Where Water Flows in Ward 9

NEW! WATER IS LIFE

Under the chinook arch, on Southern Alberta’s high plain, semi-arid eastern slopes, the confluence of two rivers is a rare condition that makes for a special place. The confluence of the Bow and the Elbow Rivers is our mega-region’s prime example of this fluvial jackpot. Indigenous Peoples have congregated at this sheltered-by-escarpments, flat and grassy confluence for millennia, and the City of Calgary was founded here with the arrival of the Northwest Mounted Police and the signing of Treaty 7.

In the decades that followed, the Government of Canada would adjust its nation-building strategy. The original approach to these lands as dry, sparsely populated cattle country failed to generate the economic returns necessary to rationalize the investment that had been made in the Canadian Pacific Railway. A new plan was born: we would draw water from the Bow River to irrigate the vast prairies to the south and east into a globally significant bread basket populated by people drawn to the opportunities from across the continent, across Europe, and today, from across the planet.

In 2025, the success of those early nation-building dreams is difficult to overstate. We are a big, spectacular, vibrant, and diverse Western Canadian City on two small rivers. We are the happy accident of foresight blended with luck, and of entrepreneurial settler can-do attitudes blended with a distinctly Canadian competence when it comes to the role of good government. Perhaps most importantly though, we are instilled with a sense of community so strong that Reconciliation with our Indigenous relations in the face of the darkest legacies of our colonial origins seems, perhaps, within our reach.

I believe our relationship to the water of the Bow River, and the lands of its watershed, is deeply tied to our journey of Reconciliation - which is in turn deeply tied to our ability to survive and thrive into a future made fraught by climate change. I believe the first steps our city undertook on this journey occurred in the lead-up to the Canadian Centennial in 1967. Today the Confluence is a park in the heart of our city where prairie grasses sway. It’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking that patches of this landscape are undisturbed holdovers from before colonization. But the truth is that we had entirely paved over the Confluence with a rail yard and warehouses, and its foundational importance to our city, and the deep legacy of community-building on this land, had, over decades, faded from our memories.

Throughout the 1950s, the fossil fuel wealth in our hinterland was transforming our fortunes and we were increasingly confident that the lean decades of and between world wars were behind us. Calgary was at a crossroads. On the one hand, we could build the post-war era’s radiant city of auto-mobility, of huge freeways with far-flung suburbs, of a muscular central business district thrusting office towers skywards, and of massive concrete interventions into our river valleys that would protect us from floods that we were beginning to understand were an inevitability. Or, on the other hand, we could re-invest in a city of great neighbourhoods networked by transit, we could rediscover our relationship to our landscape, and we could celebrate the rivers that run through our city by creating one of the largest park and pathway systems in the world.

As this debate raged through the 1960s, the Confluence became ground zero. The fort and the historic gathering space were rediscovered by archaeologists, and the intense political fights against the destruction of historic inner-city neighborhoods, the relocation of heavy rail lines, the introduction of new freeways, and the steel-reinforced concrete culverting of the rivers became a fight about who we were as a city, and who we were as a Canadian people.

Regarding the Confluence, the river valleys, our historic inner-city neighbourhoods, and a commitment to a significant transit system, green won out over grey. But we also built a sprawling city of auto-dependent suburbs that has paved over much more land than our population warrants. We are a tale of two cities, and we are once again at a crossroads.

Despite one of the best water and wastewater treatment systems in the world, we are only very recently addressing how storm runoff from our expansive urban footprint loads our precious river with pollutants. Due to a significant portion of our economy remaining tied to fossil fuel extraction, we are reluctant to openly discuss climate change, despite our knowledge that our fate in this changing world will see increased frequencies and intensities of floods and droughts. And, as one of our nation’s most significant economic engines, on Canada’s hardest working water shed (the Bow River has 4% of Alberta’s fresh water and supports 40% of our province’s population and economy) the prospect of shifting practice in the face of pending catastrophe is in open conflict with a zealous commitment to business as usual.

Our Treaty 7 Indigenous relations have long taught the critical importance of water to this land. And as has been the case since Calgary’s inception, the diverse neighbourhoods and landscapes of East Calgary’s Ward 9 are at the forefront of the struggle to define who we are and who we want to be. In our semi-arid landscape, becoming more arid by climate change, our ability to prioritize and manage water is central to our ability to successfully meet the future coming at us. Please use this map as a conversation starter about the importance of water to who we are and who we want to become.

-Gian-Carlo Carra

CALGARY’S 2013 FLOOD

In June 2013, Calgary endured its most significant flood since 1897. Heavy rainfall combined with melting snowpack in the Rockies caused devastating flooding across the region, resulting in one fatality and an estimated $6 billion in damages throughout southern Alberta. The impact was widespread: 26 communities evacuated, affecting over 110,000 residents, while countless properties suffered from overland flooding, groundwater rise, stormwater overflow, and sewer backup.

True to our Calgarian spirit, communities rallied in support of one another in meaningful and selfless ways, demonstrating our collective resilience and an unwavering commitment to life safety and recovery efforts.

Since this historic flood, The City of Calgary has continued its extensive work to improve our response and preparedness for future flood events, particularly like the one we experienced in 2013.

2024 BEARSPAW SOUTH FEEDER MAIN BREAK

The City of Calgary experienced a catastrophic break on the Bearspaw South Feeder Main on June 5, 2024. This feeder main is the largest in Calgary’s network and distributes a significant portion of the city’s treated water supply. 

During the repairs, Calgarians responded to the call to conserve water. This collective effort proved remarkably impactful, ensuring that essential services could continue to access water during this time. The community's quick action not only prevented widespread disruptions but also underscored the critical role every individual plays in managing our shared water resources.

Since June, extensive work has been undertaken to stabilize the feeder and better understand the conditions that led to its failure. This event has reinforced the importance of investing in resilient water infrastructure and creating a city-wide culture of water stewardship to safeguard our access to this precious resource.

Map Artist + Designer: Kristy North Peigan