I was standing a few years back at a modern suburban school on a winter morning waiting. It is one of the city’s big and very successful junior high schools, with an award winning French teacher I am for the day standing in for.  I look out the second floor window to the darkened streets for kids do have to arrive here actually before the sun rises these days. It is about 8AM. The streetlights light the snow and I thank my lucky stars I got here OK myself, over icy roads from my home near downtown. The temperature with chill factor is about minus 30.

Slowly I see in the distance figures on the sidewalk, approaching the school, a few then more and more. Big yellow buses snake their way down the street and pull up, cars drop off kids. The day is beginning.  In the classroom later, of the 6 classes I teach, about 30 kids in each, attendance is nearly perfect.  It stuns me really.  Somehow, despite the weather, nearly all 200 of them are here. In other nations, schools on a day like this would be closed, with a declared Snow Day. Hey even in outlying districts of Calgary in 2012 some of the schools are closed with roads impassable.  But here in the city, the schools are open- and the kids are with few exceptions, all here.  I like the spirit.

The teacher has some great routines asking each grade 7-9 student in a chain type question and answer how they are today.  So often the answer is “Je me sens fatigue parce que je me suis couche tard”.  They are tired. They went to bed late.  Hey, these are teenagers, what else is new? But they also are all here. At 8 AM. In the cold.

They have come from many districts, Ranchlands, Dalhousie, Hawkwood, Citadel, the Hamptons, Edgemont, Hidden Valley. At some city schools kids are bussed from far away and for the high schools some students to get specialized programs like International Baccalaureat, take city buses and their commute is a subway and a bus, and can take over an hour.  But it is safe travel, in warm vehicles most of the commute.

How kids and teachers get to school has changed a lot since pioneer times.

It may take some effort now and some time. It always did.

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It is hard to even register the other world. There were no roads in some areas and the school was in the middle of a field you crossed on foot. The roads might be just two tracks, full of mud after the rain.  These were the days when roads had snowdrifts so deep nobody could go down them not even in a car.  Some areas a teacher might have to walk to across a creek to school and if the rain washed out a bridge one teacher near St. Paul in northern Alberta had to borrow a pig trough and use it like a boat to get across the river to school.One pioneer teacher found she had to cross a field that had a bull in it.

Kids came on foot then, over fields, holding hands, urging each other ahead.  They might follow the fence especially if it was misty or dark or in a blizzard. Early students had to walk across Nose Creek to get to school at Bridgeland. Some came on horseback, alone, without saddles, or in groups, sometimes several on the same horse. They came in horse-pulled buggies sometimes delivered by the parent and sometimes if they were over 8, in the wagon themselves. Some came in wagons sitting on benches that were not attached to the frame and bounced. 

Riding a horse is a skill most farm kids picked up early.  They had to learn how to saddle it, ride it, check it for injuries, nurse it and feed it and of course clean up after it. In return the horses were often very gentle, knew the way home when the child was confused or tired and they waited patiently all day in the school barn for the child to be ready to go home.  Some of the horses the children rode were so gentle kids could even walk around between their legs but it was also not uncommon for small children to learn the hard way about how to approach a horse. One boy in 1921 at age 2 was kicked in the head by a horse he walked up to from behind, scaring it, and the boy had the scars for the rest of his life.

It was not easy to ride a horse since it might shy or spook seeing a rabbit, a gopher, leaves fluttering, or a bird soaring out of a bush. A horse that turned suddenly could throw a rider and even if the horse was pulling a buggy, if the horse turned fast, it might flip the buggy over on its side.  Horses can trip in gopher holes, get stuck in mud or if you happened to get off the horse for any reason, the horse might gallop away.  If you left the gate open at school, most of the horses were ‘homers’ and would automatically, if loose, head for home.

Kids learned how to settle a horse, how to get them to go where you wanted. Some put rags around the horse’s nose to keep out flies in the summer and did tricks standing on the horses’ backs as a game.  They got very adept at hitching up the horses at afternoon recess, so they were all ready when the bell rang to go home.

Most rural schools had to have a stable or barn for the horses to wait in while the kids were in school . Though the parents got the kids ready to go and tied up the horses to the buggy, that task of untying them and then attaching them again at the end of the day often became a shared job of students and the teacher. Early teachers were sometimes given a horse to ride to their school and one discovered hers always went in a circle the first day. She had tied both reins to the same side of the bridle. Since the teacher was usually the only adult around, she might also be called on to help with a horse’s injured leg, cut on a wire fence, to help hitch up the horses to the buggy or to even help as one teacher did, a mare give birth in the school barn.

In 1883 there was a stagecoach between Calgary and Edmonton. The trip took five days, weaving along to each stopping house, progress on the journey. The ride cost $25. It was an era when bridges were not always there if you came to a river, and if there was a bridge there, it might not be sturdy anyway.  In 1884 a flood washed away the bridge on the Elbow River and there wasn’t even a bridge across the Bow at this place till 1887.

Nobody came to school by train but kids did play near the train sometimes. When it arrived from the east in 1883 a bridge had to be built over the Elbow River for it and rivers were sometimes not so much looked at as something to cross but as something to ride down on. Some early buildings were made from logs cut then floated down the river to where they were needed . Building strong enough bridges to cross was a bit of trial and error. In 1897 a flood at 10 PM one June night wrecked two of the three bridges in town. Sometimes a ferry seemed cheaper and more reliable. There was a ferry in 1890 that went to Bow Island Park.In 1891 a train line was set up from Calgary to Edmonton.

There were innovations of course. The first car arrived in Calgary in 1902 and it ran on gasoline.  A car trip to Edmonton now took only two days.  Cars were so new that rules were set up that if a car and a horse came up to the same crossing point, the horse got to go first. It was always a problem to not scare the horses too from the sound of the car engine.

In 1908 north of the river was still not part of Calgary and a private company built a bridge and didn’t have to ask permission from anyone to do so. It crossed at right angles to the river about 300 feet west of where today’s  Centre Street Bridge is and ended just east of it.   Gravel was hauled across the bridge and later wagons took clay back and forth over it. By 1918 bridges had to be built strong enough to support a steam drive threshing machine.

In 1908 a bridge was also built to St. George’s Island (the zoo  now) and by 1910 the city had 423 motor vehicles.  A car was fun and faster than walking but not very fast really.   In 1907 one driver said that he was filled with ‘heart pumping excitement ‘ when his car went 30 mph.  But the roads were not paved, and the mud created problems. It was not unusual to be driving merrily along and then get stuck in the mud and have to get oxen to pull you out.

By 1912 Calgary had 643 registered automobiles and 22 miles of paved streets. The area just outside town was not paved though, and a ride in the country quickly presented challenges.

In 1917 first you had to adjust two levers on the steering wheel, run to the front and pull out the wire choke. Then you had to crank and crank the car at the front, and if that did not work, kicking it might. Then you’d run around inside to adjust the lever there and press the floor pedal. The gas tank was under the passenger seat which might itself be a problem if you crashed. The car did not go fast and it had trouble going up hill. Passengers might have to get out and push. If you were going through mud or deep ruts of sand, they may have to get out and push again.

If you did get going well, the dust from the road was intense and some early cars had side curtains that snapped on the sides and top to keep passengers dry.  Many drivers looked at the sky before they even set out on a trip, trying to figure out if they should up chains on the tires for if it rained.

People tried lots of stunts with cars too, trying to go straight up a steep hill seeing if you tipped or not. In 1903 some people tried driving their car on the frozen river from Red Deer to Drumheller.  One stunt driver in 1922, Paul Welch, drove at ‘breakneck ‘speed to Edmonton and got there in only 10 hours.   Getting someone to drive you to school in their car was exciting but not always reliable . The car might not start on a cold day. The engine might conk out and the driver may not be sure how to fix it.

One of the fun ways to get around though was the streetcar which arrived  in 1904. It was open to the elements and stopped at every block in the town to let people on and off but then it was a small town. By 1909 the city had bought two streetcars that went from 8th avenue to Victoria Park (where the Stampede Grounds are now).  By 1913 the route went farther, with one leg through Sunnyside to pick up train workers. One subway went up the hill to the north end of Centre street bridge while another took people downtown.  In 1910 the street car line went out to Bowness. The city now had 11 street cars and 3 different loops.

 The street car was still running in 1937 and cost 25 cents for ten tickets. The city kept using it till 1950, when it bought trolley buses, and then later gas buses. Ultimately the streetcar idea was replaced by the C train.

Some kids in summer might bike to school..  Sears catalogues in 1902 had velocipedes and tricycles with iron wheels since rubber was not used for bike tires yet. 

In rural areas north of town some kids even came to school with a dog team pulling the kids in a sled and others came in a horse-drawn sleigh. In cold weather when the teacher got to the little school early, to light the fire and get everything ready, she was often cheered up to hear sleigh bells in the distance. It meant someone else was coming too.

Lanterns were vital in those early years.  A farmer herding cattle might hold the lantern up to make sure the cows went on either side of him back to the barn.  Chores feeding animals or collecting eggs from the hens, fetching water or wood might have to be done in the dark and lanterns were vital.

Because it was dark at night and even for a few hours on a winter morning, the trip to and from school might be a little eerie. Calgary got its first street lights in 1908 and they were natural gas brought in from Medicine Hat.  It beat trying to see by light of the moon or stars or a lantern.

Nobody came to school by airplane but by 1914-18 kids in Calgary were all excited because there was such a thing as an airplane. They had seen some too. After the war little single engine planes were here taking people around for tourist rides.  Little planes did not always find airports to land on and sometimes if they landed in a field people would gather to shine their car headlights to help the landing. Planes were used to deliver goods to country worksites even if what they were delivering was an explosive needed to blow up rock. It was dangerous and people were not always careful.

Some pilots for fun tried stunt flying right overhead.  One pilot ‘buzzed’ the train that the 4th Prince of Wales was on.  In 1916 a 19 year old pilot did stunt flying over Calgary, showing off  nose dives. In 1919 he had a problem and had to do an emergency landing. He set down on the top of the merry go round at the Stampede.

The kids who walked to school might be quite late and rural teachers would look out the door sometimes and see kids trudging through snow drifts and pulling each other along.  A teacher may even have to run out to help carry the littler kids into the building.

When kids had to get to and from school on their own like this, going several miles and sometimes in bad weather, on horseback or walking, they got pretty good at reading the weather from looking at the sky.  It mattered that they were dressed for rain or heat.  They knew that if birds were flying high, if smoke was rising quickly or if there had been heavy dew at night, the weather would be good. They knew that if the smoke from the chimney was going down, if there were dark clouds, if the clouds were long and stringy or if there was a halo around the sun, the weather would be bad.

Getting to and from school was not quite as hard in the city but it still had some challenges.  In 1921 there was a flood again, in Sunnyside and one school’s basement filled with water. The kids had to be walked twice a day down the road to another school to use the washroom there.  Even in 1943 in the Belfast area of town, it was so far from the inner city that a farmer had to come round to pick up the kids to go home in his hay wagon.

When the depression came, many people who had bought cars no longer could afford gas for them and some hitched up a horse to pull the car around. The engine and windows were taken out and the car was like an wagon, but with nicer seats and tires. This buggy arrangement was named after the prime minister at the time, a Bennett buggy.

Eventually school buses were purchased by some districts. In 1950 the first ones appeared with  red with white lettering.  Roads had improved, children who wanted to go to high school might not have to live in a distant town after all but could commute. It was not till 1955 that the school buses were yellow, and got nicknames like the ‘cheese wagon’. The culture of the school bus was a new one because children now were ferried, taxied to destination, in warmth. The bus driver got to know them by name, shared the joys of their creations from school, worried if they were sick and not at the stop for a few days.   You still see school bus shelters on some rural roads. Some of them have been there a long time. Oh if the walls could talk.