March 2007 ISSUE

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FEATURE

Professions, Alberta Bridges
Highlight Book Ventures

Perhaps interesting history on the professions lurks in that old box in the corner of your garage. Or maybe you’ve got great documentation of how Alberta’s bridges helped propel the province to the eminence it enjoys today. If so, here’s the chance you’ve been waiting for — to share your information with the world

The APEGGA Education Foundation is embarking on two exciting book publishing projects to tell the story of engineering and the geoscience professions in Alberta. And you, our members, are invited to help.

The first book will be a history of the professions in Alberta that make up your Association. These professions first developed in Europe and eastern North America. They were brought to Alberta by members of the Geological Survey of Canada, such as George Dawson, and engineers such as Peter Turner Bone. Their work helped chart and define the west, and create the CPR mainline in the 1880s.
The influence of engineers and geologists continued with the expansion of the railway network, the construction of irrigation systems and urban utilities, and the development of Alberta’s coal and petroleum resources.

BRIDGE BRIGADE A crew of builders on the Louise Bridge project, a Bow River crossing in Calgary, pose for this 1906 photo. It was taken by a man we have only one name for, Ainsworth, the foreman.

All these activities contributed to Alberta’s first economic boom, before the First World War. APEGGA was first established in 1920 as the Association of Professional Engineers of Alberta, at the initiative of engineers who saw the need to ensure public safety and the efficient development of the Alberta economy. 

The second book is a history of bridges, from the one built in the 1860s by the Oblate Missionaries to span the Sturgeon River at St. Albert to the steel and concrete structures that are part of the new Calgary and Edmonton ring roads. Bridges are worthy of a separate book because of the wealth of information on their construction and the pervasive role they’ve played in Alberta’s history.

Virtually every rural and urban community has one or more bridge stories in its history. Bridges unite cities and the province itself because of their role in the Alberta railway and highway transportation system. The Centre Street bridge in Calgary served as a monument to Canada’s place in a united British Empire.    

 
A steering committee will direct the two projects. It’s chaired by Life Member Tony Howard, P.Eng., a past president of both APEGGA and the Educational Foundation. The work of researching and writing the books will be undertaken by an historian and an engineer.

John Gilpin has a PhD in economic history and has written extensively on the history of Alberta. Marcel Chichak, P.Eng., is an engineer with Alberta Transportation and Infrastructure. They’ll embark on an extensive research journey, taking them through archives and libraries in Alberta and Ottawa, and through the documentation and records of various other groups.      

APEGGA members can help make these projects successful in a number of ways. You can help fund the project. You can volunteer to serve on the steering committee or a subcommittee working on specialties within engineering and the geosciences.

Or you can rifle through desks, homes and offices — wherever history might lurk — for documents relating to your careers, the development of individual companies, specific projects, and activities of APEGGA.

The foundation  also wants to hear from members with stories to tell of their experiences as engineers, geologists and geophysicists, or who know of members who should be interviewed for this purpose.

One legacy of this project is the publications themselves. Another, however, is the preservation of documents and the collective memory of the people who made the professions what they are today.