Experience Edworthy Park “Edworthy Park –– Yours to Enjoy and Preserve Forever” was written on a sign posted near the entrance of Shaganappi Ranch when it was acquired in 1962 by the City of Calgary. From the beginning, the City’s Parks Department had realized that, although relatively small, Edworthy Park truly is a gem with a great diversity of natural habitats and rich history. Edworthy Park spans part of the Shaganappi escarpment. An historic name dating back at least to the 1870s, Shaganappi is a Cree word meaning “rawhide” or “rawhide thong”. What has been called Shaganappi Point to the east dates back much further and was known to the Blackfoot as a named, prominent landmark on their ancestral lands located between the sacred glacial erratic on Paskapoo Slopes and the sacred confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers.
Thomas Edworthy, Courtesy of the Glenbow Musum (na-1494-26)
A surveyor for the Canadian Pacific Railway, Charles Aeneas Shaw described the area when he was there in the early 1880s: “The only other difficult place [for locating the railway] was Shaganappi Point, about 5 miles West [of the then town] of Calgary, a perpendicular bluff some 300 ft high, between the foot of which and the river there was only a narrow margin. The Indians for generations used this cliff as a pound, driving buffalo over it, killing hundreds of them at a time…; there was a large pile of bones the full length of the cliff.” Quarry Road Trail At the east end of the area, Quarry Road Trail switchbacks as it traverses the Shaganappi escarpment. It was almost certainly a trail that led many Blackfoot to a winter camp, an area of plentiful firewood and food where a ford crossed the river. As you walk down the trail, you will see evidence of the oldest sandstone quarry in Calgary. It was owned by the Government of Canada from 1882. Where most of this sandstone was used remains a great mystery but some was supplied to government buildings in Regina, including the original post office, and jail, but not the Saskatchewan Legislature. It was built later on from Manitoba limestone. The trail connects to the paved Bow River regional pathway which goes west to Lawrey Gardens.
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