Stormy Calgary

Last month in Alberta, I visited a buffalo jump site...it's a National Historical Park.  There were some Blackfeet tribe members there dancing in their homeland.

This is the cliff the Indians herded the buffalo over, much of the time for several thousand years until the late 19th century.  This was a project that involved all the members of the tribe.  On the plateau above, a path was developed using trees and bushes to mark the sides of the route.  This corridor was constructed by the women.  Once that was done, some of the men, wearing wolf skins, started running among the buffalo grazing up from the corridor.  The men riled up the buffalo and stampeded them toward the cliff.  The rest of the tribe raised a ruckus, keeping the beasts in the corridor leading to the cliff edge.  The buffalo went over the edge, most dying from the fall...the men finished off the ones who were just injured.  The jump was originally about twice as high as it is now...the bones of the buffalo piled up over the millenia, and were covered by soil and vegetation.  It is estimated that a typical successful jump netted the Indians 50-100 buffalo.  Every part of the animal was used...bones became tools and weapons; hide was made into clothing and tipi walls.  Horns became drinking vessels.  The meat was partially eaten short term...the rest was often dried and preserved for future consumption, or ground up and mixed with berries to form pemmican, a tasty, nutritious food that sustained the people through the winter.

The Canadian prairies east of the Rockies have a climate very similar to Denver's, except about 10 degrees cooler year round.  Thus, August is thunderstorm season!  This storm south of Calgary laid down a wall of rain.

I drove into Calgary on MacLeod Trail, straight toward a rotating wall cloud!  The day before, torrential rain and golfball size hail had caused widespread damage in the city.

Cool clouds from my hotel room on the 15th floor of the Best Western.

Marble size hail fell that afternoon, mostly covering the car park.  My Solara is just above the yellow/orange vehicle in the lot.  The car had been very dirty...the hail washed it clean as a whistle without causing damage!  The same thing happened to me in Denver more than 30 years ago.

Hail on the roof of the Solara.

Cool late afternoon light after the thunderstorms.  Hadn't been to Calgary since 1972...I figured it was time for a return visit.

This was the next day.  No thunderstorms, but the temperature was in the low 50s with rain all day....in the first week of August!  I had to buy an umbrella.  At the end of the day, though, the light was fine.

A cool apartment building in my 'hood in Calgary.

Fine view of downtown from the south.  My hotel was in a neat area...some old homes, some modern highrise apartments...similar to the West End in Vancouver.  I could walk to the north and be downtown in a few minutes.  Walking south, in a few minutes I was in the hills among large, stately homes.