Calgary & Southern Alberta

The 1970s saw Calgary's Arts community begin to thrive. Respected theatre companies like Alberta Theatre Projects,were founded during this period. Currently the performance theatre scene has come alive in the 1990s with several experimental companies like One Yellow Rabbit leading the way.The English Department at the University of Calgary came into its own in this period and promoted the establishment of literary magazines such as The Blue Buffalo and Dandelion while cultivating a talented and diverse literary community featuring writers such as Aritha van Herk, Nicole Markotic, Suzette Mayr, Rajinderpal S. Pal, and W. P. Kinsella. Calgary’s development as a tourism centre likewise promoted the arts. The city’s hosting of the 1988 Winter Olympics, for instance, was accompanied by the establishment of the Olympic Arts Festival organisation and an exhibition of Aboriginal Art at the Glenbow Museum. In the same year, the city’s librarians and teachers organised Kaleidoscope, a conference that celebrated children’s literature. Other prominent arts events include the Calgary International Jazz Festival (1980), the Calgary International Organ Festival, the Herland Film Festival (1989), PanCanadian playRites Festival and Pan Canadian WordFest. In the 1970s and 1980s, Calgarians became increasingly interested in their own historical development. In the late 1960s local alderman John Ayer provided the initiative to restore Fort Calgary, which had been demolished in the early 1880s to create larger facilities for the police. The Glenbow-Alberta Institute provided funding for an archaeological dig by the University of Calgary. In 1973 the city of Calgary officially endorsed the Fort Calgary Project. The Fort Calgary Interpretative centre opened to the public five years later. Local historians such as Grant MacEwan and Hugh Dempsey likewise fostered interest in Calgary and Alberta’s history. The celebration of the province’s seventy-fifth birthday in 1980 likewise encouraged local historical interest.

Courtesy of Alberta Theatre Projects Founded 1972       Modern Experimental Theatre Courtesy of One Yellow Rabbit

 Prosperity in Calgary, however, also had a dark side. During the boom period, Calgary reported one of the lowest unemployment rates in Canada and one of the highest per capita income levels. Yet, the boom, and the construction of high rises that accompanied it, also contributed to one of the highest job-related accident rates in the country. In 1979, Alberta’s construction workers witnessed a 17 percent increase in injuries. During the economic boom, crime likewise increased. Between 1979 and 1980 break and enter offences increased 20.5 percent, theft increased 20.6 percent, and motor vehicle theft increased 23.8 percent. Calgary’s rise as a "white-collar" city, furthermore, disguised the realities of many of its citizens’ lives. In 1984 the City of Calgary released a report on its Aboriginal population. More than 42 percent of the households surveyed did not have an employed occupant, and 56 percent of those Native peoples employed made less than $16,000 per year.