Lethbridge is a small prairie city in southern Alberta situated on the banks of the Oldman River, close to the American border. From here, the Crowsnest Highway leads east to Medicine Hat and west to the Rocky Mountains, which on clear days can be seen in relief on the horizon; Alberta's main artery, Highway 2, connects Lethbridge to Calgary, two and a half hours' driving distance north, then further on to Edmonton.
Millions of years of climate change created a thick bed of coal underneath the townsite and lining the banks of the river. Averaging slightly less than two metres thick, the medium-carbon, highly volatile bituminous coal seam was formed mostly by tropical plants seventy million years ago when the area was the coastline of an inland sea, with a very temperate climate; covered over with layers of mud and gravel, cut off from oxygen and under high pressure, the plant matter turned to coal over millions of years, while aboveground the sea disappeared and the climate evolved from near-tropical to that of a semi-arid desert. The striations from various eras can still be seen in the riverbank and broken-off pieces of sandstone just outside town.
The most immediately and strikingly obvious landforms in Lethbridge are the coulees; derived from the French "couler" ("to run off"), these are dry valleys that channel rainwater and runoff into the river. They stand as evidence of a great deal of glacial activity; twice in the last million years, glaciers have advanced and receded here. The coulees channelled meltwater into the river; most of those prominent today were carved out by the Wisconsin Advance, thirteen thousand years ago. The uppermost layers of bedrock in the coulees are made up of glacial till, rock material carried here from the Canadian Shield.
The climate in Lethbridge is similar to the rest of southern Alberta, though arguably windier. It is very changeable; often during spring near-hurricane force Chinook winds alter temperatures by upwards of twenty degrees Centigrade during the course of a few hours. The climate is caused by three converging air masses: warm, dry winds from the Rocky Mountains to the west cause Chinooks, Arctic systems from the north are harbingers of cooler temperatures (though often interrupted by Chinooks), and Gulf air from the United States, which brings with it precipitation, albeit sporadically and unreliably.
As did most Canadian prairie towns, Lethbridge grew up around the Canadian Pacific Railway as it expanded to the west in the late 1800s. Before the railway, and before the settlers, the region was home to nomadic plains Indian tribes; burial grounds and fluted spearheads found here date back eleven thousand years, though many archaeologists are sceptical of this number and maintain that it wasn't until later on that the Oldman River valley was inhabited.
Nevertheless, at some point prior to the arrival of European settlers, the Lethbridge area was a central part of the Blackfoot homeland, comprised of three tribes: the Sik-sikah (Blackfoot), the Kai'nah (translated, "Many Chiefs"; now commonly known as the Bloods), and the Pi-ku'ni ("Scabby Robes", or Peigans). As a collective, these tribes formed the Sow-ki'tapi Nation of prairie peoples; they remained a powerful confederacy into the early twentieth century.
As Canada's colonial government began pressing for western expansion prior to Confederation, settlers gradually drifted into the plains, lured by the promise of free land and prosperity brought by the transcontinental railway that was to be constructed. The town remained nameless and not particularly prosperous for several years, little more than a gathering place for area farmers, until the late 1860s ushered in drastic changes.
In 1869, the American government outlawed trading of alcohol on American native reservations. Whiskey traders, suddenly needing new markets to stay in business, turned to British North America; Confederation had united some eastern colonies into a dominion in 1867, but the West was still mostly lawless. A number of whiskey traders established a post at the junction of the St. Mary and the Belly (now the Oldman) Rivers, calling it Fort Whoop-Up in accordance with its purpose. It quickly became the most notorious trading post of its kind on the Canadian prairies.
The Cypress Hills massacre of Assiniboine Indians in 1873 forced the dominion government into action. The formation of the North-West Mounted Police (now, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) brought law and order to the west; the whiskey trade, now deemed illegal, was shut down with all due haste in autumn of 1874, as soon as the police reached Fort Whoop-Up. With the whiskey trade extinguished entirely, the small community that had grown up around the fort would have to find something else on which they might base the economy of their settlement; in this case, it was coal.
The First Nations peoples had always known that the banks of the Belly River were rich with coal; they had named it Sik-okotoks, "the place of the black rocks", some years earlier. Fur traders discovered this in the late 1860s and by 1872 coal mining had begun in earnest, with explorers such as Nicholas Sheran leading the way. In 1879, the activity attracted the attention of Sir Alexander Galt, who had been one of the leaders in the push for Canadian confederation. He held great influence in the railway project, and was canny enough to see the possibilities presented by the coal buried in the banks of the river; he was also wealthy enough to organise its removal. The first mines owned by Galt and his son, Elliot Galt, were opened several years later. By 1883, coal was being mined in earnest and shipped east by barge; the community grew as miners moved in, and the town became known as Coalbanks, to match nearby towns Coalhurst and Coaldale.
Shifting sandbars and droughts caused shipping difficulties. During the height of summer it ground to a halt, as barges ran aground or were forced to turn around. The only recourse was to ship the coal over land -- and Galt's hand in the government saw to it that the Canadian Pacific rail line was built through Coalbanks.
The CPR agreed to ship three thousand tonnes of coal per month from Coalbanks, under the governance of Galt's North-West Coal and Navigation Company, with William Lethbridge appointed as president and Elliot Galt named general manager. As most of the residents of Coalbanks were employed by the company, when the idea of renaming the community in honour of its president was raised, the proposition was universally embraced. The town was officially renamed on October 14, 1885; it has been Lethbridge ever since.
Around the same time, again due to Galt's intervention, the division point of the CPR was changed from Fort Macleod to Lethbridge, making coal shipping even more convenient. However, there was a snag -- the railway would have to cross the river that split the town in two, somehow. The coulees that line the river bank are nearly a hundred metres higher than the river bottom, and the valley is wide. It could be circumvented, but the added distance amounted to several hundred kilometres. A bridge was the only way that made sense, but the task would be monumental and extremely expensive.
No-one seemed to care about the cost. Surveyors sent from the east appeared in 1906 to take measurements, and engineers worked out a plan that would see the construction of a bridge strong enough to withstand Chinook winds and sturdy enough that repairs would be infrequent. Surveying took nearly two years; the steelwork itself began in August of 1908, and the bridge was completed a year later. At 307 feet high at its tallest point and 5517 feet long, it was the highest and longest bridge of its type when it was built, a record which still stands nearly a century later. The High Level Bridge, as it was dubbed, is still in regular use.
In return for the building of the bridge and a more efficient railway, the North-West Coal and Navigation Company was given a land grant of about a million acres in the area surrounding Lethbridge to do with as they saw fit. At this time, dryland farming techniques that are common today were all but unknown; in order to make the land more appealing to settlers, the company began an irrigation project.
Several irrigation districts were created, sponsored by the mining companies and backed by wealthier settlers. These continued on until the Second World War, increasing in size as more irrigation ditches were constructed; later on the federal government joined in, sponsoring the St. Mary River Development project, which is still an active and important part of southern Alberta's irrigation system.
Despite rapid growth as a result of the mines and the railroad, Lethbridge was not officially declared a town until January 15, 1891, under Lieutenant-Governor Joseph Royal. The first mayor was Charles Alexander Magrath. A main street now bears his name, as does a neighbouring small town. More expansion saw Lethbridge incorporated as a city in 1909; it has grown slowly but steadily ever since, and now boasts a population of about seventy-three thousand over an area of 122 square kilometres.
Roughly speaking, the city is divided into the North and South sides east of the river, and the West side opposite. It has a number of elementary and secondary schools under a public and a separate school board, as well as a mostly liberal arts university and a community college, both of which draw students from all over Canada. An enduring joke amongst those who have left and those who are about to is that Lethbridge is an ideal city for the newly wed and the nearly dead; the latter is truer than City Council would have you believe, as evidenced by the retirement communities, seniors' centres, and funeral homes placed at shockingly regular intervals across the South side of town. The West side is youthful and vibrant, and expanding in leaps and bounds; I moved from Lethbridge two years ago and returned last week to find no fewer than six new housing developments, with more under construction.
Lethbridge has also become a centre for agricultural research and development. Dryland farming, without benefit of heavy irrigation, was pioneered at the city's Agriculture Canada Research Station, tailored to suit the semi-arid climate and windswept landscape. This has shifted the focus of farmers from irrigation to farming in strips, leaving fallow land covered in vegetation or stubble to keep the topsoil from being blown off, and planting shelterbelts at intervals to stop erosion. These techniques are now widely practised, and owe their success mostly to the innovations of Lethbridge research teams.
The city has a fairly low unemployment rate, perhaps because many of its citizens are retirees or perhaps due to the concentration of rendering plants and feedlots near the city, which employ thousands of workers. The tourism industry is sorely lacking; the main draw is the surprisingly dull interpretive centre where Fort Whoop-Up used to be. However, the city has done a great deal to improve its image in recent years; a number of urban parks have been created, and a downtown revitalisation project has been very successful in encouraging businesses to stay put rather than relocate to less expensive quarters in shopping malls elsewhere.
Currently, the city's downtown centrepiece is a restored water tower, painted and renovated and converted into a restaurant and bar. It looks inordinately silly, but has served to attract many, many tourists from outlying farming communities; perhaps it is a sign of more and greater prosperity to come.
Sources:
Building the Rural West. Sir Alexander Galt Museum. http://collections.ic.gc.ca/prairie/rachpt3.htm
Climate. University of Lethbridge. http://www.uleth.ca/vft/lethbridge/climate.html
Flora and Fauna. University of Lethbridge. http://www.uleth.ca/vft/lethbridge/f&f.html
Geology. University of Lethbridge. http://www.uleth.ca/vft/lethbridge/geology.html
History. University of Lethbridge. http://www.uleth.ca/vft/lethbridge/history.html
Irrigation. Sir Alexander Galt Museum. http://collections.ic.gc.ca/prairie/irrchpt1.htm
Lethbridge and the Railway. Sir Alexander Galt Museum. http://collections.ic.gc.ca/prairie/rachpt1.htm
Native People. Sir Alexander Galt Museum. http://collections.ic.gc.ca/prairie/naraibox.htm
"Our Railway Ties" Chronology 1882 - 1912. Sir Alexander Galt Museum. http://collections.ic.gc.ca/prairie/rachpt7.htm
The High Level Bridge. Sir Alexander Galt Museum. http://collections.ic.gc.ca/prairie/rachpt4.htm
Also, several leaflets appropriated from the Fort Whoop-Up Interpretive Centre, copious quantities of notes taken at an historical exhibition at the Sir Alexander Galt Museum (the highlights of which are now available online, as referenced above), and far too many years spent living there.
Yes, Lethbridge is where Dar Heatherington is from. No, we don't like to talk about that.