Project 14 of 17
Bowness
Cities & Places · Bowness, Calgary, Alberta
Calgary, Alberta. Three takes above the Bow, ninety-one seconds of film.
Bowness was a town of its own until 15 August 1964, with the Bow on its north and east sides and, at its northwest end, a lagoon made by damming a channel of the river.
A century ago streetcars carried picnic crowds forty minutes from downtown to the park around it. Atom2Adam Studio made three takes above the community, ninety-one seconds of film inside five minutes by the camera's own clock, with no cuts inside a take and no grade. The page starts at the lagoon's end, where a wading pool makes a patch of turquoise, and climbs until downtown stands on the horizon. The pool, the avenue, the river, the town.
- Subject
- Bowness, on Calgary's west side: a village from 1948, a town from 1951 and part of Calgary since 15 August 1964, with Bowness Park, its lagoon and its wading pool at the northwest end.
- Intent
- Make a stranger want to be there: start at the smallest bright thing in the frame and climb until the town and the city share one horizon.
- Seen
- A wading pool, a lagoon with a pavilion standing in the water, avenues running at downtown's towers, the 85 Street NW bridge, a freight train on two truss spans, gravel islands in the Bow and a ski-jump in-run on the hill to the south.
- Made
- Three takes and ninety-one seconds of film, all inside five minutes by the camera's own clock. No cuts inside a take and no grade.
I
The pool
The patch of turquoise at the end of the lagoon.
Bowness Park keeps a wading pool at the east end of its lagoon, a short walk east of the main parking lot. By 1919 the park already had swimming pools, boat rentals, a ferry service and a merry-go-round, and the Municipal Railway gave out the hot water for picnics free. So the page begins at the pool, a patch of turquoise at the lagoon's end, before the river gets a single frame.
Closer: the pavilion in the water, the pool beyond.
II
The avenue
From the lagoon's corner, forward along the avenues.
The streetcar to Bowness Park left Eighth Avenue and Centre Street every thirty minutes from noon, and in the 1920s every fifteen minutes on summer weekends; the ride took forty minutes, and on a fine weekend as many as 25,000 people came, by the city's own estimate. The third take runs that trip the other way: forward from the lagoon's corner along the avenues, toward downtown's towers on the horizon.
Further along: a brick block, a school field, the towers.
III
The river
Off the roofs and back to the Bow's gravel islands.
Bowness has the Bow on its north and east sides, and its park began as a river deal: when John Hextall pushed the city to run its streetcar out to his Bowness Estates, the price was his bridge opened to the public and two islands in the Bow given to the city. The narrow channel along the islands' south side was dammed to make the lagoon. So the second take swings off the roofs and back to the water the deal was made of.
The luxury estates never caught on. The two islands did.
A freight train crossing the main line's truss spans.
Hextall's own bridge is beyond these frames, between Bowness and Montgomery: a riveted steel truss from the boom years before the First World War, and for generations of Calgarians the way to get to Bowness Park. In 1986 a new bridge was built beside it, and the old one found a new life on the regional pathway.
IV
The town
Off the river and across the roofs to downtown.
Thomas Stone and Jasper M. Richardson bought this land in 1890–91 and started the Bowness Ranche, and the name was Stone's: he had enjoyed visiting Bowness-on-Windermere in the English Lake District. Bowness became a village in 1948 and a town in 1951, and it was amalgamated into Calgary on 15 August 1964, when 9,116 people lived here. The first take pans off the river and across the roofs until the town and downtown share one frame.
A wading pool at one end of the avenue. Downtown at the other.
Detail → Whole
Bowness ends. 17 projects in the collection.
