The City of Calgary will remove a 125-year-old Stampede Elm tree that to help make way for the upcoming Event Centre construction in Victoria Park.
There will be an effort to preserve the tree’s legacy moving forward, according to a media release from the City of Calgary.
It’s part of an update on work to prepare the area for the $1.2 billion Event Centre project that was approved last year. There have already been some preparations made to start work in the area, with work done on underground services.
Upcoming work will include the shift of 5 Street SE to the east to become 5A Street.
The City said that two of three development permits have been submitted for work to strip, grade and excavate in preparation for the area. The third permit will be for the building itself, including the exterior façade and the interior layout.
Design and groundbreaking for the project is still expected in 2024.
The Stampede Elm will be removed this spring, the city said.
In 2021, the City of Calgary partnered with the University of Calgary to digitally capture the tree. It was scanned from 12 locations with a terrestrial laser scanner and is a part of their Alberta Digital Heritage Archive.
“We are grateful the University of Calgary was able to use this technology to capture the Victoria Park Elm. They were able to create a tactile tool that can be used to tell the tale of this tree for future generations,” said Bob Hunter, Event Centre Lead, in a prepared media release.
“Their work will allow us to remember and honour what Calgary’s landscape looked like in its first 150 years.”
Calgary Parks has collected 150 seeds from the tree itself, with some having already been planted in a city nursery. Branches were also cut from the tree to try to create additional self-supporting trees that will be genetically identical.
The City hopes to re-plant between 100 and 200 trees that are direct descendants of the Stampede Elm. The seed cuttings take several years to propagate and success rate isn’t guaranteed.
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Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott said he was inspired by the efforts undertaken to the commitment to see the Stampede Elm live into the future.
“I know how hard it is to move a tree that’s that old and I applaud the efforts,” he said.
“The Stampede Elm’s going to have a legacy, it just won’t be in the same spot. I think that’s kind of cool.”
The area councillor said he understands certain things make people nostalgic and that represent the past for them, and he said he would never begrudge them those cherished memories. He said that he always questions whether we’re honouring a structure or a story, and the story of this Stampede Elm is going to last 150 years from now, he said.
“I think that’s a pretty powerful story about growth and I would only ever want to have that conversation,” Coun. Walcott said.
“I know how hard it is to pull someone off the thing that they find nostalgia in, the thing that really matters to them as something that was an anchor of how they view the city. But it’s not gone, it’s just changing and it’s just growing in a different way now… So, that’s a pretty interesting story to tell.”
