A friend recently experienced The Confluence.No, it didn’t entail stomach troubles, an adult-only club or a new Alberta political party.It wasn’t a horror flick either, although this story features a sly villain.The Confluence: Historic Site and Parkland is now the name of Fort Calgary, the physical embodiment of the city’s earliest days and its hard-scrabbled quest to persevere in the Canadian West.The historical site’s name has been changed in the belief that The Confluence is somehow more representative of the city. How can watering down the title of an iconic Calgary landmark be labelled a success?“The stories of this land are complex,” Jennifer Thompson, the site’s president, said recently. “That’s why we engaged Indigenous Peoples, Calgarians, partners, the RCMP, and other key audiences to gather knowledge and perspective.“We heard that telling a broader cross-section of history about The Confluence and advancing Truth and Reconciliation was important. The Confluence is about the coming together of separate entities, identities and histories,” she added.When Thomson talks about consulting “key audiences” and other groups, she doesn’t mean ordinary Calgarians. The people whose opinions were solicited were likely the same people who dubbed Calgary “Blue Sky City.” Did you or anyone you know vote for such a mean-nothing slogan?The people who sway such decisions on the public’s behalf are the nouveau intelligentsia: people who largely rely on a cheque from the public and produce little of value.Canada, and Calgary in particular, is intent on trashing our traditions. Langevin Bridge is now Reconciliation Bridge. Does the further obliteration of the memory of a long-dead Father of Confederation make our First Nations partners sleep better at night? Is the new title the salve that soothes, even after numerous apologies from politicians seeking forgiveness for past maltreatment?Our First Nations don’t need window dressings and shallow gestures; they want tangible change in their communities. The challenges experienced by Indigenous people across Alberta deserve more time and attention than title changes that most people will overlook.Indigenous people, generally, aren’t easily offended. (Well-compensated Aboriginal luminaries being the exception.) Alberta is home to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump. The buffalos didn’t willingly jump. They were chased off the edge of a cliff so people could subsist. Let’s have a nosy group such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals weigh in on that name.The buffalo world heritage site is not far from Fort Macleod, which is named after the then-commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police, Col. James Macleod. He’s the man who is remembered by Macleod Trail in Calgary and is credited with giving Calgary itself its name, based on his favourite place in Scotland.Macleod’s legacy permeates what was once known as Fort Calgary, as well as much of Southern Alberta. The change in name simply confuses Calgarians and visitors to the city who want nothing more than to imbue themselves in an integral and tangible part of our past.The junction at the meeting of the Bow and Elbow rivers was named Fort Calgary in 1876, as the North-West Mounted Police struggled to bring law and order to the West. Along with countering American rum and whisky runners, the agency’s aim was to strengthen relationships with Indigenous People. Macleod himself has a stellar reputation in that respect.As much as civic leaders and their woke placeholders would like us to believe otherwise, Fort Calgary isn’t just the coincidental mingling of two rivers. It is much more, including being a special traditional meeting place of indigenous People.The richness of the place could have been thoughtfully made more embracive without the full-scale scuttling of history. Indeed, many of the new displays now being contemplated could have been constructed within the walls of Fort Calgary.A few hours up the QE II Highway, there’s Fort Edmonton, which was a strategic post for the Hudson Bay Co. There seems to be no appetite in Alberta’s capital to turn their back on the past, but then again, Edmonton was able to construct a first-class NHL arena without tripping on the ice.Attractions such as Heritage Park and Calgary Zoo should count themselves lucky, because their names are generic and don’t stir deep feelings. Presumably these attractions won’t have to shoulder the cost of new signage and messaging simply because some newly awoken folk decide their names possess an odour of colonialism or are politically incorrect.One increasingly suspects rebranding is the chosen trick of those employed in the public domain. Hired to be caretakers of treasured cultural assets, they instead diminish the value of these vestiges of our history. Perhaps a drop in attendance and the requisite expenses for signage and stationery are chalked up to a larger vision — a perspective the regular citizenry isn’t capable of comprehending.Calgarians have lost a critical connection to their past with the renaming of Fort Calgary. If you ask someone to meet you at The Confluence, don’t be surprised if they’re waiting for you outside of a restroom.The title means very little, and Calgary’s past is being disposed of in the toilet.David Marsden is a Calgary writer and editor. He was previously managing editor of the Red Deer Advocate and editorial page editor of the Calgary Herald.
