University of Calgary Press

Anglers knee-deep in Alberta's mountain streams after the First World War understood that there was something wrong. Coal mining, forestry, and irrigation were industrializing landscapes. Roads and railways brought unprecedented numbers of people to remote fishing grounds. Once home to abundant runs of cutthroat, mountain whitefish, and bull trout, the Bow, Highwood, and Oldman Rivers, and their many high mountain tributaries, were in crises. Up and down the Eastern Slopes, anglers rallied to defend their watersheds. The ensuing fish fights were not peaceful. Deep disagreement on tributary closures, open season dates, environmental protection, regulation and enforcement raged among fishers. But despite their disputed viewpoints, Alberta's anglers agreed to advocate fiercely for the conservation of their rivers and streams. Troubled Tributaries reveals for the first time the work—and the controversy—of fisheries conservation in the Eastern Slopes of Alberta's Rocky Mountains from 1900 to 1930. It is a story of passion and commitment, of the struggle to balance nature's use and preservation, and of people coming together even when divergent viewpoints threatened to break them apart. This is the story of the first round in the great fight to save Alberta's western trout kingdoms.

The story of the first Turner Valley boom and the charlatans, frauds, and evangelists who made and lost fortunes in the early days of Alberta oil. When the Calgary Petroleum Product Dingman No. 1 Well began operation in Turner Valley on May 14, 1914, it unleashed a spectacular frenzy of greed and excess. In a fever of free-market capitalism over 500 oil companies were created, selling fortunes on paper to eager investors. But fewer than fifty ever drilled for oil, and the Alberta oil industry suddenly began to look like one big swindle. The public, and investors, demanded answers. Enter George Edward Buck, a charismatic revival preacher and self-proclaimed oil tycoon who made himself and his company the centre of every conversation while he salted his wells and misled investors. Far from the only person to profit from the sensational publicity of the Turner Valley Boom, Buck became the public face of all unscrupulous businessmen and an international scapegoat to preserve the integrity of Alberta oil. The Boom is a history of the Turner Valley era that rescues the miscreants and charlatans from obscurity. Industry historian Paul Chastko returns the larger-than-life promoters, wildcatters and oil evangelists to the story. He shows the ways that Albertans, determined to overcome the obstacles of economics, geography, geology, and the market, made a conscious choice to pursue petroleum development and created an oil culture that continues to this day.