Bow River

The headwaters of the Bow River in Alberta, Canada, start at the Bow Glacier and Bow Lake in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The glacial stream that feeds Bow Lake has a mean elevation of 2310 metres above sea level. From there, the river winds through the Alberta foothills onto the prairies, where it meets the Oldman River, the two then forming the South Saskatchewan River. These waters ultimately flow through the Nelson River into Hudson Bay.
The Bow River Basin is the most highly populated basin in Alberta, with over 1.6 million people living within the watershed. Major population centres along the Bow River, listed from upstream to downstream, include Lake Louise, Banff, Canmore, Cochrane, and Calgary.
In addition, the Bow River is an important source of water for irrigation and drinking water. Between 1910 and 1960, the Bow River and its tributaries were engineered to provide hydroelectric power, primarily for Calgary's use. This significantly altered the river's flow and certain ecosystems.^: 151
In the Bow River Basin, there are 20 sub-watersheds that drain into the Bow River. From a roughly upstream to downstream direction, these sub-watersheds are:

Watershed name	Area	Area
Upper Bow River	1,463	565
Brewster Creek	756	292
Spray River	782	302
Cascade River	723	279
Bow River and Ghost Reservoir	1,203	464
Kananaskis River	928	358
Ghost River	944	364
Elbow River	1,231	475
Fish Creek	452	174
Sheep River	1,595	616
Highwood River	2,386	921
Crowfoot Creek	1,465	565
West Arrowwood Creek	1,103	426
Jumpingpound Creek	598	231
Nose Creek	978	378
Bow River and Bighill Creek	469	181
Pine Creek	205	79
Middle Bow	2,958	1,142
Lower Bow and 12 Mile Coulee	2,738	1,057
Lower Bow	2,583	997

History

made varied use of the river for sustenance before settlers of European origin arrived, such as using its valleys in the buffalo hunt.
The Bow River Basin is the traditional territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy, comprising the four Blackfoot Nations: Kainaiwa–Blood Tribe, Siksika, Peigan–Piikani and Aamskapi Pikuni. Today, the basin sits within the traditional area of Treaty 7. The Bow River Basin is also home to the Métis Nation Districts 4, 5, and 6.
First Nations used the river's valleys for the buffalo hunt, in which herds of buffalo were driven over cliffs or into valleys where they could be killed more easily with bows and arrows. Of all the First Nations groups that lived in the Bow River area, only the Nakoda fished the river regularly. While other groups likely caught fish during harder times, they primarily hunted buffalo during the summer season when fishing would have been most plentiful. The river's water naturally attracted game, which the First Nations men also hunted, while women gathered the roots, nuts and berries and processed them for food. The river's game, its local sources for firewood, and its valleys' shelter made the river a common camp location for First Nations during the prairie winters. The danger of crossing the river meant it was a natural boundary for First Nations. The two main fords of the lower Bow River, Blackfoot Crossing and a ford near the Bow's confluence with the Elbow River, became important gathering points for First Nations to exchange goods and celebrate festivities. Blackfoot Crossing was used by the Siksika as a winter campsite and is today a part of their reserve.
The fur trader James Gaddy and the Hudson's Bay Company explorer David Thompson are traditionally considered to be the first people of European origin to see the Bow River. They camped along the Bow with a group of Piikani during the 1787–88 winter.
Fur traders began to move to the Bow River region following Thompson's expedition, but the river was not used extensively in the fur trade. First Nations already weakened by declining buffalo numbers and disease were further devastated by the introduction of the whisky trade. Fort Whoop-Up was established in 1869, and whisky traders were active along the Bow River during the 1870s. To stop these operations, the recently formed North-West Mounted Police established Fort Calgary in 1875 at the confluence of the Elbow River and the Bow.
In order to proceed with railway construction through present-day Alberta and an orderly settlement of the Bow region, the government sought to extinguish title of First Nations to specific lands, and negotiated to do so through treaties. With bison numbers declining and white settlers becoming increasingly common in the region, the Nakoda, Tsuu Tʼina, Kainai, Piikanai, and Siksika met with representatives of the Canadian government at Blackfoot Crossing on the Bow River and signed Treaty 7 on 22 September 1877, ceding lands in exchange for defined reserves. From the perspective of the Canadian government, these groups had surrendered all their land privileges outside their reserves. The reserves of the Nakoda, Tsuu Tʼina, and Siksika were established along the Bow River.

Hydroelectric development, 1910–1960

Calgary was growing rapidly after 1900. The city businessmen pressed for dam construction to generate cheaper power from hydroelectric sources. William Maxwell Aitken, later with R. B. Bennett, formed Calgary Power in 1910. That year, on property purchased from the Nakoda, Calgary Power began constructing Alberta's first major hydroelectric plant, Horseshoe Dam.
Calgary Power had problems before this dam was completed in 1911. The Bow River originates from a northern mountain, and its flow varies considerably depending upon the amount and location of winter snowfalls. A comprehensive study of the Bow's flow measurements had not been conducted. In its operations, Calgary Power relied upon estimates of the river's minimum flow during winter conditions. Thus, despite the amount of energy the company had contracted, it could not reliably fulfill these obligations during winters. With capital already invested in Horseshoe, Calgary Power opened another hydroelectric plant and reservoir two years later at Kananaskis Falls just upstream from Horseshoe Falls. A storage reservoir was also created within Banff National Park in 1912 at Lake Minnewanka. Despite this additional reservoir and both plants, Calgary Power still struggled to fulfill its power contracts during winter months. In the 1920s, the company began planning new projects to control the Bow River.
The Bow River's hydroelectric development both conforms to and contrasts with elements of conservationist ideology in the United States during this era. This ideology espoused that rational and planned resource development guided by technicians should benefit the greatest number of people possible. In this light, rivers could be seen as a series of interdependent parts, and engineering all of them could give technicians control over the system as a whole for the benefit of society.
In this process, Calgary Power ultimately fulfilled conservationist ideology as it increasingly brought the Bow River's interdependent sectors, and thus it as a whole, under control, while failing to embody conservationist ideals of rationally developing the Bow initially. Also in line with conservationism, bureaucrats allowing the construction of the Minnewanka reservoir espoused that the nation's development as a whole superseded the need to protect a small part of Banff National Park's nature.
Calgary Power's ad hoc hydroelectric development of the Bow continued. Ghost Dam was built in 1929; a major development on the Bow's tributary, Spray River, was completed in 1951; and, at the behest of the provincial government, Bearspaw Dam was built in 1954 just west of Calgary to control flooding and 1955 saw the development of two reservoirs on the Kananaskis River in what is now Peter Lougheed Provincial Park World War II's industrial demand increased pressure on the river: another hydroelectric development was built within Banff National Park, this time on the Cascade River, a tributary of the Bow.
Between 1910 and 1960, the Bow River was radically changed as it was systematically engineered to control its water flow and provide hydroelectric power. The seasonal summer flooding in Calgary was an issue of the past. Water was held by reservoirs during spring and summer, permitting steady power generation during fall and winter. Comparing 1924–33 to 1954–63, the Bow River's January flow had approximately doubled 30 years later. Parts of the river, such as that preceding Ghost Dam, had practically turned into lakes. These developments had ecological effects, too. For example, reservoirs allowed certain fish species, such as the brown trout, to outcompete others, while other species virtually disappeared.

Environmentalism

By the 1950s, the Bow River's south bank in Calgary was a generally derelict commercial zone. The Calgary Local Council of Women was the most vocal advocate for turning this area into a park system as a part of a broader campaign for improved public and social services. Calgary City Council agreed to the idea in 1955, but by 1959 little progress had been made to fund the project. To accommodate increasing traffic flow through the growing city, the Canadian Pacific Railway and the city began negotiating a CPR reroute that would follow the south bank of the Bow River, turning it into a parkway and the CPR's rail mainline. Among the plan's critics was the Local Council of Women, reminding the city of its 1955 promise for a river park. After negotiations between the CPR and Calgary ended in failure in 1964, urban elites, such as golf clubs, increasingly endorsed the Local Council of Women's idea for a riverfront park system.
Park advocates defined the Bow River within Calgary as the city's nature: it was something to be protected for and enjoyed by the public. However, as progress was made in the parks' creation, this "environmental" view of the Bow's nature proved selective. For example, trees were not to be cut down, but landscaping to accommodate cyclists was endorsed. In short, the river was valued above all when it suited human goals. Calgary eventually developed an extensive plan for the Bow River's park system, and it is considered an important element of Calgary's self-image today.
The grassroots advocacy done by the Local Council of Women denotes emerging environmental sensibilities that are representative of larger trends occurring in North America during this period. Samuel Hays associated such movements with the emergence of an advanced consumer society. Unlike the pre-World War II elitist ideology of conservationist production, this emergent approach in North America was of grassroots consumers democratically engaging in environmental issues, and there was often tension between the public and managers of the environment.
After an Alberta Environment official discovered a toxic "blob" in the Bow in October 1989, human needs again were given priority. Originating from an abandoned wood-preserving plant on the Bow River's bank, the "blob" in the river had released a carcinogenic plume that stretched more than downstream. Its discovery caused alarm in the media and amongst those living along the Bow River.
As a result, Alberta's premier, Ralph Klein, established the Bow River Water Quality Council as a provincial advisory body. The council was to promote awareness of the river's water quality and try to improve it through fact-finding and aiding inter-institutional coordination. It was composed of representatives from diverse interests such as First Nations, agriculture, and municipalities. Recreational groups represented on the council, such as Ducks Unlimited and Bow Waters Canoe Club, expressed concern for the river's environment. Their attitudes were not strictly human-centric, but, like those favouring a park system in Calgary, they defined the Bow River's environment as something worth preserving for human use.
Greater changes in attitude toward the river were manifest in the Bow River Water Quality Council's reports over time. By 1994, the reports emphasized the importance of the Bow's ecological balance as a whole for maintaining its water quality and quantity. In the mid-1990s, the upper Bow River began being treated explicitly biocentrically. This was part of the larger pursuit of treating Banff National Park's ecosystems as something intrinsically valuable: maintaining these ecosystems was now prioritized over human enjoyment of the parks.