Calgary Parks 100 Project
Celebrating Calgary Parks 100th Anniversary!
The Calgary Parks 100 Project is a partnership between the City
of Calgary Parks, and the Calgary Area Cachers to celebrate Calgary
Parks 100th anniversary. Calgary Parks has supplied cache
containers and swag for 100 caches, and the we have placed these
100 caches in 100 parks around Calgary. These caches have some cool
swag and trackables when placed, so make sure to find them as soon
as they are published.
Who was Thomas
Blakiston?
Thomas Blakiston was born in 1832 in Lymington, Hampshire,
England. In 1851 he received his commission in the Royal Artillery
and served in England, Ireland and Nova Scotia before fighting in
the Crimean War.
In 1857-59 he explored western Canada with the Palliser
Expedition and three years later was in China where he organized an
expedition up the Yangtze River going 900 miles further than any
westerner before him.
He crossed Siberia and decided to develop a lumber industry in
an area so far untouched. He sent for three shiploads of equipment
from England but by the time it arrived he still did not have
permission from the Russian government. Possibly the first western
entrepreneur in the area, he decided to take his equipment and
develop an industry in northern Japan.
Although most of the next 23 years was spent in business, he
compiled a catalogue of the birds of northern Japan and is today
renowned as one of Japan's outstanding naturalists.
In 1886 he moved to the United States where he recorded some of
his work for the United States National Museum. A number of species
of birds are named after him such as Blakiston's Fish Owl (Ketupa
Blakiston).
While visiting San Diego he caught pneumonia and died in 1891.
He was buried in Columbus, Ohio.
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more information on Thomas Blakiston