Shaws
History | Bow Valley Ranch | Bow Valley Ranch House | Glenns | Shannon Terrace

The Shaw family occupied a unique position in the human history of Fish Creek Provincial Park.  They built and operated the first factory in what is now the Province of Alberta.

LIFE OF LEISURE

In 1883 at age 47, chemist William Shaw, his wife Helen and their eight children yielded to the lure of the untamed west. The family was quite different from the many others who ventured to the new land.  During his 20 years of marriage, William had provided his family with the "good life" in Victorian England.  When the Shaws set out on their adventure west, they left a 38 room mansion, the servants who ran the household and amenities such as extensive gardens and their own stables.  The family planned carefully for their move, accumulating the items they thought they might need.  A partial list of those necessary items included: a grand piano, family portraits in oil, fine china, glass and silver (including silver candelabra and plate glass mirrors framed in purple velvet), bedding, clothing, yard goods, tents, medical supplies, dental instruments, leather, cobbler's tools, a telephone and telegraph keys, a sewing machine, hundreds of classical, technical and reference books, cameras and oak boxes filled with glass plate negatives and a box of bottles containing the chemicals necessary to develop prints from negatives and 30 tons of woolen mill equipment!  No other pioneer family prepared for success in the new land like the Shaws.

WESTWARD HO! 

The trip was rough.  After arriving in Quebec they journeyed by train to Winnipeg.  It was there that they bought two years of provisions and supplies for their trip to the new frontier.  The Winnipeg additions to their belongings included: five yoke of oxen, harnesses, wagons, canvas tarpaulins and axle grease, farm machinery including ploughs, cultivators, mowers, rakes, saws, axes, shovels, hoes, equipment for a blacksmith's shop, livestock, lanterns and coal oil, a ton of flour and other food supplies. All of their worldly possessions were loaded into boxcars and put on a construction train headed west.  The woolen mill would be shipped later.

Two days later they arrived at the end of the tracks at Siding 11, now Swift Current, Saskatchewan.  From there they traveled by oxen drawn wagon.  Originally, the family had planned to go to the Peace River country.  While waiting to be ferried across the Bow River at Calgary, Shaw met John Glenn who farmed and operated a trading post at the confluence of the Bow River and Fish Creek.  Shaw was so impressed with the area that he decided to stay and settle his family along Fish Creek west of Glenn's farm.  In June 1883, the Shaws built a homestead just west of present day Macleod Trail. For the first five months at their new homestead they lived in a marquee tent, with rooms partitioned off with blankets.  A wood-burning stove provided heat.  When the creek overflowed during spring of 1884, most of their belongings were washed away.  They were recovered soggy and damaged when the creek receded.  In due course, the Shaws built a log house with a sod roof, outbuildings, root cellars and corral.

ALBERTA'S FIRST INDUSTRY

The woolen mill equipment arrived in Calgary by freight train when the rail line reached Calgary in August 1883.  By 1889 the mill was operational.  The logs to build the mill had been hauled from west of Priddis and the water to operate the mill was supplied from John Glenn's irrigation project.  With a capacity of 300 pounds a day, the woolen mill produced blankets, material for clothing, yarns for knitting, flannel and other woolen goods.  The Sarcee enjoyed watching the mill in operation and named the place "Chee-ista-atsis-ioi" which means "making cloth". Eventually Mrs. Shaw opened a woolen store on 8th Avenue in Calgary and supplied many of the Yukon gold seekers with warm clothing as they headed northwest in 1898. Before the Bell company brought telephones to Calgary, Mr. Shaw installed his own telephone line between the Calgary store and the mill using barbed wire fences to transmit messages.

THE SHAWS AND THE COMMUNITY 

The Shaws were very much a part of the Midnapore community.  Mr. Shaw kept meticulous weather records.  He was the postmaster and also played the organ every Sunday at St. Paul's Anglican church.  He was the organist from the time the church was built until shortly before his death in 1919.  There was one two-week exception.  This resulted from the Bishop telling Mr. Shaw that he could not smoke his pipe in church.  Mr. Shaw said that if he could not smoke his pipe, he would not play the organ.  As there was no other organist available, the Bishop soon retracted his rule. The Shaws sold their mill to Buchan and Murray in 1902.  They moved some of the machinery to Calgary but three years later the mill was returned to its original owners.  The mill was shut down and the log building was used for storage.  In 1951, on a bright Easter day, Alberta's first woolen mill was destroyed in a fire.

MODERN DAY SHAWS 

There are many descendants of the Shaw family living in the Calgary area.  In 1983 they held a family reunion in honour of the arrival of the Shaw family to the area 100 years earlier.  Over 300 attended the reunion, including descendants and their families from all over North America. Today, in the Shaw's Meadow area of Fish Creek Provincial Park, a sculpture and sign mark the location of the Shaws' mill and homestead, another important chapter in the history of the Fish Creek Valley and Alberta.

WHERE IS SHAW'S MEADOW?

You can find Shaw's Meadow just west of Macleod Trail.  There trails through the area  but no facilities.