Notes

notes to introduction

1. 1 See correspondence exchanged between the Calgary-based fisheries overseer for Southern Alberta, D. A. Richardson, and the fisheries inspector for Alberta, R. T. Rodd, 22 December 1929, and 3, 4, and 7 January 1930, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 10, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC).

2. 2 R. T. (Robert Thompson) Rodd should not be confused with his brother, James A. Rodd. Both served the Department of Marine and Fisheries. Robert had earlier set up and supervised the Banff hatchery, becoming an expert in both fish culture and the characteristics of Alberta fish; by 1924, he was appointed inspector of fisheries in Alberta. James was based in Ottawa, overseeing national hatchery programs as the superintendent of Fish Culture.

3. 3 The expression “fat as butter” is from the 30 June 1924 report of the Highwood River Angling Protective Association (as it was called until early 1926) sent to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 26, LAC.

4. 4 D. A. Richardson to R. T. Rodd, 22 December 1929, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

5. 5 Richardson to R. T. Rodd, 22 December 1930, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

6. 6 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 7 January 1930, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 10, LAC. William A. Found had a long career with the Department of Marine and Fisheries and was at this point the deputy minister of the department’s Fisheries Branch.

7. 7 The Association informed the fisheries department that it was posting signs warning of the fine, 14 May 1925, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 28, LAC. “Anglers Demand $1000 Penalty for Pekisko Poachers,” Calgary Albertan, 29 July 1926. The trial was also reported in “Anglers Arrested,” High River Times, 29 July 1926, and “Illegal Fishing Costs Anglers $60,” Calgary Daily Herald, 28 July 1926. (Present-day equivalents are per the Bank of Canada, “Inflation Calculator,” https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/.) By way of comparison, in 1919, Calgary anglers who were caught poaching cutthroat in the Elbow River were fined only $5. “Fine Imposed for Taking Fish Under 9 Inches,” Calgary Daily Herald, 23 July 1919.

8. 8 D. A. Richardson to R. T. Rodd, 22 August 1928, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

9. 9 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 24 August 1928, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

10. 10 Canada, Annual Report 1930–31, Fisheries Branch, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 90. For a complete listing of associations, their date of formation, and their executive members, see “Independent Conservation Associations in Western Canada,” the appendix in George Colpitts, Game in the Garden: A Human History of Wildlife in Western Canada, 169-171.

11. 11 Donald G. Wetherell, Wildlife, Land, and People: A Century of Change in Prairie Canada, 489.

12. 12 See Tina Loo, States of Nature: Conserving Canada’s Wildlife in the Twentieth Century, esp. chaps. 1 and 2; John Reiger, American Sportsmen and the Origins of Conservation.

13. 13 On the criminalization of poaching, see Bill Parenteau, “A ‘Very Determined Opposition to the Law’: Conservation, Angling Leases, and Social Conflict in the Canadian Atlantic Salmon Fishery,” 444–45; see also Louis S. Warren, The Hunter’s Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America; and Karl Jacoby, Crimes Against Nature: Squatters, Poachers, Thieves, and the Hidden History of American Conservation.

14. 14 On restrictions against Indigenous subsistence hunting, see especially John Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin: Native People and Wildlife Conservation in the Northwest Territories, as well as David Calverley, “‘When the Need for It No Longer Existed’: Declining Wildlife and Native Hunting Rights in Ontario, 1791–1898.” On the regulation of fishing, see Bill Parenteau, “Care, Control and Supervision: Native People in the Canadian Atlantic Salmon Fishery, 1867–1900”; and Douglas C. Harris, Fish, Law, and Colonialism: The Legal Capture of Salmon in British Columbia. Brian Calliou has highlighted the considerable power wielded by elite sporting clubs in Alberta on federal government policies breaking treaty promises in respect to Indigenous hunting and fishing freedoms. See Brian Calliou, “Losing the Game: Wildlife Conservation and the Regulation of First Nations Hunting in Alberta, 1880–1930.”

15. 15 See Theodore Binnema and Melanie Niemi, “‘Let the Line Be Drawn Now’: Wilderness, Conservation, and the Exclusion of Aboriginal People from Banff National Park in Canada”; John Sandlos, “Not Wanted in the Boundary: The Expulsion of the Keeseekoowenin Ojibway Band from Riding Mountain National Park”; Jean L. Manore, “Contested Terrains of Space and Place: Hunting and the Landscape Known as Algonquin Park, 1890–1950”; and David Calverley, “‘When the Need for It No Longer Existed’: Declining Wildlife and Native Hunting Rights in Ontario, 1791–1896.” See also Ben Bradley, “‘A Questionable Basis for Establishing a Major Park’: Politics, Roads and the Failure of a National Park in British Columbia’s Big Bend Country,” and John Sandlos, “Nature’s Playgrounds: The Parks Branch and Tourism Promotion in the National Parks, 1911–1929.”

16. 16 On the development of fisheries science and its social implications, see Jennifer M. Hubbard, A Science on the Scales: The Rise of Canadian Atlantic Fisheries Biology, 1898–1939. See also Parenteau, “A ‘Very Determined Opposition to the Law’” and the essays in, Fishing Places, Fishing People: Traditions and Issues in Canadian Small-Scale Fisheries, edited by Dianne Newell and Rosemary E. Ommer. See also Michael Del Vecchio’s analysis in “Surviving Fisheries Management: Aquaculture, Angling, and Lake Ahmic.” That these tensions persist is evident as well from the work of the Fishermen and Scientists Research Society based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, https://fsrsns.ca, which strives to promote mutual understanding between fisheries scientists and fishers themselves. Janet Foster’s Working for Wildlife: The Beginnings of Preservation in Canada remains a valuable contribution to Canadian conservation history.

17. 17 Up to a point, an exception being Tina Loo’s insightful study States of Nature.

18. 18 The 1927 federal fishery regulations defined angling as “the taking of fish with hook and line held in the hand, or hook and line and rod, the latter held in the hand; but shall not include set lines or lines tied to a boat.” “Special Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta and the Territories North Thereof,” adopted 27 May 1927, Canada Gazette (11 June 1927), 3749.

19. 19 Jen Corrinne Brown, Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West, 37.

20. 20 Albeit in the context of turn-of-the-century Québec, Darin Kinsey identifies a similar “mutually beneficial relationship” between anglers and the state. See “Fashioning a Freshwater Eden: Elite Anglers, Fish Culture, and State Development of Québec’s ‘Sport’ Fishery,” 143–44; see also Jennifer Bonnell’s Stewards of Splendour: A History of Wildlife and People in British Columbia, her masterful examination of British Columbia’s “stewards” of wildlife in British Columbia.

21. 21 For a still-valuable history of the province-wide association, see Don Meredith and Duane Radford, Conservation, Pride and Passion: The Alberta Fish and Game Association, 1908–2008; see also Margaret Lewis, To Conserve a Heritage.

22. 22 Richard B. Miller, “The Regulation of Trout Fishing in Alberta,” 21.

notes to Chapter 1

1. 1 For an excellent treatment of industrialized landscape transformation from the 1880s through to the 1920s, see Graeme Wynn, Canada and Arctic North America: An Environmental History, 165–73, 175–238.

2. 2 Bonnell sees generational expectations of nature changing in what Daniel Paul understands as “shifting baseline syndrome,” especially pertinent in fisheries management. Jennifer Bonnell, Stewards of Splendour: A History of Wildlife and People in British Columbia, 24.

3. 3 For McNeill’s ideas about energy regimes, see John R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World. On the application of these ideas to Canada’s frontiers, see Wynn, Canada and Arctic North America; and Clinton L. Evans, The War on Weeds in the Prairie West: An Environmental History. On the beginnings of fish and game conservation, see Margaret Lewis, To Conserve a Heritage.

4. 4 Alan R. Smith and Todd A. Radenbaugh, “Historical and Recent Trends in the Avifauna of Saskatchewan’s Prairie Ecozone.”

5. 5 “Fisherman’s Luck,” Calgary Weekly Herald, 27 August 1884.

6. 6 “City and Vicinity,” Calgary Weekly Herald, 15 May 1886.

7. 7 “Spring Fishing,” Calgary Weekly Herald, 29 February 1888.

8. 8 “Gunning for Trout,” Calgary Weekly Herald, 2 January 1890.

9. 9 “Sporting Events,” Calgary Weekly Herald, 15 August 1901.

10. 10 On the progressive conservation movement, see Samuel P. Hays, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890–1920; James Penick, Jr., “The Progressives and the Environment,” 116; and Ted Steinberg, Down to Earth: Nature’s Role in American History, 136–54.

11. 11 For an insightful analysis on this point, see Suzanne Zeller, “Darwin Meets the Engineers: Scientizing the Forest at McGill University, 1890–1910.”

12. 12 Laurier’s conservation ethic extended to sport fisheries. See his 1909 letter to the editor of Rod and Gun, in which he voiced his concern that its articles and illustrations served more to encourage the killing and destruction of fish than “true sport.” Cited in Michel F. Girard, L’écologisme retrouvé: Essor et déclin de la Commission de la conservation du Canada, 25.

13. 13 Treaty Between the United States and Great Britain Relating to Boundary Waters, and Questions Arising Between the United States and Canada, Article IV. For the full text of the treaty, see International Joint Committee, “Boundary Waters Treaty,” http://www.ijc.org/en_/BWT.

14. 14 J. Alexander Burnett, A Passion for Wildlife: The History of the Canadian Wildlife Service, 8, 9. On the work of the commission, see also Laurel Sefton MacDowell, An Environmental History of Canada, 104–6.

15. 15 Foster, Working for Wildlife, 162; Morris Zaslow, The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914–1967, 11; Robert McCandless, Yukon Wildlife: A Social History, 35–36.

16. 16 Michel F. Girard, “The Commission of Conservation as a Forerunner to the National Research Council, 1909–1921,” 25. Progressive conservation played out beyond the federal sphere: by the 1920s, it had also affected provincial planning of fisheries. See Stephen Bocking, “Fishing the Inland Seas: Great Lakes Research, Fisheries Management, and Environmental Policy in Ontario,” 54.

17. 17 Anders Halverson, An Entirely Synthetic Fish : How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World, 8–14; MacDowell, An Environmental History of Canada, 111. Walton’s The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653, offered what has become a classic celebration of fly fishing as a quiet, contemplative, almost spiritual art.

18. 18 Darin Kinsey, “Fashioning a Freshwater Eden: Elite Anglers, Fish Culture, and State Development of Québec’s ‘Sport’ Fishery,” 224–27. These “elite anglers” could wield considerable political influence. See, for example, Neil S. Forkey, “Anglers, Fishers, and the St. Croix River: Conflict in a Canadian-American Borderland, 1867–1900.” For a study of more recent privileging of sports fishing and the introduction of exotics into the Great Lakes, see Kristin M. Szylvian, “Transforming Lake Michigan into the ‘World’s Greatest Fishing Hole’: The Environmental Politics of Michigan’s Great Lakes Sport Fishing, 1965–1985.”

19. 19 “Barrack Notes,” Calgary Weekly Herald, 17 June 1885.

20. 20 “The Secret Out,” Qu’Appelle Progress, 23 June 1893.

21. 21 “Local Notes,” Macleod Gazette, 28 February 1889. Dr. G. A. Kennedy was named president of the association.

22. 22 See “The Game Ordinance,” Macleod Gazette, 11 October 1895; and “That ‘Game Ordinance,’” Macleod Gazette, 24 March 1899. For further discussion, see George Colpitts, Game in the Garden: A Human History of Wildlife in Western Canada, 131–32.

23. 23 Greg Gillespie, Hunting for Empire: Narratives of Sport in Rupert’s Land, 1840–70, 109–12.

24. 24 Colpitts, Game in the Garden, 73–75.

25. 25 Marcella Crawler and Chiniki Research Team, “Stoney Place Names,” 3.

26. 26 Quoted in Irene Spry, The Papers of the Palliser Expedition, 1857–1860, 433.

27. 27 Irene Spry, The Papers of the Palliser Expedition, 1857–1860, 433.

28. 28 See Gillespie, Hunting for Empire, 4–5, 35–44.

29. 29 Entry for 8 June 1863, Walter B. Cheadle, Cheadle’s Journal of Trip Across Canada, 1962–63, 135.

30. 30 Jen Corrinne Brown, Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West, 23–24.

31. 31 In 1849, a visitor on the Provo River in Utah described the Utes guddling: “The Indians stood in the eddies and when fish approached would slide their hands under water with the ends of their fingers touching the belly of the fish which is magnetized by the touch and caught.” Quoted in William F. Sigler and John W. Sigler, Fishes of the Great Basin: A Natural History, 19. For a description of the technique, see Sheridan Anderson, Curtis Creek Manifesto: A Fully Illustrated Guide to the Strategy, Finesse, Tactics, and Paraphernalia of Fly Fishing, 41. See also Brown, Trout Culture, 22.

32. 32 Sigler and Sigler, Fishes of the Great Basin, 18–19.

33. 33 A party travelling up the Oldman River to The Gap visited a lake for fishing, reporting that “the whole lake swarms with fish primarily trout both speckled and salmon . . . A boat is required for the capture of these monsters which dispose themselves in the depths in the middle of the lake. The Indians catch them by constructing a raft, and have been known to capture some very large ones in this way.” “A Trip to the Crow’s Nest Pass,” Calgary Weekly Herald, 2 October 1888.

34. 34 M. E. Malainey, R. Przybylski, and B. L. Sherriff, “One Person’s Food: How and Why Fish Avoidance May Affect the Settlement and Subsistence Patterns of Hunter-Gatherers.” Brian J. Smith argues that fish was a necessary part of the Plains First Nations diet in “The Historical and Archaeological Evidence for the Use of Fish as an Alternate Subsistence Resource Among Northern Plains Bison Hunters.” See also Eleanor Verbicky-Todd, “Communal Buffalo Hunting Among the Plains Indians: An Ethnographic and Historic Review,” 7–8.

35. 35 Special Fishery Regulation, Manitoba and the North-West Territories, 2 October 1881, The Canada Gazette 15:15 (8 October 1881), 443.

36. 36 “Regulations Relating to Fishing in Manitoba and the North-West Territories,” 4 January 1892, The Canada Gazette 25:28 (9 January 1892), 1253.

37. 37 Angling permits were free for British subjects and $5.00 for non-British visitors; it allowed an angler using a hook and line up to twenty trout a day. “Regulations Respecting Anglers’ Permits in the Inland Waters of the Dominion of Canada,” 30 June 1894, The Canada Gazette 28:7 (18 August 1895), 243–44.

38. 38 “Regulations Respecting Anglers’ Permits in the Inland Waters of the Dominion of Canada,” 30 June 1894, The Canada Gazette 28:7 (18 August 1895), 243.

39. 39 E. T. Saunders reported on the common sale of game fish in Crowsnest stores in “Game Protection,” 7 September 1906, The Pincher Creek Echo. See chapter 5.

40. 40 Brian Calliou, “Losing the Game: Wildlife Conservation and the Regulation of First Nations Hunting in Alberta, 1880–1930,” 13.

41. 41 On the growing conflict between sportsmen and First Nations along the Eastern Slopes, see W. Keith Regular, “‘Red Backs and White Burdens’: A Study of White Attitudes Towards Indians in Southern Alberta, 1896–1911,” 111–17, 138–47; and Hugh A. Dempsey, Indian Tribes of Alberta, 15, 22, 28. In 1886, W. R. Witcher, a former federal fisheries official who was advising the government on its mountain federal park, reported that the Stoneys were no longer allowed to fish within Rocky Mountains Park, suggesting an early conflict between Native subsistence and early sport fishing interests. See Witcher’s report to Minister of the Interior Thomas White, 31 December 1886, RG 84, vol. 70, U3-1-1 part 1, LAC. For the Stoney name, see the First Nation’s website, “Rocky Mountain Nakoda,” http://www.rockymountainnakoda.com/our-lands.

42. 42 See Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council, with Walter Hildebrandt, Dorothy First Rider, and Sarah Carter, The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7, 243.

43. 43 Brown, Trout Culture, 20.

44. 44 Courtney W. Mason, Spirit of the Rockies: Reasserting an Indigenous Presence in Banff National Park, 90–92.

45. 45 Calliou, “Losing the Game,” 127–28. Calliou quotes from Grasse’s letter of 17 May 1894 to the assistant commissioner, A. E. Forget, of Indian Affairs in Regina. Grasse assured the commissioner that the Stoneys greeted the idea in a “splendid humor” (128).

46. 46 Letter of J. M. Salaun, Stand-Off, to Frank Pedley, Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, 25 March 1908, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year ended March 31, 1908 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1908), 371–72.

47. 47 Letter of J. S. LeVern, Gleichen to Frank Pedley, 10 May 1908, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year ended March 31, 1908, 374.

48. 48 Markle had been tasked to survey the lakes within the Stoney Reserve during World War I and look into the Stoney’s “adaptability for raising fish, variety, etc.” He reported that they could “be made a source of profit to these Indians, and, too, provide food for them.” If the Stoney could be taught to like fish as food, “I think it is our duty to so educate them and in this way save beef consumption.” J. A. Markle to the secretary of the Department of Indian Affairs, 22 August 1917, RG 23, vol. 777, 718-11-1, file 4, LAC. For the Stoney perspective on the hunting rights granted to them by Treaty 7, see Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council et al., The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7, 79, 90, 154.

49. 49 “Fisheries Regulations,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 14 June 1907.

50. 50 D. [Daniel] McKerrisher to R. N. Venning, 11 August 1908, RG 22, vol 344, file 2995, part I, LAC.

51. 51 Memorandum, 12 October 1908, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I.

52. 52 See “Instructions to Fishery Officers,” 1906, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I. At least in one case, a camp stove and axe were also thrown in: see R. N. Venning, assistant commissioner of fisheries, to Harrison Young, fisheries inspector for Edmonton, 10 September 1904, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, LAC. The phrase “warm party friend” is from P. G. Laurie to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 8 March 1895, RG 23, vol. 292, file 2241, part I, LAC.

53. 53 John Atsinger to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 5 February 1912, and F. B. Greene to John Douglas Hazen, Minister, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 11 March 1912, both in RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, LAC.

54. 54 One farmer on an irrigation ditch used a screen to protect fish from being trapped in his property, but he referred to many others on ditches who did not bother with the measure and took little interest in angling: “Some of them had never handled a fishing rod; others wished to be able to put a sack or some other trap at the mouth of their ditches and so get a plentiful supply of fish, without the trouble of catching them in a legitimate manner.” “Fish and Irrigation,” Calgary Weekly Herald, 6 July 1899.

55. 55 J. R. Romer, signing his letter from “Peaven, Alberta,” to K. W. McKenzie, 12 April 1909, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, LAC.

56. 56 Brown, Trout Culture, 16–18.

57. 57 Quoted in Brown, Trout Culture, 18.

58. 58 The most complete study of historical angling experiences in Alberta, derived from oral interviews, was undertaken by Bruce A. Masterman and Jim D. Stelfox, with preliminary research also by Percy Wiebe. See Looking Back: An Historical Report of Angler Experiences Along the Eastern Slopes of South-Western Alberta, and in particular their discussion of changing angler experiences on sections of the Bow and Jumpingpound Creek, 8–11.

59. 59 George Hunter to Secretary of the Interior, 1908, RG 84, vol. 70, R 296, part I, LAC.

60. 60 “Eye Openers,” The Eye Opener, 24 August 1907.

61. 61 Howard Palmer with Tamara Palmer, Alberta: A New History, 78.

62. 62 The newspaper coverage included a list of the communities and individuals to whom the letter was addressed. “Game Protection,” The Eye Opener, 25 August 1906.

63. 63 George Colpitts, Game in the Garden, 141.

64. 64 “R. A. Darker: Manager for Southern Alberta,” Life, August 1912, 5.

65. 65 “Southern Sportsmen Want Law Improved,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 18 January 1907; “Fish and Game Association,” Calgary Daily Herald, 23 January 1907.

66. 66 “Hunters gather at Calgary,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 25 January 1907; “Fish and Game Association Meeting,” Calgary Daily Herald, 24 January 1907.

67. 67 “Hunters gather at Calgary,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 25 January 1907.

68. 68 Harrison Young to R. N. Venning, 18 February 1907, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, reel T-4031, LAC.

69. 69 “Southern Sportsmen Want Law Improved,” Edmonton Bulletin, 18 January 1907.

70. 70 “New Provincial Game Association—Welcomed Elsewhere—Edmonton should make a move,” Edmonton Bulletin, 9 January 1907.

71. 71 Darker used this title when describing the association’s first meeting to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, 14 February 1907, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, reel T-4031, LAC. Edmonton did not form a protective association until 1920. In 1919, Christopher Irgens, of the Edmonton Gun Club, wrote Austin de B. Winter to say that he had talked with several sportsmen in Edmonton and “I believe the time has now come that we should all get together and form a Game Protective Association. As far as I know, Edmonton has never had one, so that we are not in touch with anyone who is or has been connected with such a body.” He asked for information on how to form one, and invited Winter to attend the club’s annual banquet, expenses paid, to speak on the issue. Christopher Irgens to Winter, 11 December 1919, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1327, file 21, GA. By 1922, the Northern Game and Fish Protective League was hosting naturalist Jack Miner, selling tickets to school children and offering prizes to public school children in competitions. “Jack Minor to Lecture,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 16 June 1922.

72. 72 “Anglers of South Alberta Organize,” Morning Albertan, 9 July 1919. For more on Robert A. Darker and the association that he formed, see George Colpitts, “Fish and Game Associations in Southern Alberta, 1907–1928,” and Game in the Garden, 125–33.

73. 73 “Fish and Game Protective Association Is Active,” Frank Paper, 9 April 1908, 2.

74. 74 A. T. Kinnaird, Wetaskiwin Branch, to Garrett, 14 July 1910, Austin de B. Winter Files, M-1327, file 21, GA. Evidently, Darker had also made efforts to promote his association in High River. According to a 1909 report in the High River Times, Darker had just spent several days in the town, seeking to establish a High River branch of the association. “Local Paragraphs,” High River Times, 4 March 1909.

75. 75 “Local Fishermen Enjoy the Sport,” Calgary News-Telegram, 19 August 1915.

76. 76 “Passburg Happenings,” Bellevue Times, 12 March 1915.

77. 77 “City Council Meet,” Red Deer News, 6 March 1918.

78. 78 W. A. Found to J. B. Harkin, 30 August 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 13, LAC.

79. 79 “Angling Club Organized,” Claresholm Review-Advertiser, 20 May 1921, 5.

80. 80 “Mr. Peavey’s Car,” Red Deer News, 23 August 1923, 7.

81. 81 “A Fishing Party,” Red Deer News, 28 July 1920, 10.

82. 82 “Great Excitement—At Crow’s Nest and Vicinity,” Macleod Times, 30 August 1923, 4.

83. 83 Canada, Annual Reports, Fisheries Branch, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 1916, 1920, and 1922.

notes to Chapter 2

1. 1 See “St. George’s Island Busy Beauty Spot,” Calgary Daily Herald, 9 August 1919; and “Oddfellows Have Enjoyable Picnic,” Calgary Daily Herald, 7 August 1919. Today, the Calgary Zoo sits on St. George’s Island.

2. 2 Frank Kemish to Department of Marine and Fisheries, “February Report,” 26 February 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC.

3. 3 See Frank J. Tough, “Depletion by the Market: Commercialization and Resource Management of Manitoba’s Lake Sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens), 1885–1935,” 100–102. On the application of conservation laws applied equally to commercial fishers and Indigenous peoples, see Jean Friesen, “Grant Me Wherewith to Make My Living,” 145–47; and Frank Tough, “As Their Natural Resources Fail”: Native Peoples and the Economic History of Northern Manitoba, 1870–1930, 235–37. Similar issues are explored in Dianne Newell, Tangled Webs of History: Indians and the Law in Canada’s Pacific Coast Fisheries.

4. 4 On Northern Alberta fish as a good substitute for beef in Canada, see W. S. Campbell, of the Canadian Fishermen Association, to G. S. Davidson, 1 February 1918, RG 23, vol. 999, 721-4-37, file 5, LAC. The Food Board file contains brochures such as “What Canada Has Done to Feed the Armies and Civilian Populations of the Allies,” 1918, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 10, LAC. On the growing commercial lake fishery, see Liza Piper, “Parasites from ‘Alien Shores’: The Decline of Canada’s Freshwater Fishing Industry.”

5. 5 Harrison Young to Edward E. Prince, 30 August 1906, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, reel T-4031, LAC. The “extreme lack of proper patrol by Fishery officers,” as well as the need for inspectors to oversee their work, was underscored in the report of the 1910–11 Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission, which Prince chaired. See Edward E. Prince, Thomas H. McGuire, and Euston Sisley, Dominion Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission: Report and Recommendations with Appendices, 26.

6. 6 R. A. Darker to G. J. Desbarats, Deputy Minister, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 26 May 1908, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, LAC.

7. 7 Harrison Young to R. N. Venning, 18 February 1907, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, reel T-4031, LAC.

8. 8 “There seems to be a very considerable division of opinion in regard to when our trout spawn, some maintaining in the Spring, and some maintaining in the Fall. The writer has caught, some years, trout loaded with spawn in the month of May, and again in September I have found fish filled with spawn.” R. A. Darker to G. J. Desbarats, Deputy Minister, 26 May 1908, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, Part I, LAC.

9. 9 Edward E. Prince, “Prefatory Note,” in Prince, McGuire, and Sisley, Dominion Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission, 1910–11, vii. The commissioners’ papers and notes are available in RG 23, vol. 365, file 3216, part II, LAC.

10. 10 Hubbard describes Prince’s impressive work for the Fisheries Board for Scotland and contributions to fisheries biology before his hiring as Canada’s Commissioner of Fisheries in 1892. A Science on the Scales: The Rise of Canadian Atlantic Fisheries Biology, 1898–1939, 18.

11. 11 Calgary Natural History Society, minute book, 26 October 1926, 87-013, City of Calgary Archives. In 1912, Sisley was serving as president of the society, which was organized into zoology, ornithology, botany, geology, and “Indian” sections.

12. 12 A. L. Sifton to L. P. Brodeur, 20 June 1909, RG 23, vol. 365, file 3216, part III, LAC. Louis-Philippe Brodeur, who was instrumental in the creation of Canada’s navy, served as minister of Marine and Fisheries in the Laurier government.

13. 13 I discuss the commission in more detail in “Science, Streams and Sport: Trout Conservation in Southern Alberta, 1900–1930,” chap. 1.

14. 14 Shelley A. M. Gavigan notes McGuire’s career as a judge in Hunger, Horses, and Government Men: Criminal Law on the Aboriginal Plains, 1870–1905, 42.

15. 15 For a full description of the itinerary, see Prince, McGuire, and Sisley, Dominion Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission, 1910–11, 3–10.

16. 16 Memos regarding the commission’s supplies, 24 August 1910 and 10 January 1911, RG 23, vol. 365, file 3216, part III, LAC.

17. 17 One critical issue had to do with ranchers outside of Calgary emptying their dipping troughs into trout streams. See W. H. Heald’s testimony to the commission, RG 23, vol. 351, file 3049, part I.

18. 18 Prince, McGuire, and Sisley, Dominion Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission, 1910–11, 44.

19. 19 Prince, McGuire, and Sisley, Dominion Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission, 1910–11, appendix XV, letter from Cecil E. Byron, 65.

20. 20 A description of the association’s efforts to promote a full roster of changes to the regulations and to promote the hatchery is available in 1910 meeting minutes of the association, untitled and undated, attached to Howard Douglas’ request for the association’s resolutions dated 11 February 1910, Austin de B. Winters fonds, M-1327, file 21, GA. The Calgary meetings took place in October, but the fisheries department was already identifying Banff as a possible location because of the requests from associations in Calgary and BC. See Inspector of Fisheries Alex Finlayson, memo, 15 September 1910, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, part I, LAC.

21. 21 “The Regulations for Fisheries Changed: Order in Council Passed Changing the Regulations for Western Provinces as Far as They Apply to Alberta and Saskatchewan,” Edmonton Bulletin, 4 March 1912. Angling permits had been introduced in 1907—see Sec. 1, “Fishery Regulations for the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories, including the Yukon District,” 14 October 1907, The Canada Gazette 41:17 (26 October 1907), 1034.

22. 22 See Prince, McGuire, and Sisley, Dominion Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission, 1910–11, 5, 7. Trout species are described on 17–21. Regarding the rainbow trout, the commissioners remarked: “Apparently it is only found in the upper tributaries of the Athabasca river” (18).

23. 23 State simplification, reducing the complexity of an environment, became critical to effective governance, as James C. Scott argues in Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed.

24. 24 “Stringent Laws in June for Fishing in Province,” Bellevue Times, 3 May 1912. The closed season for angling that was established across the Prairie Provinces in 1907 (13 September to 30 May) was changed in 1912: in waters north of the boundary to and including the Bow River, the closed season was 1 November to 30 June; in the Red Deer and North Saskatchewan, 1 September to 30 April; in the Athabasca River, 1 November to 31 May. Sec 32, “Special Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta,” 12 February 1912, The Canada Gazette 45:38 (16 March 1912), 3437.

25. 25 At least by 1919, the daily limit of twenty-five was perceived as excessive by Alex Finlayson, hatchery inspector of the Marine and Fisheries department. He was concerned that coal miners and logging camp labourers were exploiting their daily catch limit at Spray Lakes in intensive food fishing over a number of days and salting their catches in barrels. Since many of their trout were quite large lake trout, it seemed “too heavy a basket.” He advocated that the department reduce limits for those food fishing and not for those sport fishing. Alex Finlayson, departmental memo, 17 March 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 12, LAC. David Blacklock was concerned by the bag limit by 1928. Although some individuals he fished with only went out a couple of times during the year, there were others he had seen fishing their daily limits throughout the season on the Highwood River. “Of Interest to the Alberta Angler,” Calgary Daily Herald, 13 February 1928.

26. 26 A. G. Wolley Dod to Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 13 May 1912, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1327, file 22, GA.

27. 27 A. Johnston, Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries to A. G. Wolley Dod, 27 May 1912, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1327, file 22, GA.

28. 28 E. W. Miller, “South Alberta,” in Forty-Sixth Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, 1912–13: Fisheries, 268. In 1904, the department had tried to remedy the problem of sawdust and mill rubbish entering streams by sending letters to Southern Alberta mill owners. See the form letters in RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, LAC. In 1909, Calgary’s overseer, W. A. Dunlop, had already taken measures to stop log-driving wood mill owners from blasting spring logjams with dynamite. W. A. Dunlop to R. N. Venning, 8 January 1909, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, LAC.

29. 29 Miller, “South Alberta,” 268. On the basis of what Miller described as “careful observations” made during trips “throughout the district,” the overseer had also estimated the total catch by anglers in Southern Alberta to be “not less than 80,000 trout and 8,000 graylings.”

30. 30 “Fishing Is Getting Better Every Day Around Calgary,” Calgary News-Telegram, 21 August 1915.

31. 31 “Dies After Work on Coffin Plate,” Calgary Herald, 8 June 1940, 1.

32. 32 Kemish was among the twenty honorary guardians drawn from the Calgary Anglers Association in 1924. See the list provided in “Game Guardians for Fishing Appointed,” Calgary Herald, 26 June 1922.

33. 33 Frank Kemish to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 14 March 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC. Although he held no government appointment, Kemish took to writing lengthy monthly reports to the department.

34. 34 Donald B. Smith, Calgary’s Grand Story: The Making of a Prairie Metropolis from the Viewpoint of Two Heritage Buildings, 160–66.

35. 35 Calgary, Ideally Situated in Canada’s Youngest and Wealthiest Province . . .: The City of Calgary Year Book, 42.

36. 36 Hayden reported his concerns in a letter to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, 20 June 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 12, LAC. He attached to his letter an editorial titled “Vanishing Game Fish” that had appeared in the Calgary Daily Herald.

37. 37 Frank Kemish to Department of Marine and Fisheries, “February Report,” 26 February 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC.

38. 38 Kemish mentioned his experiment in one of his self-styled reports to the fisheries department, in which he argued that pulling back season dates would increase the populations of mountain whitefish, which “are destroying the [cutthroat] spawn,” Kemish to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 14 March 1921, RG 23, vol.1000, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC.

39. 39 Jim McLennan, Blue Ribbon Bow: A Fly-Fishing History of the Bow River—Canada’s Greatest Trout Stream, 76.

40. 40 Paul Schullery, Cowboy Trout: Western Fly Fishing As If It Matters, 133.

41. 41 Schullery, Cowboy Trout, 142–46.

42. 42 On changing attitudes towards dry and wet fly fishing, see William C. Black, Gentlemen Preferred Dry Flies: The Dry Fly and the Nymph, Evolution and Conflict, 9–12; 145–69.

43. 43 Jen Corrinne Brown, Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West, 24–34.

44. 44 Euston Sisley, “Fish of the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies,” 114; Prince, McGuire, and Sisley, Dominion Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission, 1910–11, 16.

45. 45 S. C. Vick, Classified Guide to Fish and Their Habitat in Rocky Mountains Park, 6. Portions of Vick’s pamphlet later appeared in Calgary’s Morning Albertan, the Calgary paper having gained Vick’s permission to reprint the “interesting facts” of what it termed his “treasured booklet.” See “Fish and Their Habitat in Rocky Mountains Park,” Morning Albertan, 3 June 1921, 3.

46. 46 Wayne Roberts, “Empty Streams: The Decline of Bull Trout in Alberta.”

47. 47 Frank Kemish described bull trout behaviour in this manner in his report to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 14 March 1921, RG 23, vol.1000, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC. The Calgary Morning Albertan offered the following: “In deep river pools a large one will often follow a hooked fish right up to your hand. At such times if one fixes some strong hooks near the tail of the smaller fish and throw him in the big fellow will take it like a shark.” “Fish and Their Habitat in Rocky Mountains Park,” Morning Albertan, 3 June 1921, 3.

48. 48 Vick, Classified Guide to Fish and Their Habitat, 6. For the shark comparison, see, for example, “Fish and Their Habitat in Rocky Mountains Park,” Morning Albertan, 3 June 1921, 3.

49. 49 This was how W. F. Witcher, in a significant report on fish and game vicinity of Rocky Mountains Park in 1886, thought of bull trout. His description is found in RG 84, vol. 70, U3-1-1, part I, LAC.

50. 50 Prince, McGuire, and Sisley, Dominion Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission 1910–11, 20.

51. 51 Today, the bull trout is designated a “Species of Special Concern” by the Province of Alberta, owing to a combination of overfishing, the introduction of non-native species, and the degradation of natural habitats. See “Aquatic Species at Risk: Bull Trout (Western Arctic Populations),” Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2014, http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/species-especes/species-especes/bulltrout-ombleteteplate-w-arct-eng.htm; Kerry Rees, Isabelle Girard, Dave Walty, and David Christiansen, Bull Trout Conservation Management Plan, 2012–2017; and Matt Blank and Tony Clevenger, Improving the Ecological Function of the Upper Bow River: Bow Lake to Kananaskis Dam, 8. On the historical range and loss of habitat of the bull trout, see Joseph S. Nelson and Martin J. Paetz, The Fishes of Alberta, 281–83. For perspectives on the bull trout’s fate in other drainage systems, see Robb F. Leary, Fred W. Allendorf, and Stephen H. Forbes, “Conservation Genetics of Bull Trout in the Columbia and Klamath River Drainages,” 857.

52. 52 Frank Kemish to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 26 February 1921, and 14 March 1921, both in RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC.

53. 53 “Anglers of South Alberta Organize,” Morning Albertan, 9 July 1919. The Pincher Creek Anglers’ Association was working to curb dynamiting, which was “depleting our present supply of fish” in a district where fish was a staple food. See J. J. Gillespie to J. B. Hawkins, 22 June 1920, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16.

54. 54 John F. Eastwood to G. J. Desbarats, 24 March 1915, Austin de B. Winters fonds, M-1327, file 23, GA.

55. 55 G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 25 February 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC.

56. 56 Christopher Armstrong, Matthew Evenden, and H. V. Nelles, The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow, 233.

57. 57 Trout Unlimited wanted to close the fishery immediately below the weir because it felt that the high oxygen levels in the churned-up waters disoriented fish and made them too easy to catch. See Lisa Church, “Bow River a Mecca for Sportsmen,” Calgary Herald, 1 June 1986. More likely, the weir, like many dam structures, created a barrier to fish that tend to congregate below them in their attempts to migrate.

58. 58 This happened to an unfortunate angler in 1949 after he walked over the four inches of water in the Bow at 6:45 pm to fish from the weir, only to find that three feet blocked his return by 7:15 pm. See “‘High Tide’ Fools Angler,” Calgary Herald, 6 May 1949.

59. 59 Horne noticed that once a month, during full moon, the fishing was not good at his spot. That persuaded him that the fishing was not affected by the dam itself but by the effects of gravity influencing the availability of oxygen in the water during full moon. He believed that the same force influenced fishing success on lakes and rivers not affected by power dams. Horne diverted himself to demonstrating through experimentation the effects of gravity as more than an attractive force of nature, circulating a paper called the “Oxygen Theory of Angling” among astronomers and physicists, one being Albert Einstein, who pointed out the fundamental flaws in Horne’s experimental method. Horne did, however, go on to market a “Timetable for Anglers” in Calgary which, following the lunar cycle, claimed to predict at what times during the day an angler would experience the best fishing success. See “The Oxygen Theory in Angling,” and Letters from Albert Einstein to Harold Horne, 24 April to July 28, 1943, Box 2; and “Tim’s Timetable for Anglers,” in “Publications,” Box 1, Harold Horne Fonds, SPC 2018.64, Glenbow Library and Special Collections, University of Calgary.

60. 60 Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, The River Returns, 235.

61. 61 Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, The River Returns, 235.

62. 62 Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, The River Returns,235.

63. 63 Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, The River Returns, 235–36.

64. 64 Sec. 32(a), “Special Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. . .,”
    9 February 1917, Supplement to the Canada Gazette (15 December 1917), 4.

65. 65 J. S. Hoad’s proposal was included in Edward E. Prince Memorandum to Department, 26 February 1917, RG 23, vol. 999; 721-4-37, file 3, LAC.

66. 66 Alex Martin, with petition enclosed, to Department, 9 April 1917, RG 23, vol. 999; 721-4-37, file 3, LAC.

67. 67 G. J. Desbarats Memorandum, 17 April 1917, RG 23, vol. 999; 721-4-37. Sec. 32(a), “Special Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. . .,” 9 February 1917, Supplement to the Canada Gazette (15 December 1917), 4.

68. 68 See CAA resolutions, passed 24 January 1924, included in letter of William Crichton of the CAA to G. S. Davidson, 24 January 1921. Both the resolutions and Crichton’s letter cite the problem of “over-congestion” on open streams. RG 23, vol. 999, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC. Davidson outlined the strong divergences of opinion between the CAA and the SAAA in a letter to W. A. Found, 25 February 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC. For Frank Kemish’s comments on the argument that stream closure would cause congestion, see his report to Department of Marine and Fisheries, “April Report,” 28 April 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC.

69. 69 For the CAA’s views on grayling and bull trout, see Calgary Angling Association to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 13 November 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16.

70. 70 G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 20 May 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 17. See, attached to this letter, the order-in-council confirming the new season, 23 May to 1 October, signed 12 April 1921. The new season dates were reported in “Trout Fishing in Alberta Will Commence May 24th,” Blairmore Enterprise, 5 May 1921. It was published as PC. 1250, “Trout Fishing in Certain Portions of Alberta,” in Prefix to Statutes, 1921 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1921), xi. Among other members of the angling elite, Frank Kemish was outraged by this decision. The department, he said, was overlooking the needs of three thousand anglers in the city by pandering to the wishes of an association of 134 members. Kemish to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 28 April 1921, RG 23, vol. 999, 721-4-37, file 17, LAC.

71. 71 “Catching Fish Is a Real Cinch for ‘Old Bill’ Huskins,” Morning Albertan, 7 June 1921.

72. 72 D. A. Richardson to G. S. Davidson, 14 November 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 17, LAC.

73. 73 G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 29 December 1921, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 17, LAC. In fact, the department had already recognized that earlier season dates posed risks to spring-spawning fish and protected fall-spawning mountain whitefish and bull trout. See G. J. Desbarats, Deputy Minister, Department of Marine and Fisheries, to Alex Martin, 17 April 1917, RG 23, Vol. 999, 721-4-37, file 3, LAC.

74. 74 When D.A. Richardson appointed twenty honorary fish guardians in Calgary from the CAA, it included Lou Doll, a jeweller and bicycle dealer who also ran the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Sporting Goods department, and Frank Stephenson and Charles Venables, both of Western Sporting Goods Co. in Calgary. “Game Guardians For Fishing Appointed,” Calgary Herald 26 June 1922.

75. 75 For Hunt’s petition to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, see Robert Hunt to Arthur Cardin, Minister, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 19 May 1924, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 24, LAC. The department perceived the mixed motives in Hunt’s petition: D. A. Richardson observed that it was made “entirely for business purposes,” noting also that “he sells bait of all kinds and does a good trade in the summer months.” Richardson to R. T. Rodd, 7 November 1924, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 24, LAC.

76. 76 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 11 November 1924, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 24, LAC.

77. 77 Rocky Mountains National Park regulations had changed significantly over the years. In 1890, there were no regulations on fishing, except to prohibit netting. The 1909 regulations established a closed season from 15 September to 15 May. Sec. 66, “Regulations of the National Parks of Canada,” 21 June 1909, The Canada Gazette 43:2 (10 July 1909), 80. A 1919 amendment to the park regulations closed the season from 1 November to 30 June. Sec. 66 Amendment, 19 April 1919, The Canada Gazette 52: 45 (10 May 1919).

78. 78 On the local demand for brook trout, see the report from Alex Finlayson, the Inspector of Fish Culture, to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, 7 May 1913, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, part I, LAC.

79. 79 “Eastern Brook Trout Now in Western Waters,” Calgary Herald, 29 August 1914.

80. 80 David Keir to J. A. Rodd, 8 June 1923, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 11, LAC.

81. 81 See Prince’s views in W. A. Found to David Keir, 10 July 1923, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 11, LAC.

82. 82 G. J. Desbarats to E. W. Beatty, 9 January 1909, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, reel T-4023, LAC.

83. 83 Nelson and Paetz, The Fishes of Alberta, 278. Indeed, such accidents were by no mean rare. Writing about railway shipments of fish in the late-nineteenth-century United States, Jen Corrinne Brown notes that applicants awaiting their treasure sometimes received only “a ‘forced to plant en route’ telegram.” Trout Culture, 50.

84. 84 “Anglers of South Alberta Organize,” Morning Albertan, 9 July 1919.

85. 85 Highwood River Angling Protective Association to Robert A. Darker, 11 July 1919, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 5, LAC.

86. 86 W. D. Elliott and Frank Watt to Deputy Minister, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 25 November 1922, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 10, LAC. In addition to Elliott himself, the letter cited McCorquodale, Farqharson, and Gould as local authorities on such matters.

87. 87 Miller, “The Regulation of Trout Fishing in Alberta,” 22.

88. 88 Miller, “The Regulation of Trout Fishing in Alberta,” 21.

notes to Chapter 3

1. 1 Some indication of the rise in such countryside visits is seen in the increased number of angling permits issued by the province. They grew from a little over two thousand in 1920 to well over eight thousand by the end of the decade. See reports from Southern Alberta in Canada, Annual Reports, Fisheries Branch, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 1913–14, 229; 1926–27, 56; 1929–30, 290.

2. 2 “Is Charged with Running Down Two Pedestrians,” Morning Albertan, 11 April 1921, 3. (The headline neglected to mention who was charged.)

3. 3 “Automobiles and Motorcycle Racing,” in William M. McLennan, Sport in Early Calgary: An Account of the Sports, Games, Personalities, Facilities, and Recreation of the Pioneers in the Early Calgary Area, 360–66.

4. 4 Donald G. Wetherell, with Irene Kmet, Useful Pleasures: The Shaping of Leisure in Alberta 1896–1945, 17–18. On fishing as leisure, see 180–81.

5. 5 See Austin de B. Winter’s comments on the range of prairie chicken in 1922, Winter to W. H. Rose, 3 October 1922, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1942, file 264, GA.

6. 6 Basil Hamilton to Robert A. Darker, 8 February 1910, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1327, file 27, GA.

7. 7 The work is detailed in Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1327, files 12, 13 and 17. His orders for Hungarian partridge are found in M-1942, file 259, GA.

8. 8 On the landscaping of Winter’s home, see his correspondence with C. D. Smith, Western Nursery Co., 30 April 1921, M-1942, file 262. An amateur photographer, Winter also photographed the exterior landscaping of his Mount Royal home. See Austin de B. Winter fonds, PA-1996-131, GA.

9. 9 Winter’s correspondence with gunsmiths, sporting goods manufacturers, and boot makers is found in Austin de B. Winter fonds, personal files, 1916–23, M-1942, file 259, GA; see M-1942, file 260 for his correspondence with dog breeders.

10. 10 “Frank” to Winter, 3 May 1922, M-1942, file 264, GA.

11. 11 “Mid” to Winter, 7 May 1923, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1942, file 268, GA.

12. 12 Winter told one of his correspondences that in 1923, with the government poised to pass “at least one sane law” that his time “is going to be very much taken up with the activities of the Moderation League.” Winter to Harry W. Lay, 24 July 1923, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1942, file 268, GA.

13. 13 R. A. Darker to Winter, 28 May 1923, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1942, file 268, GA.

14. 14 Bradford J. Rennie, “From Idealism to Pragmatism, 1923 in Alberta,” Michael Payne, Donald Wetherell and Catherine Cavanaugh, eds. Vol. II, Alberta Formed, Alberta Transformed (Edmonton and Calgary: University of Alberta and University of Calgary Presses, 2006), 455–59.

15. 15 “Mid” to Winters, 7 May 1923, Austin de B. Winter files, M-1942, file 268, GA.

16. 16 Winter to W. H. Rose, 19 September 1921, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1942, file 264, GA.

17. 17 Winter to Hal. E. Middleton, 6 April 1923, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1942, file 268, GA.

18. 18 “Highwood Trail Offers Anglers Every Advantage,” Calgary Herald, June 21, 1922.

19. 19 Lillian Knupp, Leaves from the Medicine Tree: A History of the Area Influenced by the Tree, and Biographies of Pioneers and Oldtimers Who Came Under Its Spell Prior to 1900, 413.

20. 20 Frank Watt to G. G. Coote, 27 March 1922, RG 23, vol. 999; 721-4-37, file 18, LAC. George Gibson Coote was the Progressive party’s MP representing the Macleod riding.

21. 21 Sheppard, Spitzee Days, 74.

22. 22 G. D. (George) Stanley to John Herron, 16 July 1913, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, LAC.

23. 23 E. W. Miller to W. A. Found, 23 June 1913, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, LAC.

24. 24 E. W. Miller to W. A. Found, 23 June 1913, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, LAC.

25. 25 H. J. Morlan to Frank Watt, 26 October 1925, RG 23, vol. 1002, 721-4-37, file 28, LAC.

26. 26 On the Highwood’s geography, see George Colpitts, History of the Highwood River, 6.

27. 27 Colpitts, History of the Highwood River, 6–7.

28. 28 Colpitts, History of the Highwood River, 71–73. For peak discharge during historic floods on the Highwood, see also Northwest Hydraulic Consultants, Highwood River Flood Plain Study for the Town of High River and Department of the Environment, 4.

29. 29 “Local Notes,” High River Times, 3 September 1931.

30. 30 Frank Watt to G. G. Coote, 27 March 1922, RG 23, vol. 999, 721-4-37, LAC.

31. 31 Herbert Sheppard to Ernest Lapointe, Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 10 April 1922, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 19, LAC.

32. 32 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 20 November 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002, 721-4-37, file 29, LAC. See also R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 21 July 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002, 721-4-37, file 29, LAC, on the “considerable complaint” made by ranchers of campers on their property.

33. 33 Henry A. Stewart, letter to the editor, Calgary Daily Herald, 28 January 1928.

34. 34 Dave B. Blacklock, letter to the editor, Calgary Daily Herald, 13 February 1928, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 21, LAC.

35. 35 Other Southern Alberta towns experienced a similar pattern of growth followed by stagnation. Fort Macleod’s population rose from 796 in 1901 to 1,844 in 1911 but, by 1921, had slumped to 1,723, while Pincher Creek saw its population grow threefold, from 335 in 1901 to 1,027 in 1911, only to decline to 888 by 1921. For comparative statistics from other Southern Albertan towns and cities, see table 8 in George Colpitts, Game in the Garden: A Human History of Wildlife in Western Canada to 1940, 141–42; and also, 200.

36. 36 W. D. Elliott to G. D. Stanley, 18 February 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 12, LAC.

37. 37 Extract from the report of G. C. Langley, 2 August 1919, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 4, LAC.

38. 38 “Local and Other Items,” High River Times, 26 August 1920. Evidently, in the fall of 1920, fish guardian Sam Smith and R. T. Rodd (then the Banff hatchery’s superintendent) tried to gather scientific support for the problem of dwindling fish populations by stringing a net across Sullivan Creek, a tributary of the Highwood. Perhaps as predicted, they caught nothing. Sheppard, Spitzee Days, 199.

39. 39 R. T. Rodd, departmental memo, citing information he received from High River MLA George Stanley, 5 September 1918, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 5, LAC. Stanley had conveyed to the department the views of High River anglers, who argued that the Highwood River’s tributaries were important spawning grounds in need of closure. It is likely that High River anglers struck on the idea of tributary closure after learning of the practice in other locales. Certainly, by 1924 their confidence in the measure was supported by Izaak Walton League newsletters and correspondence with US clubs, leagues, and associations. One of their appeals to Ottawa included a copy of the bulletin of the American Game Protective Association and cited the Rowley Hunting and Fishing Preserve in Québec as a “perfect natural system” in which tributary closure apparently functioned beautifully. Memo of the Highwood River Angling Protective Association to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, 14 May 1924, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 28, LAC.

40. 40 George Stanley to W. Fisher, 20 February 1919, RG 23, vol.1000, 721-4-37, file 12, LAC.

41. 41 The petition, signed 18 February 1919, was attached to the letter by George Stanley to W. Fisher, 20 February 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 12, LAC.

42. 42 G. S. Davidson’s report on Highwood tributaries, sent to W. A. Found, 3 March 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 12, LAC. See Order-in-Council, 31 May 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 12, LAC. The order was published as “Fishing in Certain Streams, Province of Alberta, Prohibited,” Government Notice, 31 May 1919, included in Acts of the Parliament of the Dominion of Canada, Vol. 1 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1919), xxxiv. A problem with the Highwood closures was that, when the notice was published in the Canada Gazette, the Geographic Board of Canada pointed out to the department that many of the streams listed had different names or were not registered at all in formal maps in Ottawa. R. Douglas, Secretary of the Geographic Board of Canada to Department, 15 June 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000; 721-4-37, file 12, LAC. G. C. Langley, the Calgary fisheries overseer, followed up to find that a number of tributaries ascribed to the Highwood, including Willow Creek, did not actually flow into the Highwood. G. C. Langley to G. S. Davidson, 10 July 1919, RG. 23, vol. 1000; 721-4-37, file 13, LAC.

43. 43 Extract from report of G. C. Langley, 30 August 1919, appearing in Memorandum, 6 October 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 14, LAC.

44. 44 The petition was dated September 1919 and included in Memorandum, 6 October 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 14, LAC.

45. 45 Walter Robie to G. S. Davidson, copy of letter written in 1919 (otherwise undated), RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 13; and attached to G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 24 November 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 14, LAC.

46. 46 “Local Fishermen Urge Protection of Alberta Waters,” Calgary Daily Herald, 19 June 1919. Charlie Hayden referred the Department to his coverage of the SAAA in this newspaper report, urging it to permanently close Fish Creek. C. Hayden to Department, 20 June 1919, RG 23, Vol. 1000; 721-4-37, file 12, LAC.

47. 47 Telegram from Walter Robie [of the SAAA], 18 June 1919 to Department, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 12, LAC. G. S. Davidson seems to have become interested in such a blanket closure that year, suggesting to the department that “other streams in that section of Southern Alberta might have the same advantage if closed.” G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 3 March 1919, RG 23, vol. 1000; 721-4-37, file 12, LAC.

48. 48 “Public Notice,” 1 May 1920, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 14, LAC. The 1920 order included Highwood River tributaries and brought them into the same close period extending until 1922.

49. 49 On Lane as an angler and the history of the Bar U, see Simon Evans, The Bar U and Canadian Ranching History, 140.

50. 50 On Lane’s stream remedies, see Warren Elofson and George Colpitts, Historical Report for the Zahava Hanen Pekisko Creek Property Multidisciplinary Land Study, 87–88. http://www.salts-landtrust.org/docs/research/pekisko_valley_study_final.pdf.

51. 51 Lane’s application for fry is enclosed with Minister of Marine and Fisheries to G. J. Desbarats, 16 April 1919, RG 23, vol. 777, 721-11-1, file 5, LAC.

52. 52 G. J. Desbarats to Thomas Tweedie, 24 April 1919, RG 23, vol. 777, 721-11-1, file 5, LAC.

53. 53 R. T. Rodd to J. A. Rodd, memo on hatchery production and distribution, 2 August 1919, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 6, LAC.

54. 54 “The Trout that Shook the Bridge, a Fishing Tale: W. D. Elliott, formerly well known Alberta Sportsman, Writes of the Highwood,” Calgary Herald, 11 August 1928.

55. 55 “Minutes of Meeting Held in the Interest of Fish Culture and Protection in High River, 16 February 1920,” copy enclosed with letter of Frank Watt to R. T. Rodd, 23 February 1920, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 6, LAC.

56. 56 The lake at Edward’s ranch imposed its own demands on the Banff hatchery. In 1925, Edward’s staff requested that the federal government stock the lake with trout for the prince and guest fishers. The lake, it turned out, was full of suckers and before complying with the request, the fisheries department advised hatchery staff to rid the lake of these undesirables. See R. T. Rodd, “Examination Report, EP Lake, 21 May 1925,” and R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 30 June 1925, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 16, LAC. The Calgary Herald reported that, “On every occasion that he has a few minutes to spare the Prince seizes a fishing rod and makes a sally after trout in the stream on his ranch.” Quoted in Simon Evans, Prince Charming Goes West: the Story of the E. P. Ranch, and especially on game hunting, 107.

57. 57 The strategy seems to have had no effect on angler numbers or on the problem of overfishing, as G. S. Davidson stated in a memo, 19 January 1920, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 14, LAC.

58. 58 Frank Watt to R. T. Rodd, 23 February 1920, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 6, LAC. Watt attached the application, along with a copy of the minutes of the association’s 16 February meeting. The Department of the Interior administered federal forestry reserves outside the National Park boundaries and issued its own angling permits for their waters. However, an agreement between the Ministry of Interior and the Department of Marine and Fisheries allowed permits issued by either department to be used in waters inside or outside the reserves (except for the National Parks). See Special Fishery Regulations for the Province of Saskatchewan and Alberta, and the Territories North Thereof,” Canada Gazette 56:1 (29 April 1922), 56.

59. 59 G. S. Davidson reported the anglers’ demand for year-round “special” guardians, as well as his reply to them that it was impossible for the Department to pay for such protection, in his letter to W. A. Found, 15 April 1922, RG 23, vol. 1000; 721-4-37, file 18, LAC.

60. 60 Assistant Deputy Minister J. A. Rodd, departmental memo, 10 March 1920, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 15. Recommending his reinstatement, Rodd called Smith “a conscientious officer” who “performed his duties well.”

61. 61 Frank Watt to R. A. Rodd, 23 February 1920, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 6, LAC.

62. 62 Sheppard, Spitzee Days, 199.

63. 63 R. M. Patterson, The Buffalo Head, 120.

64. 64 As Frank Watt explained to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, tributaries served as “more or less natural breeding places for trout who when they come to a certain size will probably go into the main stream and help to keep it stocked.” Frank Watt to G. G. Coote, 27 March 1922, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC.

65. 65 Allen B. Costello and Emily Rubidge, “COSEWIC Assessment and Status Report on the Westslope Cutthroat Trout,” 25; 28–29.

66. 66 See Richard B. Miller, “Movements of Cutthroat Trout After Different Periods of Retention Upstream and Downstream from their Homes,” and “Permanence and Size of Home Territory in Stream-Dwelling Cutthroat Trout.”

67. 67 Richard B. Miller, “The Regulation of Trout Fishing in Alberta,” 22.

68. 68 Miller, “The Regulation of Trout Fishing in Alberta,” 22.

69. 69 Miller, “The Regulation of Trout Fishing in Alberta,” 22.

70. 70 Miller, “The Regulation of Trout Fishing in Alberta,” 23.

71. 71 Resolutions of the CAA, 24 January 1921, with letter accompanying it from William Crichton to G. S. Davidson, 24 January 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16.

72. 72 W[illiam]. C[harles]. Ebbert to H. M. Shaw, 6 May 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 17, LAC. See also the telegraph sent by the association to the Department requesting streams be reopened, 18 May 1921, attached to this file. W. C. Ebbert was president of the Foothills Angling Association. At this point, Hugh Murray Shaw was the Macleod riding’s MP representing the Union Government. He would lose his seat in the December 1921 federal election. Nanton and District Historical Society, Mosquito Creek Roundup—Nanton/ Parkland (Nanton: Nanton and District Historical Society, 1976), 65.

73. 73 J. J. Gillespie to J. B. Hawkins [of the Canadian Conservation Commission], 22 June 1920, RG 23, vol. 1000; 721-4-37, file 16, LAC.

74. 74 G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 26 March 1921, RG 23, vol. 1000; 721-4-37, file 16, LAC.

75. 75 “War on Bull Trout,” Macleod Times, 29 December 1921; the same story appeared in “Items of Local and General Interest,” Blairmore Enterprise, 29 December 1921.

76. 76 J. G. Rutherford to Ernest Lapointe, 1 April 1922, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC. The Liberal Party, under the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie King, had come to power at the end of 1921.

77. 77 “This whole agitation [to keep streams closed] by the [High River] Association was in the first instance caused by their misunderstanding of the Order-in-Council issued two years ago, by which the streams were closed for a period of two years; though this was done in the High River District at the Association’s request, they had arrived at the conclusion that the streams were closed permanently.” G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 2 May 1922, RG 23, vol. 1001; 721-4-37, file 19, LAC.

78. 78 Frank Watt, telegram to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 13 March 1922, and Watt’s letter to G. G. Coote, 27 March 1922, both in RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC. Interestingly, when Coote, the Progressive Party’s member of parliament for the Macleod District, sent a copy of Watt’s letter to G. S. Davidson, the chief fisheries officer in Winnipeg, he removed Watt’s reference to sporting goods houses.

79. 79 Highwood River Angling Protective Association to Ernest Lapointe, 8 April 1922, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC.

80. 80 Herbert Sheppard, telegram to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 10 April 1922, and letter to Ernest Lapointe, 11 April 1922, both in RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC.

81. 81 Hugh Cameron to Ernest Lapointe, 11 April 1922, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC. Hugh Cameron later became a Pekisko valley rancher, having married a nurse he met while in hospital. Knupp, Leaves from the Medicine Tree, 48.

82. 82 G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 2 May 1922, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 19, LAC. See also Davidson’s summary of the situation in a memo to the department, 15 April 1922, and the results of an inspection of the Highwood River conducted by Davidson and D. A. Richardson, reported in G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 21 April 1922, both in RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC.

83. 83 The closures on the Highwood were to take effect for three years beginning in the 1922 season, G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 2 May 1922, RG 23, vol 1001; 721-4-37, file 19, LAC; an internal memorandum in the Department stated that Flat, Sullivan, and Pekisko Creeks, as well as all tributaries outside the forestry reserve were to remain closed “indefinitely” and only be opened if conditions on them changed. Memorandum, 5 May 1922, RG 23, vol. 1001; 721-4-37, file 19, LAC. The order-in-council specified no time limit for the closures. See Public Notice, 5 May 1922, Canada Gazette 55:47 (20 May 1922), 4959

84. 84 See Edward E. Prince, “The Object of a Close Time for Fish,” Thirty-Second Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, 1899, Sessional Paper no. 11a (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1900), lxxv–lxxvix. Prince indeed noted that “in framing regulations defining close times for various kinds of fishes,” fisheries authorities “often have had very different aims in view” (lxxv).

85. 85 Frank Watt to G. G. Coote, 27 March 1922, RG 23, vol.1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC.

86. 86 Frank Watt and W. D. Elliott, writing on behalf of the Highwood River Angling and Protective Association, to Minister, 8 April 1922, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC.

87. 87 W. D. Elliott and Frank Watt to Deputy Minister, 25 November 1922, RG 23, vol. 777; 781-11-1, file 10, LAC.

88. 88 W. D. Elliott and Frank Watt to Deputy Minister, 25 November 1922, RG 23, vol. 777; 781-11-1, file 10, LAC.

89. 89 On the impact of irrigation projects on wildlife, including fish populations, see Christopher Armstrong, Matthew Evenden, and H. V. Nelles, The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow, 167–68, 236–38.

90. 90 “Boys Catch Fish in Irrigation Ditch,” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 6 June 1919.

91. 91 “Experiment with Fish,” Blairmore Enterprise, 1 November 1923.

92. 92 “Localets,” Lomond Press, 29 August 1919.

93. 93 “Local and Personal News,” Macleod Times, 22 June 1922.

94. 94 “Chin Reservoir a Summer Resort,” Macleod Times, 22 June 1922.

95. 95 Paul Voisey, High River and the Times, 88.

96. 96 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 8 November 1927, RG 23, vol. 778; 718-11-1, file 12, LAC.

97. 97 “Local News,” Cayley Hustler, 10 May 1911.

98. 98 R. T. Rodd to J. A. Rodd, 18 December 1922, RG 23, vol. 777; 781-11-1, file 10, LAC.

99. 99 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 8 November 1927, RG 23, vol. 778; 718-11-1, file 12, LAC.

100. 100 R. T. Rodd to J. A. Rodd, 18 December 1922, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 10, LAC.

101. 101 Frank Watt and W. D. Elliott to Minister of the Interior, 8 April 1922, RG 23, vol. 1000; 721-4-37, file 18, LAC.

102. 102 Smith reported the events by telephone to Calgary fishery manager, D. A. Richardson, who sent them by letter to R. T. Rodd, 14 May 1928, RG 23, vol. 733; 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

103. 103 D. A. Richardson to R. T. Rodd, 14 May 1928, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

104. 104 “Snaffle Big Fish, Then Law Steps In: High River Boys Penalized for Landing Trout Killer,” Calgary Daily Herald, 14 May 1928.

105. 105 A. A. Ballachey to R. T. Rodd, 11 May 1928, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

106. 106 R. T. Rodd to A. A. Ballachey, 17 May 1928, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 10, LAC. Angling on the Highwood, as a trout stream, was restricted only to the open season. There was, as well, a per diem limit of fifteen pike or pickerel still in force in 1928, introduced in the 1912 regulations, see sec. 34 (c), “Special Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan,” 12 February 1912, The Canada Gazette 45:38 (16 March 1912), 3438.

107. 107 D. A. Richardson to R. T. Rodd, 14 May 1928, RG 23, vol. 733; 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

108. 108 “Campers Barred,” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 24 July 1919.

109. 109 “A Hint to Anglers,” Blairmore Enterprise, 25 May 1922; “Fishing Restrictions,” The Strathmore Standard, 31 May 1922.

110. 110 “Public Notice,” 23 February 1925, Canada Gazette 58:36 (7 March 1925), 2629.

111. 111 The paper stating that it was a “big catch,” said that “We hesitate to mention the figures they quote. From pleasant experience we can testify to the size and toothsomeness of some of the catch, however.” “With a Pinch of Salt,” Claresholm Review, 27 July 1911.

112. 112 “Fill in the Blanks,” Claresholm Advertiser, 12 August 1914.

113. 113 Oliver Mosley, “T. P. Mosley and Family,” in Echoes of Willow Creek edited by Helen Douglas (Lethbridge: Lethbridge Herald Job Printing Department, 1965), 26.

114. 114 Helen Douglas, ed., Presentation of “Mrs. Gentry Ohler,” in Echoes of Willow Creek, 44–45.

115. 115 Helen Douglas, ed., “Stanley Wyatt,” in Echoes of Willow Creek, 50.

116. 116 “Have Licenses But Where are Fishing Streams?” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 22 June 1922.

117. 117 “Local and Personal,” Macleod Times, 6 July 1922.

118. 118 “Local and Personal,” Macleod Times, 6 July 1922.

119. 119 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 28 May 1924, RG 23, vol. 778; 781-11-1, file 12, LAC.

120. 120 A copy of the letter dated 21 December 1926 from the Coleman Rod and Gun Club in 1925 reporting their amalgamation with Bellevue anglers and their aim to see tributaries closed, was attached to the letter from R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found 16 February 1927, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 27, LAC.

121. 121 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 16 March 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 28, LAC.

122. 122 The closure would take effect 6 April 1927. R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 16 March 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 28, LAC. The order-in-council appears in Public Notice, 26 April 1927, Canada Gazette 60:46 (14 May 1927) 3435.

123. 123 R. T. Rodd reported to W. A. Found that it was only the Lethbridge association that had objected to the closures, in R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 16 March 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 28, LAC.

124. 124 R. T. Rodd said, “there has been considerable complaint from time to time from the ranchers of this district [along Willow Creek] with regard to campers,” and singled out the case of J. W. Dick, who wanted streams closed apparently just to keep outsiders off his property. R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 21 July 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 29, LAC.

125. 125 R. T. Rodd included an “extract” of a letter he received from the Claresholm Fish and Game Protective Association in his letter to W. A. Found, 22 November 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 29, LAC.

126. 126 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 22 November 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 29, LAC.

127. 127 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 20 December 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 30, LAC.

128. 128 “Special Fisheries Regulations for the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan and the Territories North Thereof,” 27 May 1927, Canada Gazette 60:50 (11 June 1927) 3752.

129. 129 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 13 July 1928, RG 23, Vol. 733; 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

130. 130 Freda Purmal and Winnie McLuskey, “Thomas Kerr Fullerton, 1852–1913,” 434–35.

131. 131 Purmal and McLuskey, “Thomas Kerr Fullerton,” 435.

132. 132 Winnie McCluskey, “Thomas William ‘Tom’ Fullerton, 1875–1949,” 436–37. On Fullerton’s sawmilling work and homesteading at Bragg Creek, see Diane Coleman, Mountains to Metropolis: The Elbow River Watershed, (Victoria: FriesenPress, 2015) 116.

133. 133 R. T. Rodd, providing background on the case as well as Fullerton’s report on arriving to the landowner’s property, said that Fullerton had reported that the landowner “has strongly objected to anyone but his friends fishing in the part of the streams running through his property, and Guardian Fullerton has reported on a previous occasion that he had reason to believe that this man’s friends were breaking the law in more ways than one, and that this offender was assisting them to do so.” R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 16 May 1928, RG 23, vol. 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

134. 134 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 13 July 1928, RG 23, Vol. 733; 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

135. 135 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 13 July 1928, RG 23, Vol. 733; 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

136. 136 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 13 July 1928, RG 23, Vol. 733; 715-12-1, file 10, LAC.

137. 137 A. S. P. Gibson to G. S. Davidson, 18 July 1920, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, file 5, LAC.

138. 138 Highwood River Angling Protective Association to G. G. Coote, 18 April 1922, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC.

139. 139 Knupp, Leaves from the Medicine Tree, 318.

140. 140 Interview with Dave Blacklock, September 1992, at his home near High River. Blacklock was eighty-seven when he recounted to me his angling experiences in the 1920s on the Highwood.

141. 141 “Fish and Fish Preservation,” High River Times, 8 February 1926, clipping in RG 23, vol. 1002, 721-4-37, file 28, LAC.

142. 142 In its January 1926 meeting, “because of the great interest all our members take in game birds and shooting,” the association changed its name to the High River Fish and Game Protective Association. W. D. Elliott to W. A. Found, 19 February 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 28, LAC.

143. 143 W. D. Elliott to W. A. Found, 19 February 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 28, LAC.

144. 144 W. D. Elliott to W. A. Found, 19 February 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002, 721-4-37, file 28, LAC.

notes to Chapter 4

1. 1 Stuart Barnard, “The Kootenay Revival Campaign of 1909,” 47.

2. 2 Barnard, “The Kootenay Revival Campaign of 1909, 49.

3. 3 On wages and the cost of living, and on miners’ lives more generally, see Charles Allen Seager, “A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country: The Alberta Coal Miners, 1905–1945,” 155–56, 170–73.

4. 4 In 1915, the Bellevue Times reported that the “Elk River [in British Columbia] is being polluted with coal dust, which will have some damaging effect on the fishing in that stream.” “Of Local and General Interest,” Bellevue Times, 7 May 1915.

5. 5 Joseph S. Nelson and Martin J. Paetz, The Fishes of Alberta, 5–6.

6. 6 Author interview with Jean Kerr, Coleman, Alberta, 23 April 2013. Kerr is a descendant of coal miner and early conservationist John Kerr, discussed later in the chapter.

7. 7 “Local and General News,” Blairmore Enterprise, 26 June 1924; “Frank News in Brief,” Frank Paper, 19 August and 24 August 1909; “Local and General Items,” Blairmore Enterprise, 23 August 1928.

8. 8 Jim Selby, “One Step Forward: Alberta Workers, 1885–1914,” 56–57.

9. 9 Seager, “A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country,” 181–85, 187.

10. 10 Ian McKenzie, “Mark Drumm, Newspaperman,” Heritage News 6 (October 15, 2010), 2–3.

11. 11 “Fish and Game Protective Association Is Active,” Frank Paper, 9 April 1908, 2.

12. 12 “Local and General,” Blairmore Enterprise, 11 July 1913.

13. 13 “Hillcrest Happenings,” Blairmore Enterprise, 20 July 1922.

14. 14 “Frank News in Brief,” Frank Paper, 22 July 1909.

15. 15 “Frank News in Brief,” Frank Paper, 22 July 1909.

16. 16 “Better Fish Regulations,” Frank Paper, 29 July 1909.

17. 17 “Better Fish Regulations,” Frank Paper, 29 July 1909. The Crowsnest Branch had been completed in 1898, connecting Lethbridge, Fort Macleod, Pincher Creek, and Crowsnest Pass coal mining towns. Barry Potyondi, Where the Rivers Meet: A History of the Upper Oldman River Basin to 1939, 92–95.

18. 18 “Better Fish Regulations,” Frank Paper, 29 July 1909.

19. 19 The 1894 Canadian angling permit was introduced in the General Fishery Act, imposing a creel limit of twelve bass or pike, perch (pickerel or walleye), twenty trout or four maskinongé (Esox masquinongy, also known as muskellunge or “muskie,” an eastern member of the pike family), with a size minimum of six inches, PC 1945, “Regulations Respecting Anglers’ Permits in the Inland Waters of the Dominion of Canada,” 30 June 1894, Canada Gazette 28:7 (18 August 1894), 243; the creel limit was in force when angling permits were applied in 1907, but a seven-inch minimum was written into PC 2187, “Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta. . .,” 14 October 1907, Canada Gazette 41: 17 (26 October 1907), 1034.

20. 20 “Better Fish Regulations,” Frank Paper, 29 July 1909.

21. 21 Reports of town excursions to the North Fork and its tributaries abound in papers. One Bellevue angler was reported fishing the North Fork, and another party at Daisy Creek in “Bellevue Happenings,” Bellevue Times, 30 July 1915; Daisy Creek was again being fished by a town angling party in a report in “Bellevue Happenings,” Bellevue Times, 3 September 1915; two parties of Bellevue anglers fished Daisy Creek as reported in “Of Local and General Interest,” Bellevue Times, 14 July 1916; A trio of anglers headed for a week of fishing on the North Fork from Bellevue as reported in “Local and General,” Bellevue Times, 22 August 1913; a Frank party left for the North Fork, for a “week or so camping and fishing.” “Of Local and General Interest,” Bellevue Times, 4 August 1916. Reports of these parties suggest the transport and technique of early anglers: one angler, purporting to be hunting in the closed fishing season, was using “a split bamboo rod and deer-moss flies,” in “Of Local and General Interest,” Blairmore Enterprise, 6 November 1919. There was also the report of two Blairmore anglers walking to Racehorse Creek, “the trail over Gold Creek summit in good condition.” “Items of Local Interest,” Blairmore Enterprise, 13 August 1925. A man was reported as sighted on Racehorse Creek, “wading almost waist high in a pool with a steel rod in one hand and a parasol in the other, “and heavily clad in what the ladies nowadays term a waist band.” “Items of Local Interest,” Blairmore Enterprise, 22 July 1926.

22. 22 Crowsnest and its People: Millennium Edition, 437.

23. 23 “Forest Fire Case,” Grain Growers Guide, 5 October 1910, 12.

24. 24 Warren Elofson, Somebody Else’s Money: The Walrond Ranch Story, 21–22.

25. 25 “A Trip to the Rockies,” Claresholm Review, 23 June 1910; the women who joined fishing parties is evident in newspaper coverage: Claresholm’s Miss Kelsie Ford joined a party of fifteen anglers who travelled by horseback to the Oldman, likely taking a similar route as Palmer’s party in 1911 for “a jolly week.” “Chiefly Claresholm,” Claresholm Review, 20 July 1911.

26. 26 See the photograph of two men fishing below McEachran Falls, on the Walrond ranch, in Elofson, Somebody Else’s Money, 114–15.

27. 27 Emma Lynch-Staunton, A History of the Early Days of Pincher Creek of the District and of the Southern Mountains, 7

28. 28 “Frank News in Brief,” Frank Paper, 19 August 1909.

29. 29 “Need of Fish Regulations,” Frank Paper, 24 August 1909.

30. 30 “Coleman Pebbles,” reported a town party returning from the north fork with news that fish were “in abundance but not so large as they have been accustomed to get.” Coleman Miner, 11 September 1908.

31. 31 “Need of Fish Regulations,” Frank Paper, 24 August 1909.

32. 32 Peter H. Douglas letter, 3 September 1909, Peter H. Douglas fonds, M338, GA.

33. 33 “Happenings in and around Blairmore,” Bellevue Times, 20 September 1912.

34. 34 “Local and General” Bellevue Times, 19 September 1913.

35. 35 “E. T. Saunders,” Pioneer Profiles of the Southern Alberta Pioneers and their Descendants, http://www.pioneersalberta.org/profiles/s.html; Barry Potyondi describes the boom occurring in Pincher Creek at this time in Where the Rivers Meet, 104.

36. 36 “Spring,” Rocky Mountain Echo, 19 April 1905. The season opening in 1904 was still May 1.

37. 37 “Spring Fever,” Rocky Mountain Echo, 9 May 1904.

38. 38 “A Fishing Ode,” Rocky Mountain Echo, 23 August 1905.

39. 39 “Fishing at John Bull’s Camp on the South Fork,” Rocky Mountain Echo, 3 August 1906.

40. 40 “Fishing at John Bull’s Camp on the South Fork,” Rocky Mountain Echo, 3 August 1906.

41. 41 “Close Seasons,” Rocky Mountain Echo, 18 October 1904.

42. 42 “Game Protection,” Pincher Creek Echo, 7 September 1906.

43. 43 “Game Protection,” Pincher Creek Echo, 7 September 1906.

44. 44 “Game Protection,” Pincher Creek Echo, 7 September 1906.

45. 45 “Game Protection,” Pincher Creek Echo, 7 September 1906.

46. 46 Southern Alberta Mystery,” The Edmonton Bulletin, 26 September 1905.

47. 47 Harrison Young summarized the Edmonton meeting in a letter to R. N. Venning, 18 February 1907, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part I, LAC.

48. 48 Harrison Young to R. N. Venning, 25 June 1907, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, Part I, LAC.

49. 49 R. A. Darker (Calgary), W. H. Cottingham (Red Deer) and N. K. Luxton (Banff) to Harrison Young, 14 February 1907, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, part 1, LAC.

50. 50 Harrison Young to R. N. Venning, reporting what he had learned from Calgary’s conservationists on their visit in 1907 to Edmonton, 18 February 1907, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, file 1, LAC.

51. 51 PC 2187, sec. 13 (5), “Fishery Regulation for the Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta. . .,” 14 October 1907, Canada Gazette 41:17 (26 October 1907), 1034.

52. 52 PC 1945, sec. 7, “Regulations Respecting Anglers’ permits in the Inland Waters of the Dominium of Canada,” Canada Gazette 28:7 (18 August 1894), 243.

53. 53 PC 2187, sec. 13 (5), “Fishery Regulation for the Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta. . .,” 14 October 1907, Canada Gazette 41:17 (26 October 1907), 1035. “I cannot too heartily endorse the action of the Department in their Order in Council passed, for prohibiting the sale and export of trout,” R. A. Darker wrote in a letter to G. J. Desbarats, Deputy Minister, 26 May 1908, RG 23, vol. 344, file 2995, Part I, LAC.

54. 54 PC 304, sec 33 (a) and 34 (a), “Special fishery regulations for the provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta,” 45:38 (16 March 1912) Canada Gazette 3437–38.

55. 55 “Happenings in and Around Blairmore,” Frank Vindicator, 19 July 1912.

56. 56 Lynch-Staunton, A History of the Early Days of Pincher Creek, 26–27; 28.

57. 57 Godsal, at Cowley, was included among the fifty-four letters sent out “asking them to organize a protective association in their districts.” “Game Protection,” The Eye Opener, 25 August 1906.

58. 58 “Fishing Laws,” Cayley Hustler, 15 May 1912; and “Local News,” Cayley Hustler, 31 July 1912.

59. 59 The Alberta and Saskatchewan Fishery Commission in 1912 noted the need that regulations “be prominently distributed throughout the provinces, especially by means of placards on cotton posted along the banks of the rivers and on the shores of the lakes, in hotels and in public places generally, but they should also be announced in the news columns of the local newspapers from time to time.” Edward E. Prince, Thomas H. McGuire, and Euston Sisley, Dominium Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission, 1910–1911: Report and Recommendations with Appendices, 31.

60. 60 F. W. Godsal to A. Wolley Dod, 11 June 1912, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1327, file 22. Godsal’s 1912 report that police were enforcing the closed season is difficult to confirm. However, in 1915, the RNWMP arrested “a fellow” fishing Rock Creek, near Burmiss, confiscating his “beauties” and fining him $10 plus costs of detaining him, “Of Local and General Interest,” Bellevue Times, 2 July 1915; it would seem that police were responding to an explicit instruction by the provincial government ordering them to check for permits, as well as to carry them to sell to anglers asking for them. “Says Fishing Laws Will in Future be Strictly Enforced,” The Edmonton Capital, 4 April 1914.

61. 61 F. W. Godsal to A. Wolley Dod, 11 June 1912, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1327, file 22. The RNWMP arrested “a fellow” fishing Rock Creek, near Burmiss, confiscating his “beauties” and fined him $10 plus costs of detaining him, “Of Local and General Interest,” Bellevue Times, 2 July 1915.

62. 62 “For the Anglers: Queer Materials Used in Making Artificial Flies,” Cayley Hustler, 23 October 1912.

63. 63 P.C.1312, Sec 12. “Consolidated regulation relating to fishing in Manitoba and the North West Territories,” Canada Gazette 18:47 (19 May 1894), 2048.

64. 64 For the first time, a Sunday closure was not included in “Special Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. . .,” Appendix F, 26 April 1922, The Canada Gazette, 2nd Supplement (29 April 1922), 53–57.

65. 65 Editorial section, Cayley Hustler, 31 July 1912.

66. 66 C. W. Fisher, the speaker of the Alberta Legislative Assembly, had wanted the fisheries department to pass a specific ordinance against Sunday fishing. However, the Minister of Marine and Fisheries, L. P. Brodeur, believed that the matter “is more one to be dealt with under the Lord’s Day Act,” not fisheries legislation. L. P. Brodeur to C. W. Fisher, 13 April 1911, RG23, vol. 344, file 2995, LAC.

67. 67 “An Act Respecting the Lord’s Day,” Pincher Creek Echo, 3 August 1906.

68. 68 “Happenings in and Around Blairmore,” Bellevue Times, 19 July 1912.

69. 69 A. S. P. Gibson, of the forestry service, to G. S. Davidson, 18 July 1920, RG 23, vol. 733; 715-12-1, file 5, LAC.

70. 70 “Sunday Fishing,” Claresholm Review, 12 May 1910.

71. 71 “This and That,” Red Deer News, 13 August 1919.

72. 72 “It Pays to Pay Up,” Empress Express, 19 April 1917.

73. 73 “Bellevue Happenings, Blairmore Enterprise, 7 August 1914.

74. 74 “Local and General,” Bow Island Review, 21 August 1914.

75. 75 “Local News,” Cayley Hustler, 23 August 1911; on the Sunday fishing prohibition, “Local News,” Cayley Hustler, 31 July 1912.

76. 76 Nellie McClung, Painted Fires (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1925), 183–85.

77. 77 A Calgary paper pointed the difficulty of fishing in flush conditions in the Eastern Slopes: “the recent rise of the Bow River has practically put an end to trout fishing for the present. It is a strange thing that in England the darker the water is the better the fishing. Here it is just the reverse.” “Local,” Calgary Weekly Herald, 13 June 1901.

78. 78 “Form Anglers’ Association Here,” Coleman Bulletin, 1 April 1915.

79. 79 Joseph reported to R. A. Darker that “several members” of the town’s “strong Angling Club,” wanted to affiliate with Darker’s association. J. A. Joseph to R. A. Darker, 14 May 1915, Austin de B. Winter Fonds, M-1327, file 22, M1327, GA.

80. 80 “Early Fishing Season,” Bellevue Times, 18 May 1917.

81. 81 William Rees to Department, with petition attached, 19 April 1918, RG 23, vol. 999; 721-4-37, file 8, LAC.

82. 82 “Want Early Season,” Coleman Bulletin, 25 March 1915.

83. 83 “Early Fishing Season,” Bellevue Times, 18 May 1917.

84. 84 “Of Local and General Interest,” Blairmore Enterprise, 8 April 1920. The newspaper included news from Cowley that the Department had issued citations to a number of parties fishing in closed waters by August: “Evidently the department intends to enforce the law this season.” “Cowley Happenings,” Blairmore Enterprise, 12 August 1920.

85. 85 “Why and Wherefor of Prohibitory Laws,” Blairmore Enterprise, 27 July 1922.

86. 86 F. W. Godsal to John Eastwood, 26 May 1916, Austin de B. Winter fonds, M-1327, file 22, GA.

87. 87 “Local News,” The Cayley Hustler, 31, July 1912.

88. 88 “Of Local and General Interest,” Bellevue Times, 15 September 1916.

89. 89 “Of Local and General Interest,” Bellevue Times, 29 June 1917,

90. 90 Lynch-Staunton, A History of the Early Days of Pincher Creek, 12.

91. 91 “No Damage to Tires to Cross a Stream,” The Lethbridge Daily Herald, 7 August 1920.

92. 92 “2350 Autos in District,” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 13 June 1919; “Good Roads, Great Community Builder; Get Behind Auto Club,” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 7 June 1919.

93. 93 “Bellevue Fish and Game Protective Association,” Blairmore Enterprise, 30 April 1925.

94. 94 R. N. Morgan to Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 21 December 1925, included in a letter from R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, February 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 27, LAC.

95. 95 The Coleman anglers had asked for the closing of all tributaries to the “Crowsnest Branch of the Old Man River . . . to the west of the town of Blairmore,” anticipating that, in return, the Department would provide fry to stock these streams. W. S. Purvis to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 22 February 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 28, LAC.

96. 96 PC 1034, Secs. 7 and 8, “Special Fishery Regulation for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta and the Territories North Thereof,” 27 May 1927, Canada Gazette 60:50 (11 June 1927), 3752.

97. 97 R. T. Rodd reported the meetings and the “unanimous support” he had for the measures from everyone except the Lethbridge association in his letter to W. A. Found, 16 March 1926, RG 23, vol. 1002; 721-4-37, file 28, LAC.

98. 98 “Anglers Association Will Help Protect Fish,” Pincher Creek Echo, 14 May 1920.

99. 99 “Anglers Association Will Help Protect Fish,” Pincher Creek Echo, 14 May 1920.

100. 100 “Local Anglers’ Association Are Doing Good Work,” Pincher Creek Echo, 6 August 1920.

101. 101 J. J. Gillespie to J. B. Hawkins, 22 June 1920, RG 23, vol 999; 721-4-37, file 16, LAC. In January 1921, the association requested another guardian be paid specifically to guard the streams the association was planting with fry to the southwest of the community, the one appointed having time only to guard the Oldman River. W. W. Fraser, president of the association, to Alex Finlayson, 12 January 1921, RG 23, vol 777; 781-11-1, LAC.

102. 102 Stephen Hume, Ghost Camps: Memory and Myth on Canada’s Frontiers (Edmonton: NeWest Publishers, 1989), 100.

103. 103 Ted Pierzchala interview, 26 June 2003, by Kevin Wilkie as part of the “Life in the Pass: the Bellevue, Hillcrest and Passburg Oral History Project,” Crowsnest Museum Archives, Coleman, Alberta.

104. 104 Vince John Bosetti interview, 25 June 2003, by Kevin Wilkie, as part of the “Life in the Pass: the Bellevue, Hillcrest and Passburg Oral History Project,” Crowsnest Museum Archives, Coleman, Alberta.

105. 105 “Happenings in and Around Bellevue,” Frank Vindicator, 19 May 1911.

106. 106 “Hillcrest Hummings,” Coleman Miner, 21 August 1908.

107. 107 “Miners Become Expert Anglers,” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 27 April 1922.

108. 108 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 4 June 1925, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 15, LAC.

109. 109 “Kerr, John Jr.” and “The Kerr Family of Passburg,” in Crowsnest and its People, 618–20. Kerr helped to locate the seams of coal at Police Flats that were acquired by Leitch Collieries, and the community of Passburg sprang up to house miners. Kerr initially worked for the company but, after a sojourn in Scotland, returned in 1916 to open a general store in Passburg, followed by a second in Bellevue. The mines closed in 1915 and Passburg all but vanished from map.

110. 110 “Should Stock Our Streams,” Blairmore Enterprise, 15 April 1920, 8.

111. 111 “Should Stock Our Streams,” Blairmore Enterprise, 15 April 1920, 8.

112. 112 “Should Stock Our Streams,” Blairmore Enterprise, 15 April 1920, 8.

113. 113 “Should Stock Our Streams,” Blairmore Enterprise, 15 April 1920, 8.

114. 114 “James R. Kerr,” Crowsnest and its People (1979 ed.), 615–16.

115. 115 Author interview with Jean Kerr, Coleman, Alberta, 23 April 2013.

116. 116 “Local News Items,” The Coleman Bulletin, 15 April 1915, 4.

117. 117 “Local and General Items,” Blairmore Enterprise, 19 June 1924.

118. 118 “Bellevue Has Angling Club,” Blairmore Enterprise, 23 April 1925, 1.

119. 119 “Bellevue Has Angling Club,” Blairmore Enterprise, 23 April 1925, 1.

120. 120 “First Annual Banquet of B. F. & G. P. Association,” Blairmore Enterprise, 19 November 1925, 1. The actual numbers showing up at the banquet are not mentioned in the coverage. However, when the second annual banquet was announced, the association was confident that, “Upwards of one hundred will participate in this event.” “Local and General Items,” Blairmore Enterprise, 11 November 1926.

121. 121 “Local and General Items,” Blairmore Enterprise, 16 October 1930.

122. 122 W. S. Purvis to R. T. Rodd, 18 April 1928, RG 23, vol. 777; 718-11-1, file 22, LAC.

123. 123 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 20 April 1928, RG 23, vol. 77; 718-11-1, file 22, LAC.

124. 124 W. S. Purvis to R. T. Rodd, 18 April 1928, RG 23, vol. 777; 718-11-1, file 22, LAC.

125. 125 See R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 4 June 1925, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 22, LAC. Similarly, In February 1925, J. J. Gillespie, of the Pincher Creek Anglers’ Association, pointed out to the fisheries department that two thousand resident permits in the 1924 season had been sold in the district covering the Oldman and Waterton Rivers, “almost half of the number sold to the whole province.” Gillespie to Department, 11 February 1925, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 15, LAC.

126. 126 W. S. Purvis to R. T. Rodd, 18 April 1928, RG 23, vol. 778-11-1, LAC.

127. 127 “Fish and Wildlife,” Crowsnest and its People: Millennium Edition, 43.

128. 128 “Hillcrest Fish and Game Protective Association,” Blairmore Enterprise, 19 May 1932.

129. 129 Sec. 33(a), “Special Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta,” 12 February 1912, Canada Gazette 45:38 (16 March 1912), 3437. See also the recommendations regarding game fish in Prince, McGuire, and Sisley, Dominium Alberta and Saskatchewan Fisheries Commission, 1910–1911, 45–47.

130. 130 Sec. 32(d), “Special Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta.” 9 February 1915, Supplement to The Canada Gazette (27 February 1915), 63

131. 131 Appearing under a headline as “The Fishing Question,” Stepenson’s letter was reprinted in Red Deer News, 9 August 1916, 1.

132. 132 Arthur B. Nash, letter to the editor, appearing under “The Fishing Question,” Red Deer News, 9 August 1916.

133. 133 “Do Bull Trout Come Within the Law?” Red Deer News, 30 August 1916.

134. 134 “Do Bull Trout Come Within the Law?” Red Deer News, 30 August 1916.

135. 135 Sec. 34(a), “Special Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta,” 9 February 1915, Supplement to The Canada Gazette (27 February 1915), 63. The 1917 regulations remained unchanged in this respect. See sec. 33 (a) and sec. 34 (a), “Special Fishery Regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta,” 30 November 1917, Supplement to the Canada Gazette (15 December 1917), 4–5.

136. 136 “War on Bull Trout,” Macleod Times, 29 December 1921; the same story appeared in “Items of Local and General Interest,” Blairmore Enterprise, 29 December 1921.

137. 137 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 27 May 1924, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 23, LAC.

138. 138 E. E. Prince, departmental memo, 26 June 1924, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 23, LAC.

139. 139 E. E. Prince, departmental memo, 26 June 1924, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 23, LAC. Prince also noted that “inferior anglers” quite enjoyed catching the much-maligned bull trout.

140. 140 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found, 6 June 1924, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 23, LAC.

141. 141 R. T. Rodd to W. A. Found 6 June 1924, RG 23, vol. 1001, 721-4-37, file 23, LAC.

142. 142 The regulations included the “Dolly Varden” in both the size limits and per diem catches of permit holders. Sec 2(a), “Special Fishery regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta,” 27 May 1927, Canada Gazette 60:50 (11 June 1927), 3750.

143. 143 Sec. 3(a), “Special Fishery regulations for the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta,” 27 May 1927, Canada Gazette 60:50 (11 June 1927), 3750.

notes to Chapter 5

1. 1 Darin Kinsey, “‘Seeding the Water as the Earth’: The Epicenter and Peripheries of a Western Aquacultural Revolution.”

2. 2 Anders Halverson, An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World, 6–9.

3. 3 Margaret Beattie Bogue, Fishing the Great Lakes: An Environmental History, 33. Bogue offers a useful discussion of the development of the commercial fishing industry during the nineteenth century in chapters 3 and 4 of her study.

4. 4 Memorandum by John Costigan, Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 18 January 1894, RG 23, vol. 124, file 165, part I, LAC. On Wilmot, see George Colpitts, “Science, Streams and Sport: Trout Conservation in Southern Alberta, 1900–1930,” 85–86. The most authoritative treatment of Wilmot, with respect to the sport fishery, is by William Knight, “Samuel Wilmot, Fish Culture, and Recreational Fisheries in Late Nineteenth-Century Ontario.” See also Neil S. Forkey, “Maintaining a Great Lakes Fishery: The State, Science, and the Case of Ontario’s Bay of Quinte, 1870–1920.”

5. 5 Alex Finlayson, departmental memo, 15 September 1910, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, part I, LAC; Howard Douglas, memo, 15 September 1910, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, part I, LAC.

6. 6 When John Douglas Hazen, Minister of Marine and Fisheries, approved the facility, he remained concerned about reports he had received of its possibly impractical location given the high mineral content and winter freezing temperatures of the water. J. D. Hazen, Memorandum, 11 December 1912, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, part I, LAC. W. Cunningham, a fisheries inspector based in New Westminster who reported to the department, had believed that Banff would be a poor location for a hatchery given that he doubted trout eggs would be available nearby. He maintained these concerns in 1911 when he learned for the first time through the reports of the 1910–11 Alberta and Saskatchewan fisheries commission that cutthroat trout was native to the waters near Banff (having assumed the species was restricted to British Columbia’s streams). If the department did establish a hatchery, Cunningham thought that cutthroat eggs would still be available in only limited numbers and the hatchery would have to be provided speckled trout eggs from eastern Canada and cutthroat from British Columbia. W. Cunningham to W. A. Found, 4 May 1911, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, part I, LAC. An unsigned “Extract from Memo of December 11, 1912” reaching the minister underlined the impracticality of the Banff location, which had “no doubt been urged on the impression that it would be of interest to tourists.” The memo highlighted the high mineral content of local waters fed by sulphur springs, their complete freezing in winter, and the difficulty collecting eggs nearby. Extract from Memo of December 11, 1912, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, part I, LAC.

7. 7 Alex Finlayson to John Douglas Hazen, Minister, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 7 May 1913, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, part I, LAC. The logistical challenges were also concerning park fisheries inspector, Sydney Vick, who inspected Spray Lakes as a cutthroat collection point: “The question hinges on whether trout ova could be carried on a pack horse over a mountain trail and still be fit for use. To give an idea what trails are like, there is an old saying in the hills ‘When is a trail not a trail?’ ‘When it is a mountain one’ is the answer, and a pack horse is about as uncertain as the trail.” Report of fishery inspector [Sydney C. Vick] to Department, 3 September 1912, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, LAC. See also Christopher Armstrong, Matthew Evenden, and H. V. Nelles, The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow, 225–28.

8. 8 T. Boswell to Howard Douglas, 31 March 1897, RG 15, vol. 747, file 469929, LAC.

9. 9 Leopold Layard to Department of Interior, 14 July 1904, RG 15, vol. 747, file 469929, LAC.

10. 10 The earlier opening date of May 13, closing September 13, was set in Sec. 66, “Regulation of the National Parks of Canada,” 21 June 1909, Canada Gazette 43:3 (17 July 1909), 80. It was Maxwell Graham, appointed as chief of the Dominion Parks Branch’s Animal Division after its creation in 1911, who helped push Banff’s opening date forward to 1 July. See his letter to parks commissioner James B. Harkin, 18 June 1917, RG 84, vol. 70, U3-1-1, part I, LAC. Edward E. Prince, of the Department of Marine and Fisheries, also wrote a key memo detailing the problems of earlier seasons in Banff from a scientific perspective. See Prince, departmental memo, 26 February 1917, RG 23, vol. 999, 721-4-37, LAC. The season was announced by Order-in-Council, 19 April 1919, The Canada Gazette 52:45 (10 May1919), 3444. In 1925 an order-in-council maintained the 1 July season opener for “game fish” until 30 October. However, it expressly closed fishing whitefish and bull trout between 1 September and 30 April, in the same order. “Regulations Respecting Fishing in Dominion Parks,” 30 March 1925, Canada Gazette 58:41 (11 April 1925), 3051.

11. 11 T. Boswell to Douglas, 31 March 1897, 31 March 1897, RG 15, vol. 747, file 469929, LAC.

12. 12 J. A. Stuart to Department of Interior, 8 January 1901, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, part I, LAC.

13. 13 The 506 brook trout from Lake Nipigon were listed in a memo by William Whyte to E. W. Beatty, attached to E. W. Beatty to Cameron Stanton, Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 30 December 1908, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, reel T-4023, LAC. Edward Wentworth Beatty, who was at the time an assistant to the CPR’s general counsel, would become the railway’s president only a decade later.

14. 14 William Wangach to William Whyte, 8 December 1900, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, part I, reel T-4023, LAC. Wangach, who worked for the Department of the Interior, had met with Douglas and had informed him of the opportunity to introduce brook trout from Lake Nipigon to Banff waters. William Whyte—later to become Sir William Whyte—was the superintendent of the CPR’s western operations.

15. 15 William Mather to J. B. Harkin, 15 November 1913, RG 84, vol. 70, U3-1-1, part I, LAC. Mather also urged Harkin to permit the park to open earlier, for the sake of tourists.

16. 16 The Banff Board of Trade’s backing of Nipigon trout introductions is reported in Commissioner [J. B. Harkin] to W. A. Found, 17 June 1914, RG 84, vol. 70, R 296, part I, LAC.

17. 17 Upon the beginning of the commission’s work in Alberta, Edward Prince, Thomas McGuire, and Euston Sisley had spoken to an Edmonton audience. Sisley cited the problem of German carp introductions into Lake Erie by US authorities. “He urged strongly the protection of the magnificent game fish of Alberta, the best probably in the world.” “Alberta’s Fisheries Subject of An Investigation Today,” The Edmonton Capital, 30 September 1910.

18. 18 “Banff Fishermen Are Aroused: Object Strongly to the Stand Calgary Men Take on the Question of Barring the Gamy Nipigon Trout from Park Waters,” Crag and Canyon, 27 March 1915.

19. 19 R. N. Venning to Harrison Young, 17 September 1902, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, LAC.

20. 20 Edward E. Prince to Harrison Young, 25 October 1902, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, LAC. For a description of some of the technological innovations introduced to railway cars, see the design specifications tendered by the Lewis Brothers to Mr. J. M. Hurley, 8 September 1906, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, LAC.

21. 21 Harrison Young to Edward E. Prince, 31 October 1902, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, LAC. On the history of black bass introductions, see J. A. Rodd to Hoyes Lloyd, 17 January 1923, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 10, LAC.

22. 22 Copy of memo from William Whyte to E. W. Beatty, 1908 attached to E. W. Beatty to Cameron Stanton, Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 30 December 1908, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, reel T-4023, LAC.

23. 23 J. A. Rodd to Hoyes Lloyd, 18 December 1922, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 10, LAC.

24. 24 Copy of memo from William Whyte to E. W. Beatty, attached to E. W. Beatty letter to Cameron Stanton, Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 30 December 1908, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, reel T-4023, LAC.

25. 25 E. W. Beatty letter to Cameron Stanton, Deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, 30 December 1908, RG 23, vol. 337, file 2939, reel T-4023, LAC. Jen Corrinne Brown describes the expansion of US hatcheries: In the 1880s and 1890s, trout production in the western US shifted from state to federal agencies, connecting their work “to the rhetoric of national greatness and economic independence” as well as practical and economic reasons. By the early twentieth century, the US had opened three trout hatcheries in Leadville, Colorado; Bozeman, Montana; and Spearfish, South Dakota. A substation was also opened at Yellowstone National Park. Jen Corrinne Brown, Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West, 45.

26. 26 A. E. Cross to John Douglas Hazen, Minister, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 12 March 1913, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, part I. See also A. E. Cross to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 28 July 1917 and 16 August 1917, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 4, LAC.

27. 27 The labour involved in hatching fish from spawn is made clear from a 1909 departmental memo that provided the necessary instructions. Fish first had to be caught using a boat and pound nets and then transported to pens, where they had to be examined daily. When females were “ripe,” spawn were carefully drawn from them, using “practically no pressure,” and deposited into a pan of water. The spawn of four or five fish were then joined with the sperm from a male, and the two stirred together “until the whole remains practically a milky colour.” The mixture was then placed in a can, and cans were taken to the shore and repeatedly flushed with cold water. After segmentation occurred and eggs showed signs of impregnation, the eggs were placed in trays and transported to the hatchery. Spawning instructions, undated [ca.1909], RG 23, vol. 365, file 3216, LAC.

28. 28 Report of R. T. Rodd to G. S. Davidson, 18 December 1921, RG 23, vol.1000, 721-4-37, file 18, LAC. Rodd apparently attempted to collect spawn for the facility in 1913, but dealing with spring spawners proved difficult, and high water in the foothills region ruined his efforts. In 1916, he managed to obtain spawn from Fish Creek and, in 1917, from Spray Lakes, Sullivan Creek, and Flat Creek.

29. 29 J. A. Rodd Report on Fish Culture, in Annual Report of the Department of Marine and Fisheries for the Year 1921–22, 18–19.

30. 30 David Starr Jordan and Barton Warren Evermann, American Food and Game Fishes: A Popular Account of All the Species Found in America North of the Equator, with Keys for Ready Identification, Life Histories and Methods of Capture (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1902), 196, quoted in Brown, Trout Culture, 52.

31. 31 US Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Report of the Commissioner for the Year Ending June 30, 1897, quoted in Brown, Trout Culture, 53.

32. 32 Joseph B. Rasmussen and Eric B. Taylor, Status of the Athabasca Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in Alberta, 1–5. Joseph Nelson and Martin Paetz have drawn on historical observations confirming the presence of native rainbow in the headwaters of the Athabasca River. In 1910 railway employees described rainbow trout in the Hinton and Jasper areas, and in 1863 Dr. Walter Cheadle “almost certainly” described small native Athabasca rainbow. Joseph S. Paetz and Martin J. Nelson, The Fishes of Alberta, 265.

33. 33 S. J. Kerr, An Historical Review of Fish Culture, Stocking and Fish Transfers in Ontario, 1865–2004, 117–18.

34. 34 The interior of the Banff hatchery was described in the report of fisheries inspector Alex Finlayson to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, 3 September 1913, RG 23, vol. 395, file 4747, LAC.

35. 35 R. T. Rodd, memorandum on Alberta hatcheries, 1920, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 8, LAC. On the hatchery’s imports from the United States and the fish biology of hatchery production, see Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, The River Returns, 227–28. The eggs of salmon trout (Salvelinus namaycush) were most likely purchased as they were in 1916 from Great Lakes commercial fishing crews, later collected at the Port Arthur hatchery, and then sent to the Banff hatchery. Fiftieth Annual Report of the Fisheries Branch, Department of the Naval Service, 1916–17 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1917), 294. The Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) reaching Banff likely came, as they had in 1916, from the St. John River, New Brunswick, purchased as eggs from fishermen and eyed at the department’s St. John Pond before being shipped by rail to Banff. Fiftieth Annual Report of the Fisheries Branch, Department of the Naval Service, 1916–17, 288. The hatchery in 1916 also distributed large numbers of lake herring (Argyrosomus artedi), purchased as eggs from Lake Erie commercial fishers. About 5 million lake herring reached Banff in 1916, some 3.5 million distributed to Lake Minnewanka. Fiftieth Annual Report of the Fisheries Branch, Department of the Naval Service, 1916–17, 324. Nelson and Paetz record Atlantic salmon being introduced to Lake Minnewanka between 1915 to 1923, The Fishes of Alberta, 380.

36. 36 R. T. Rodd, memorandum on Alberta hatcheries, 1920, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 8, LAC.

37. 37 Halverson, An Entirely Synthetic Fish, 78–81.

38. 38 “Alberta’s Game Fish,” Calgary Daily Herald, 25 July 1919.

39. 39 “Alberta’s Game Fish,” Calgary Daily Herald, 25 July 1919. The anglers in High River were probably responding to groups within the SAAA that were, at that point, pressing for the introduction of exotics. In their protest, however, they were still supported by the bulk of the SAAA.

40. 40 R. T. Rodd to J. A. Rodd, 11 August 1919, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 6, LAC.

41. 41 W. D. Elliott to Deputy Minister, Department of Marine and Fisheries, 25 November 1922, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, LAC.

42. 42 J. J. Gillespie to J. B. Hawkins, 22 June 1920, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 16, LAC.

43. 43 L. A. Ferguson to E. G. Langley, 3 July 1920, and R. T. Rodd to J. A. Rodd, 5 September 1920, both in RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 7, LAC.

44. 44 W. T. Thompson, Bureau of Fisheries, to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 25 April 1922, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 9, LAC.

45. 45 “Fingerlings for the Park Lakes,” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 18 May 1922; “40,000 Visitors were in City Wednesday: They were fish,” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 25 May 1922.

46. 46 “Placed Fish in Cameron Lake,” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 1 June 1922.

47. 47 J. J. Gillespie to W. A. Found, 23 February 1925, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 14, LAC.

48. 48 W. A. Found to J. J. Gillespie, 4 March 1925, RG 23, vol. 778, 781-11-1, file 14, LAC.

49. 49 R. T. Rodd to J. A. Rodd, 23 September 1920, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 7, LAC.

50. 50 R. M. Patterson, The Buffalo Head, 140.

51. 51 Patterson, The Buffalo Head, 140.

52. 52 W. A. Found to David Keir, 10 July 1923, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 11, LAC.

53. 53 G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 13 May 1920, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 15, LAC.

54. 54 “Board of Trade,” Red Deer News, 9 June 1920.

55. 55 “Board of Trade,” Red Deer News, 7 July 1920.

56. 56 W. E. Ross to A. T. Stephenson, 20 May 1920, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 15. Ross was writing on behalf of the SAAA.

57. 57 G. S. Davidson to W. A. Found, 9 June 1920, RG 23, vol. 1000, 721-4-37, file 15, LAC.

58. 58 Nelson and Paetz, The Fishes of Alberta, 278.

59. 59 “Lending a Hand to Mother Nature,” Stony Plain Sun, 4 November 1926, 6.

60. 60 See Department of Lands and Forests, Government of Alberta, “Father of the Loch Leven Trout,” 21.

61. 61 Department of Lands and Forests, Government of Alberta, “Father of the Loch Leven Trout,” 24.

62. 62 Department of Lands and Forests, Government of Alberta, “Father of the Loch Leven Trout,”, 24–25.

63. 63 R. T. Rodd to J. A. Rodd, memo on hatchery production and distribution, 2 August 1919, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 6, LAC

64. 64 J. A. Rodd to J. E. Martin, 19 March 1925, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 14, LAC.

65. 65 “Hatchery at Waterton Lakes,” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 8 April 1922.

66. 66 The Banff hatchery was able to send annually 50,000 to 87,000 rainbow trout to Oldman tributaries from 1920 to 1923 and only 25,000 cutthroat trout in 1924, as R. T. Rodd reported to W. M. Harris, 7 May 1926, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 18, LAC.

67. 67 See J. J. Gillespie to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 11 February 1925, and J. J. Gillespie to W. A. Found, 23 February 1925, both in RG 23, vol. 778, 721-11-1, file 14, LAC.

68. 68 The Pincher Creek’s petition was read in a meeting of the Macleod Board of Trade, which dispatched its own letter of support, as well as a petition from the Macleod Anglers’ Association requesting hatchery fish “so that the fisherman’s paradise may not be entirely a thing of the past.” “Replenish Southern Streams with Trout, Anglers’ Objective,” Lethbridge Daily Herald, 6 March 1925. The letter from A. Healey, of the Macleod Board of Trade, 4 March 1925 appears in RG 23, vol. 778, 721-11-1, file 14, LAC. In the same file are letters from W. J. Blackistan, of the Bossano Board of Trade, 4 March 1925; J. H. Howard, of the Calgary Board of Trade, 6 March 1925; and H. W. Crawford, president of the Lethbridge Board of Trade, 9 March 1925, all addressed to the minister of Marine and Fisheries.

69. 69 “Local and General Items,” Blairmore Enterprise, 12 March 1925, 12.

70. 70 J. J. Gillespie to W. A. Found, 23 February 1925, RG 23, vol. 779, 718-11-1, file 14, LAC.

71. 71 W. A. Found to J. J. Gillespie, 4 March 1925, RG 23, vol. 779, 718-11-1, file 14, LAC.

72. 72 The Department sent word to Gillespie’s association in June that it was sending 85,000 rainbow trout to be distributed in Beaver, Yarrow, Mill, Pincher, Carpenter, and Racehorse Creeks. “Local and General Items,” Blairmore Enterprise, 25 June 1925.

73. 73 Freeman Anderson to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 2 April 1925, RG 23, vol. 779, 718-11-1, file 15, LAC. “At their first meeting [the Association] decided to secure 50,000 trout fry to stock streams in that vicinity.” “Local and General Items,” Blairmore Enterprise, 2 April 1925.

74. 74 W. M. Harris to R. T. Rodd, 17 May 1926, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 18, LAC.

75. 75 R. T. Rodd to W. M. Harris, 7 May 1926, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 18, LAC. Indeed, according to the Blairmore paper, in response to requests from local anglers, the Banff hatchery had begun supplying steelhead to streams in the Crowsnest Pass in 1920. Untitled local news item, Blairmore Enterprise, 16 August 1923, 6.

76. 76 H. W. Crawford to P. J. A. Cardin, 9 March 1925, RG 23, vol. 778, 717-11-1, file 14, LAC.

77. 77 R. T. Rodd, letter of instructions to G. E. Bailey, 8 August 1928, RG 23, vol. 779, 718-11-1, file 23, LAC. The initial plan was that only cutthroat would be hatched at Waterton and would be reserved for the St. Mary’s, Belly, and Crowsnest Rivers and their tributaries.

78. 78 “Angling Conditions,” Blairmore Enterprise, 3 January 1929, 4.

79. 79 The article recounted that Sisley had participated in the 1910 and 1911 Alberta and Saskatchewan fisheries commission and remained “keenly interested in the movement to promote fish and game development in Alberta,” calling the Calgary Daily Herald’s attention to the Arctic grayling as a species to introduce in southern waters. “True Grayling Found in Waters North of Alberta,” Calgary Daily Herald, 10 March 1928.

80. 80 Freeman Anderson to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 2 April 1925, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 15, LAC. The Blairmore Enterprise reported that “An anglers’ club has been organized at Claresholm. . . . The name given the club was “Claresholm Fish and Game Protective Association.” “Local and General Items,” Blairmore Enterprise, 2 April 1925.

81. 81 W. M. Harris to R. T. Rodd, 14 May 1926, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, file 18, LAC. Whether the Lethbridge anglers were justified in their belief is a matter of speculation. For more recent comparative studies of cutthroat, rainbow, and brown trout in the Cascades, see Bob Pfeifer, “Age and Growth Characteristics of Trout in Washington High Lakes.” For another study examining brook trout and food supply as a critical factor in growth see Dale Toetz, Maurice Muoneke, and John Windell, “Age, Growth and Condition of Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) from an Unexploited Alpine Lake,” 92.

82. 82 “Two Million More Trout in Alberta Waters,” Calgary Daily Herald, 24 November 1928, clipping in RG 23, vol. 779, 718-11-1, file 23, LAC.

83. 83 Hatchery production and distribution for 1928 is detailed in a table attached to W. A. Found to R. T. Rodd, 22 April 1928, RG 23, vol. 779, 718-11-1, file 24, LAC. A year earlier, the Banff hatchery had announced the safe arrival of some 800,000 Wisconsin brown trout eggs, as was reported in “Wisconsin Trout Eggs Received at Banff,” Strathmore Standard, 23 February 1927. According to Blairmore’s local paper, some 185,000 brown trout were placed that summer in the “North and South Raven rivers and Prairie, Alford and Muskeg creeks, tributaries of the Red Deer and Saskatchewan Rivers.” “Distributing Trout Fry,” Blairmore Enterprise, 21 July 1927.

84. 84 Dave B. Blacklock to Department of Marine and Fisheries, 4 December 1928, RG 23, vol. 779, 718-11-1, file 23, LAC.

85. 85 Patterson, The Buffalo Head, 140–41.

86. 86 In 1944, Alberta Fish and Game Commissioner E. S. Huestis stated that fry plantings on Alberta’s streams were not correcting the “diminishing supply” of fish, and that water in streams instead had to be better conserved to stop winter ice kills and avoid spring ice flushing that carried away food for fish. Alberta, Report of the Department of Lands and Mines of the Province of Alberta, Fisheries Division, for the Year 1944, 73. A subsequent comprehensive biological survey of Alberta streams in 1948 found few traces of previous plantings in mountain tributaries such as those flowing into the Highwood River. Alberta, Report of the Department of Lands and Mines of the Province of Alberta, Fisheries Division for the year 1948, 83.

87. 87 For a description of Miller’s Gorge Creek experiments, see Richard B. Miller, A Cool Curving World, 194; and “The Role of Competition in the Mortality of Hatchery Trout.”

88. 88 Miller, A Cool Curving World, 207. See also Richard B. Miller, “The Regulation of Trout Fishing in Alberta,” 22–23.

89. 89 Miller, “The Regulation of Trout Fishing in Alberta,” 23.

90. 90 In discussing the failure of hatchery programs, Jim McLennan notes the remarkable growth in resident trout populations once plantings of fry were discontinued. Jim McLennan, Blue Ribbon Bow: A Fly-Fishing History of the Bow River—Canada’s Greatest Trout Stream, 60–61.

91. 91 Armstrong, Evenden, and Nelles, The River Returns, 230–32.

92. 92 “Fish Fry Transported,” The Champion Chronicle, 3 January 1930.

93. 93 As a fisheries inspector suggested to the department, his experience was that “when the cut throat has his enemies he grows to greater perfection and is a fighting fish of the first water.” Report of fishery inspector [Sydney C. Vick], 3 September 1913, RG 23, vol. 395, file 3737, part I, LAC.

94. 94 Report of J. A. Rodd , 5 September 1922, RG 23, vol. 777, 781-11-1, file 10, LAC.

95. 95 S. Maynard Rogers to J. B. Harkin, 10 November 1921, RG 84, vol. 74, file J296, LAC.

96. 96 S. Maynard Rogers to Commissioner, 27 March 1922, RG 84, vol. 74, file J296, LAC. In 1925, James Harkin contacted the Department of Marine and Fisheries with a request for twenty-five pounds of a “good hearty description of algae” to help with trout plantings in barren Jasper lakes. J. B. Harkin to W. A. Found, 24 March 1925, RG 23, vol. 778, 718-11-1, LAC.

97. 97 See Darin Kinsey, “Fashioning a Freshwater Eden: Elite Anglers, Fish Culture, and State Development of Québec’s ‘Sport’ Fishery,” 259–62; Ronald A. Knapp, Paul Stephen Corn, and Daniel E. Schindler, “The Introduction of Nonnative Fish into Wilderness Lakes: Good Intentions, Conflicting Mandates, and Unintended Consequences” (introductory remarks to special issue of Ecosystems devoted to fish introductions to mountain lakes); Edwin P. Pister, “Wilderness Fish Stocking: History and Perspective”; and David B. Donald et al., “Recovery of Zooplankton Assemblages in Mountain Lakes from the Effects of Introduced Sport Fish.”

98. 98 The five subspecies listed as threatened are the westslope, greenback, Rio Grande, Lahontan, and Humboldt. Three further subspecies of cutthroat (the Yellowstone, Colorado River, and coastal varieties) are considered to have vulnerable populations. Brown, Trout Culture, 10 citing Howard L. Jelks et al., “Conservation Status of Imperiled North American Freshwater and Diadromous Fishes,” Fisheries 33, no. 8 (August 2008): 395–98. John H. Monnett provides a good overview of the characteristics of various varieties in Cutthroat and Campfire Tales: The Fly-Fishing Heritage of the West, 19–22.

99. 99 Matt Blank and Tony Clevenger, Improving the Ecological Function of the Upper Bow River: Bow Lake to Kananaskis Dam, 13. On westslope cutthroat in the Bow River, the authors cite David W. Schindler and Charles Pacas, “Cumulative Effects of Human Activity on Aquatic Ecosystems in the Bow Valley of Banff National Park,” chap. 5 in Ecological Outlooks Project: A Cumulative Effects Assessment and Futures Outlook of the Banff Bow Valley, edited by Jeffrey Green, Charles Pacas, Suzanne Bayley, and Laura Cornwell (Ottawa: Department of Canadian Heritage, 1996).

100. 100 Allen B. Costello and Emily Rubidge, “COSEWIC Assessment and Status Report on the Westslope Cutthroat Trout,” 13.

101. 101 Costello and Rubidge, “COSEWIC Assessment and Status Report on the Westslope Cutthroat Trout,” 15.

102. 102 Walter R. Courtenay, Jr., and C. Richard Robins, “Fish Introductions: Good Management, Mismanagement, or No Management?” 168; Blank and Clevenger, Improving the Ecological Function, 14; Moira M. Ferguson, “The Genetic Impact of Introduced Fishes on Native Species.” On the hybridization of Yellowstone cutthroat within Alberta stocks, see David W. Mayhood, “Provisional Evaluation of the Status of Westslope Cutthroat Trout in Canada,” 583.

notes to Chapter 6

1. 1 According to Alan MacEachern, the coastal “sublime” was achieved through Cape Breton’s Cabot Trail, where its dramatic grades “helped make the hills hillier and the sea more dramatic.” Natural Selections: National Parks in Atlantic Canada, 1935–1970, 49. He also highlights the work of parks promoters, such as Mabel B. Williams, whose publications by the 1920s focussed on automobile technology. One of her publications “rhapsodizes” about the automobile that allowed a tourist “to escape from the narrow boundaries of his local parish and to enter upon a wider, more joyous, more adventurous life.” “M. B. Williams and the Early Years of Parks Canada,” 41. Cars were centrally important in the “playgrounds” that parks became: see John Sandlos, “Nature’s Playgrounds: The Parks Branch and Tourism Promotion in the National Parks, 1911–1929,” 53–65. Useful perspectives on the impact of the automobile on recreation are also offered by Dale Barbour in Winnipeg Beach: Leisure and Courtship in a Resort Town, 1900–1967, 151–52. On the auto in parks that incorporated wildlife, see George Colpitts, “Films, Tourists, and Bears in the National Parks: Managing Park Use and the Problematic ‘Highway Bum’ Bear in the 1970s,” 153–78.

2. 2 Richard White, “From Wilderness to Hybrid Landscapes: The Cultural Turn in Environmental History,” 558. See also C. J. Taylor, “Defining National Parks: J. B. Harkin and the National Parks Branch.”

3. 3 See Paul Sutter, Driven Wild: How the Fight Against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness Movement, 30–35, 40–47; and David Louter, Windshield Wilderness: Cars, Roads, and Nature in Washington’s National Parks, 3–4, 12–14, 37–39. The individualism of autotourists is also suggested in Hall K. Rothman, Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West, 146–47.

4. 4 C. J. Taylor, A History of Automobile Campgrounds in the Mountain National Parks of Canada, 9.

5. 5 Eleanor G. Luxton, Banff, Canada’s First National Park: A History and Memory of Rocky Mountains Park, 114–15.

6. 6 “Local News Notes,” Crag and Canyon, 18 June 1921.

7. 7 Taylor, History of Automobile Campgrounds, 9.

8. 8 “Trail from This City to Glacier Park Is Marked,” Calgary Daily Herald, 22 July 1919. Davidson also sent to J. B. Harkin a newspaper clipping on his successful efforts to raise funds to improve the road leading from Glacier into Alberta when he met with American Good Roads promoters at Glacier: see “$1,080 Brooklyn Subscription to Calgary Good Roads Ass’n,” Calgary Daily Herald, 12 August 1919. See also “Permanent Boulevard to Connect Parks of Canada and Montana,” Calgary Daily Herald, 7 August 1919.

9. 9 James W. Davidson related the feasibility of the trip to W. B. Harkin, 9 August 1919, RG 84, vol. 107, file U125, LAC.

10. 10 See also James W. Davidson to W. B. Harkin, 16 October 1919, and references to Davidson’s speaking tours in the United States to promote Canadian automobile tourism in Davidson to Harkin, 10 November 1919, RG 84, vol. 107, file U125, LAC.

11. 11 S. D. Fawcett [of the Dominion Land Survey] to R. Cooper, Superintendent, Waterton Lakes Park, 20 April 1920, RG 84, vol. 107, file U125, LAC.

12. 12 E. J. (Ted) Hart, J. B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks, 66.

13. 13 Another Calgary motorist, as well as one from Winnipeg, chugged down mainstreet three days later. “Motor Cars in Banff,” Crag and Canyon, 21 August 1909.

14. 14 Recounted in Doris MacKinnon, “Métis Pioneers: Marie Rose Delorme Smith and Isabella Clark Hardisty Lougheed, 100–102.

15. 15 Hart, J. B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks, 66.

16. 16 Hart, J. B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks, 66.

17. 17 “The actual development of Banff,” the Herald reported in a retrospective of the automobile there, “commenced with the appearance of the first auto on its streets; the increasing yearly auto traffic demanded garages, service stations, more accommodations for visitors and more and better restaurants.” “Many Attractions Offered Visitors to Banff District,” Calgary Daily Herald, 2 June 1928.

18. 18 Taylor, History of Automobile Campgrounds, 13.

19. 19 Taylor, History of Automobile Campgrounds, 20–21.

20. 20 The Herald’s coverage is quoted in Taylor, History of Automobile Campgrounds, 21.

21. 21 “National Parks Among Increasingly Valuable of Alberta’s Assets,” Calgary Daily Herald, 2 June 1928.

22. 22 “Many Attractions Offered Visitors to Banff District,” Calgary Daily Herald, 2 June 1928. In 1929, Taylor wrote that the campground autos numbered 7,309, with 26,861 campers. Taylor, History of Automobile Campgrounds, 23.

23. 23 Taylor, History of Automobile Campgrounds, 18.

24. 24 See “Minnewanka Is Favorite Drive for Banff Visitors,” Calgary Herald, 15 August 1919, for a detailed itinerary of views and emotionally charged landscapes offered in the drive from Banff to Lake Minnewanka.

25. 25 The federal parks service clipped a Vancouver newspaper article in April 1922, which reported that American tourists “in motoring from place to place are now avoiding those cities not possessing an auto camp ground.” Taylor, History of Automobile Campgrounds, 11.

26. 26 “Thousands of Motor Tourists Cross into Western Canada Area,” Calgary Daily Herald, 24 March 1923.

27. 27 See, for example, “Banff,” Morning Albertan, 18 June 1920, 5.

28. 28 See the discussion of Minnewanka and the Bow development in Christopher Armstrong, Matthew Evenden, and H. V. Nelles, The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow, 127–29, 131–33.

29. 29 “A Mammoth Trout,” Redcliff Review, 21 August 1924, 5. Waterton Lakes trout were larger still: even as late as 1929, landings of fish up to fifty pounds were reported. “Waterton Lakes Famous for Trout,” Oyen News, 5 June 1929, 2.

30. 30 “Unexaggerated Fishing,” Red Deer News, 14 August 1918, 2.

31. 31 “Banff,” Morning Albertan, 6 July 1920.

32. 32 “A Fair Sized Trout,” Frank Vindicator, 23 December 1910, 3.

33. 33 “Fresh Water Fishing,” Ottawa Citizen, 14 May 1927. For a detailed description of new bait-casting reels, especially the popular “anti-backlash” models that apparently appealed to female anglers, see “Rod and Gun,” Calgary Daily Herald, 2 August 1919. Tips for purchasing rods, reels, and line then available in hardware stores are provided in “Fishing Trips,” Macleod Times, 14 April 1920.

34. 34 “Boys, We Have Just What You Want for Tuesday,” Crag and Canyon, 5 July 1924. The closed season in the park was set from 15 September to 15 May in 1909. This changed in 1919 to 1 November to 31 May. It was 1925 when the closed season was changed to 1 October to 30 June. Sec. 18, “Regulations respecting fishing in Dominion Parks,” 30 March 1925, Canada Gazette 58:41 (11 April 1925), 3052.

35. 35 “Fishing Season Opens Thursday,” Crag and Canyon, 25 June 1926, 1.

36. 36 Memo, 15 July 1921, RG 23, vol. 733, 715-12-1, LAC.

37. 37 Superintendent Simon John “Jack” Clarke, quoted in Hart, J. B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks, 132.

38. 38 James Morton Turner, “From Woodcraft to ‘Leave No Trace’: Wilderness, Consumerism, and Environmentalism in Twentieth-Century America,” 220–24.

39. 39 See “Auto Best Means of Travel for Modern Pleasure Seekers When Comfort Is Considered,” Edmonton Bulletin, 3 June 1922; “Five Millions Answer Call to Open Road,” Wainwright Star, 20 April 1927; and “You’ll Need These Things When Motor Camping,” Wainwright Star, 1 September 1926. See also “You Can Buy All Your Camping Equipment at John Christie,” advertisement in the Wainwright Star, 26 May 1926; and “Tents and Campers’ Supplies,” advertisement in The U.F.A., 15 June 1929.

40. 40 “Thousands of Motor Tourists Cross into Western Canada Areas,” Calgary Daily Herald, 24 March 1923.

41. 41 “A Record,” Crag and Canyon, 19 July 1924.

notes to conclusion

1. 1 Jim McLennan, Blue Ribbon Bow: A Fly-Fishing History of the Bow River—Canada’s Greatest Trout Stream, 70.

2. 2 McLennan, Blue Ribbon Bow, 70.

3. 3 Lorne Fitch, “A Cutthroat We Should Respect,” 8, 9.

4. 4 Lorne Fitch, “An Elegy for the Crowsnest Bull Trout.”

5. 5 See Jennifer E. Earle, Jim D. Stelfox, and Brian E. Meagher, “Quirk Creek Brook Trout Suppression Project: 2009.” See also Jim D. Stelfox and Jennifer E. Earle, “Assessment of the Bull and Cutthroat Trout Stocking Program in Kananaskis Lake”; and Jim D. Stelfox and Brian E. Meagher, “Upper Kananaskis Lake Creel Survey: 2010 and 2011.”

6. 6 McLennan, Blue Ribbon Bow, 68.

7. 7 Decision 2021 ABAER 010: Benga Mining Limited, Grassy Mountain Coal Project, Crowsnest Pass, ix–x; 259–60.

8. 8 “Alberta town endorses community-developed policy saying no to coal mining in Rockies,” CBC News, 25 May 2022. See, also, CPAWS’ Southern Alberta chapter’s campaign to “Defend Albert Forests: Fund a Future for the Highwood,” https://cpaws-southernalberta.org/defend-alberta-forests-fund-a-future-for-the-highwood/