by Anne Burke
A Nose Hill supporter told me there used to be a plaque in memory of John Lee Laurie at the Brisebois parking lot entrance to Nose Hill Park (Many Owls parking area). It appears that the plaque has now gone missing. He said, “Do you happen to know what happened to it and whether there are any plans for it to be reinstalled in the future?” I responded that my City contact would ask our infrastructure folks to see if they knew. A colleague did walk over to read the plaque once, but that was many years ago. It spoke of the help Laurie gave to First Nations. The official name of Mount Yamnuska is Mount John Laurie, but he has no knowledge of the installation of the plaque. When I chaired the Nose Hill Park Management Advisory Committee, the John Laurie Rock Society obtained the City’s permission to install the boulder that was moved during construction of the roadway.
John Lee Laurie (1899 to 1959) was a prominent educator and political activist in Calgary, best known for First Nations advocacy. From 1944 to 1956, he was the honourary secretary of the Indian Association of Alberta. When adopted by the Stoney Nakoda Nations, he was named “White Cloud” and recognized by having a major Calgary roadway and a Canadian Rockies peak named after him. Mount Yamnuska was officially renamed at the request of the Stoney Nakoda First Nation in 1961. Its original Stoney Nakoda name, Îyâmnathka, combines root words of “mountain” and “flat”, so “flat-faced mountain”. In 1979, concerned citizens collected over 5,000 signatures on a petition and on the Sunday before Monday’s Council meeting, marched along John Laurie Blvd in defence of Nose Hill Park. City Council voted against any development rezoning of Nose Hill Park lands.
