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Alberta NameFor Albertans – and for that matter, all Canadians – the name of this western province is inseparable from the maverick attitude it connotes. Alberta conjures images of honest, backbreaking work and freedom from the restraints of propriety and status in older settled lands. Alberta invokes the notion that reward comes from ability and hard work, not from title or position.
What's in an Alberta name? How Cities, Towns, Villages and Hamlets Got their Names Alberta - Name of ProvinceThe name of the province originated with a pampered princess, wife of a governor general seated in distant Ottawa, might seem incongruous.But Alberta’s majestic natural beauty and its people’s loyalty to old traditions soften the contradiction.
The verse of the Marquees of Lorne – the governor general who named the old provisional district of Alberta for his wife, Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848-1939)
For this wide land of freedom, I have named A province vast and fro its beauty framed, By thy dear name to be hereafter know. Alberta shall it be. Her fountains thrown From Alps unto three oceans, to all men Shall vaunt her loveliness e’en now; and when Each little hamlet to a city grown, And numberless as blades of prairie grass Or the thick leaves in distant forest bower Great peoples hear the giant currents pass, Still shall the waters, brining wealth and power Speak the loved name- the land of silver springs Worthy the daughter of our English kings.”
About the Author Harry Sanders is a Calgary-based freelance writer, historical consultant and reference archivist. He studied history at the University of Calgary and has worked for the Calgary Public Library, the City of Calgary Archives, the Glenbow Library and Archives and the Jewish Historical Society of Southern Alberta. He is past president of the Chinook Country Historical Society, the Calgary and district chapter of the Historical Society of Alberta. This is his third book. Harry M. Sanders Copyright 2003
As with the province, the names of cities and towns, villages and hamlets, and boulevards and back roads, reveal attitudes, values, histroy and geographical connections.For example, descriptions of such places as Ashmont (in Boston), Canmore (in Scotland), and Edmonton (in London, England), contrast those of their Alberta namesakes.Other names are rooted in Humour and irony. The Village of Mirror named for and promoted by the Daily Mirror in Britain-once boasted streets and avenues named for members of the newspaper’s London staff. And Dorothy, though named for a woman (the daughter of an early rancher), briefly became famous in the 1950’s as a village of bachelors. There is also the story of U.S.-born Samuel Drumheller. It is widely known that he was largely responsible for developing the coal fields in the Red Deer River Valley, and accordingly to lore, the toss of a coin determined that the local town was named after him rather than homesteader T.P. Greentree.
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