Flood of 2013 is certain to alter city and the river

Calgarians have had a tense relationship with the Bow River ever since the city's earliest days - including 1915, when flooding damaged this wooden bridge. Photo, courtesy Matthew Evenden.

Flood of 2013 is certain to alter city and the river

By Matthew Evenden, Calgary Herald June 28, 2013

Floods upend the world we know, our habits and our homes. Things are taken away, foundations shift and the power goes out. Lives are lost. Many southern Albertans know about this in a visceral way that I do not. As the water begins to recede on the Bow River this week, however, many people understandably search for meaning. One way to do that is to think about flooding in historical perspective.

Although the 2013 flood will go down as the largest flood in living memory, with the widest social impacts, the Bow has risen throughout its history. Float a canoe east of Calgary and you pass high cut banks, dotted with holes for nesting birds, which reveal the outlines of past surges of water and sediment that carved the valley over centuries.

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