Pin Quest Alberta

The City of Airdrie is named after a town in Scotland who point to many possible origins of the name. Some suggest it is from the Gaelic “Ard Ruith” referring to a high pasture of land, some point to the Gaelic “Aird Righ” meaning High King. There are also differences of opinion on who offered the name to the City, with some pointing to a railway worker, and others to Sir William Mackenzie King. 

Airdrie Centennial

In 1875, the North West Mounted Police established a fort at what is now the City of Calgary. A year later, the fort was named “Fort Calgary” after Castle Calgary on the Scottish Isle of Mull. The name was recommended by NWMP Lt.-Col. James Macleod who had recently visited the castle which was the ancestral estate of his cousins. Of Gaelic origin, the name Calgairidh translates roughly as “harbour pasture” and may come from a compound of Norse words meaning “cold garden”.

Calgary Flag

Cold Lake takes its name from the lake itself which likely has the simplest of origins - being named after for its cold, deep water. Before European settlement, the Cree called the lake “Kinosoo” or “big fish” after a local legend where a young Dene man, paddling his canoe to visit a woman he hoped to marry, strayed from the safety of the lake shore, cutting across the lake where a large fish pulled him to his death as his lover watched from the shoreline.

Edmonton takes its name from a Hudson’s Bay Company trade post called Fort Edmonton that was established in 1795. It was named after Edmonton, England which was the birthplace of Sir James Winter Lake, one of the HBC governors at the time. The English town takes it’s name from the Anglo-Saxon “Adelmetone” which means “a farmstead of a man called Eadhelm”. Before the HBC fort was established, the Cree called the area Amiskwaciy or “Beaver Hills”.

Fort Saskatchewan is named after a North-West Mounted Police post of the same name established in 1875. The fort’s site was selected for its location on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River being well suited for a future railway crossing, and away from Hudson’s Bay Company lands. The fort was originally called Sturgeon Creek Post, but was later renamed “Fort On the Saskatchewan” and later shortened just simply Fort Saskatchewan.

In 1909, the Argonaut Company purchased 80 acres along a proposed railway, and registered a town with the land office called “Grande Prairie City”. The French name “la grande prairie” first appears on an early geological survey map referring to the large open prairie in the area. Before this, the area was called Buffalo Plains after the herds of buffalo which roamed the area. 

Residents of the settlement that would become Leduc decided to name their new government telegraph office “after the first person who comes in”. This first person was local priest, Father Hippolyte Leduc. However, this was officially only the name of the letelegraph office. Later, when the railroad was coming through, federal Minister Edgar Dewdney chose to reuse the name FatherLeduc for the railway station and the community growing around it. 

The story of how Medicine Hat got its name comes from the Blackfoot nation. During a hard winter, the Elders chose a young man to journey in search of food. After several days travelling with his wife and wolf dog, they found a hole in the ice on the river from which a water spirit rose in the form of a serpent. It demanded the man sacrifice his wife in exchange for a “saamis” or Medicine Hat which would grant him hunting abilities. First trying to fool the spirit by sacrificing his dog, the man eventually cast his wife into the water, and was granted his saamis, which he used to find the wild game needed for the tribe. 

St. Albert was founded as a mission settlement in 1861 by Father Albert Lacombe, one of Alberta’s early missionaries. But, the community was not named after Father Lacombe. Instead, it was named after St. Albert the Great, patron of natural scientists who lived in the 1200s and is credited with translating and preserving most modern knowledge of Aristotle’s teachings, as well as writing thirty-eight volumes of his own on various topics. 

A pin to promote the 1988 Calgary Olympics

A pin from local media stations promoting the Calgary Olympics.