Canada-Calgary TB

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Photos in the travel bug logs are appreciated.  I will be re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

This wooden maple leaf recalls the maple leaf on the national flag of Canada.  Most people people living in the United States couldn’t name many cities in Canada, unless they live in the northern tier of states or Alaska.  This series of “Canada” travel bugs brings attention to the largest metropolitan areas in that country. 

Calgary is a city in the province of Alberta.  It has the third largest metropolitan population in Canada.  It is situated at the confluence of the Bow River and the Elbow River in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately 50 mi east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies.  As of the 2011 census, metropolitan population of 1,214,839, making it the largest city in Alberta, and the third-largest municipality and fifth-largest metropolitan area in Canada.  The economy of Calgary includes Energy, Financial Services, Film and TV, Transportation and Logistics, Technology, Manufacturing, Aerospace, Health and Wellness, Retail, and Tourism sectors.   In 1988, Calgary became the first Canadian city to host the Olympic Winter Games. 

The Calgary area was inhabited by pre-Clovis people whose presence has been traced back at least 11,000 years.   Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the area was inhabited by the Blackfoot, Blood, Peigan and the Tsuu T'ina First Nations peoples, all of which were part of the Blackfoot Confederacy.  In 1787, cartographer David Thompson spent the winter with a band of Peigan encamped along the Bow River.  He was a Hudson's Bay Company trader and the first recorded European to visit the area.   Originally named Fort Brisebois, after NWMP officer Éphrem-A. Brisebois, it was renamed Fort Calgary in 1876.  It was named after Calgary on the Isle of Mull, Scotland.  While there is some disagreement on the naming of the town, the museum on the Isle of Mull explains that kald and gart are similar Old Norse words, meaning "cold" and "garden", that were likely used when named by the Vikings who inhabited the Inner Hebrides.  Alternatively, the name might come from the Gaelic, Cala ghearraidh, meaning 'beach of the meadow (pasture)'.