and Don King from High River.

Francine Michaud, with her constant encouragement and insight, helped me see this book to completion. She also provided a great deal of copy-editing of many drafts. And I’m particularly grateful to Gabriel, my son. Gabe makes me realize, always, that these rivers flow from one generation to the next with different meanderings and meanings. They never lose their power to connect time and place in Western Canada.