Calgary’s Heritage Trees
Calgary is a city that is known for its natural beauty, and one of the most impressive features is the city’s heritage trees. In the 1890s, at the beginning of Calgary’s greatest economic boom, William Pearce, a Canadian government surveyor, was passionate about trees. He thought Calgary should be covered with trees and he developed an experimental farm testing a variety of trees to encourage Calgarians to plant trees around their homes.
That was the beginning of the heritage trees we now enjoy. These trees are considered to be of significant importance due to their age, size, and historical significance. In Calgary, heritage trees are protected by City bylaws, which help to ensure that they are preserved for future generations to enjoy. Look for the plaques that identify heritage trees.
Calgary’s oldest elm tree is in Victoria Park and is known as the ‘Stampede Elm.’ Although designated as a heritage tree, no one knows how old it really is, though it’s estimated to be about 125 years old and is known to have existed before the first Stampede in 1912!
Another notable heritage tree in Calgary is the 100-year-old Siberian elm tree in Mount Pleasant. This tree is over 20 metres tall with a circumference of three metres. It is beloved by the neighbourhood for its beauty and history.
Calgary’s heritage trees are not just impressive because of their size and age, but they also serve an important ecological function. Trees help to purify the air, provide shade, and regulate the temperature of the environment, to say nothing of the carbon they sequester. They are also essential habitats for many different species of birds and insects.
Calgary has used trees to memorialize Calgarians killed in battle during WWI and II along Memorial Drive.
By preserving these heritage trees, we are not only protecting our city’s history and beauty, but also helping to maintain the health and balance of our local ecosystems.
Calgary is situated on Treaty 7 grasslands that had virtually no trees, except for the cottonwoods in the river valleys for millennia, and has gone from that to having approximately 7 million private and public trees that have an estimated value of $1.23 billion since the 1890s. Imagine that! Check out https://maps.calgary.ca/TreeSchedule.
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