A Tale of Two River Cities
That time I visited Calgary and Saskatoon and didn't even get paid for it
I used to have a side hussle in the Before Times as a travel writer. It’s a pretty sweet gig going to interesting places on someone else’s dime and then getting paid to write about it. The Vancouver Sun sent me to Calgary and Saskatoon back in autumn 2019 for a story that was meant to run the following March. Which didn’t happen as encouraging people to travel suddenly became a Very Bad Thing to do that month, as you will recall.
I never got a kill fee but didn’t actively pursue one because I felt weirdly sorry for the newspaper (where I have several reporter friends still clinging to employment) after it became one of the early villains of the pandemic along with that dumb Utah Jazz player with Covid who wiped his hands all over the mics at a news conference and those tonedeaf celebs involved in the infamous singalong to John Lennon’s “Imagine.” The Sun had foolishly published a story about how NOW was the best time ever to travel overseas because there are suddenly so many fantastic deals, and demanding compensation seemed like kicking a heavily ratioed corporate media outlet when it was down. Plus I ate so well at fancy restaurants during the trip I tipped the scales over 200 lbs for the only time in my life and also got to see an old college buddy, so I figured we were more or less even. But I came across it again while sifting through my records and decided to post it on my personal Substack for posterity.
May as well not get paid for it a second time!
A Tale of Two River Cities
While most Canadians know the Great Plains begin at the hundredth meridian, the location of the Paris of the Prairies remains a bit of a mystery.
The French connection is most commonly associated with the city of Saskatoon thanks to the Tragically Hip song “Wheat Kings,” but Calgary is also one of several communities — including Winnipeg — that have laid claim to a term coined by western immigration agents hoping to lure credulous settlers to dusty prairie outposts that had little in common with the famed City of Lights.
Although one thing all three share is they’re river cities and — just as the capital of France first sprung up along the banks of the Seine — Alberta and Saskatchewan's respective most populous places owe their own existence to the waterways that flow through them and continue to shape their urban identity.
Niitsitapi people have lived at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers in what is now downtown Calgary for quite some time, as Adam Noble-Johnson of [now-defunct] History Cycle YYC points out during a recent two-wheeled tour.
“This was a gathering place for Indigenous people for thousands of years,” says Noble-Johnson, a buff mid-thirties history buff who moonlights as a speechwriter for the city’s long-serving former mayor, Naheed Nenshi. “Archeologists have found ruins and remains dating back 8,000 years. We’re talking before the pyramids people were living in this place.”
The meeting point of these rivers flowing through the foothills east of the Rockies are also what first drew non-Indigenous people to the region, specifically members of the North-West Mounted Police who set up shop in the late 19th century to control the fur trade and chase away American whisky traders. This is one of many nuggets of historical information gleaned over a leisurely 10-km ride through the city’s extensive network of bike lanes that showcased the community’s growth from a remote military fort to bustling agricultural hub to the cosmopolitan Cowtown it’s affectionately known as today.
Our tour begins and ends at a formerly down-and-out part of town known as the East Village, which is currently experiencing some the fastest development Calgarians have seen since a blaze in 1886 wiped most of the place out and sparked a boom in fire-proof sandstone architecture.
“The East Village was one of Calgary’s first communities, but when we built the new city hall we effectively created a wall that blocked off the east side of the city and left it to become skid row,” says Noble-Johnson. “A decade ago there was less than 900 people who lived in this community but once the master plan is complete, there will be 11,500 people that will have moved right on the edge of our city’s downtown.”
Apart from the historic King Eddy Hotel that helps anchor the new National Music Centre and an old brick mattress warehouse that's been repurposed to house a bakery, coffee shop and Argentinian-flavoured Charbar restaurant, almost all of the buildings in East Village – including a lavish $245-million library – are new thanks to an elaborate urban development plan overseen by his boss. One of them is the 10-storey Alt Hotel Calgary, a lower-frills offshoot of Quebec-based Group Germain Hotels that public relations coordinator France Savard says encapsulates the fresh spirit of the neighbourhood.
“A Le Germain hotel might be like your parents’ home but an Alt is more like your first apartment when you are getting started in life,” says Savard. “We have everything you need but there’s not as much fluff.”
(My room was far more inviting than the sad futon and milk-crate shelving that decorated my personal first home away from home, but I take her point about it being a more budget- and eco-friendly alternative for travelers.)
Located several hundred kilometres downstream, a different Alt is also part of the changing face of downtown Saskatoon at the new River Landing district, an $81.5-million redevelopment project along the banks of the South Saskatchewan River that in recent years has added a network of waterfront pathways, condo towers, a farmers' market, several farm-to-table restaurants, and the massive Remain Modern art gallery that's home to the world’s largest collection of Picasso linocuts.
But the river itself is still a main attraction in one of Canada's fastest-growing cities, and I recently had the chance to explore a stretch of it literally on foot via a standup paddleboard (SUP) tour led by Marcus Storey of Escape Sports.
SUPs are basically extra-stable surf boards you stand (or kneel) on while using a long paddle to propel yourself, and the sleepy South Saskatchewan provides ideal conditions for beginners. Having had the idea hammered into me from a young age that you should never stand up in a canoe, it felt strange at first to be upright but it didn't take long to get the hang of it while meandering downstream towards River Landing.
Storey says he's seen a huge increase in recreational use on the river in the past few years, particularly with standup paddleboarders getting a full-body workout while enjoying being out in nature.
“We've got a pretty good grassroots scene, and it's growing really fast,” says Storey. “There used to be a perception that there's kind of an element of danger to being on the river, but that's going away and now you regularly see big groups and families out on the water.”
One of the obstacles to competing with nearby lakes during the hot summer months is an old bylaw he'd like to see taken off the books.
“You’re not allowed to swim in the river because it’s supposedly unsafe and so you might get a ticket,” says Storey. “Although you’re at least allowed to 'accidentally' fall out of a boat.”
There's a certain irony to SUPs having become so popular with flat-water enthusiasts over the past decade as the practice was invented centuries ago by Polynesian surfers, but catching a wave in pancake-flat Saskatoon may soon become a possibility as the city is considering replacing an aging weir in the heart of downtown with an artificial whitewater park in conjunction with a new hydro power station.
If the project gets the green light, this little wave park on the prairies would be an attraction you won't find in Paris itself.