On another note, I'm still waiting for a reply from my landlord stating that he'll let me out of my lease by the end of September. I think that's fair considering that's still two months more in this building by the time I find another place and move out.
I went for a drive after work, then a short walk near Signal Hill. Of all the years I've lived here, I never knew what the numbers on the side of the hill stood for ... obviously it's a signal - hence the name, but it looks like some kind of code. Here's the real story:
Battalion Park on Signal Hill (both the park and the hill are named for the numbers). In 1910, a militia camp was established on land that was leased from the Sarcee (Tsuu'tina) First Nation, more than a day's travel from Calgary.
During WWI, this became a large military training camp. Lacking much to do in their off hours, the soldiers training there dreamed up something that today would be called a "team-building exercise": carry rocks up the big hill that overlooked the camp, and use them to make the unit numbers of the battalions training there. Because many of the trainers were from the United Kingdom, they saw an opportunity to utilize the abundance of field stones as a training exercise, to display the soldiers battalion numbers, as so often was done in the UK. So in 1915-16 field stones, were carried up the hill and arranged by the soldiers in their Battalion numbers
Calgary: 137, Lethbridge; 113, Red Deer: 151 and Edmonton 51.
Those soldiers from the 137 Battalion, who survived the war, came home with a mission to save the Stones of Signal Hill, which had become a symbol of their lost comrades. Over the decades, the numbers slowly became invisible, as growth and erosion took their toll.
In the early 1990's, development threatened the neglected site, as plans were announced to grade the hillside to provide a larger flat area at the base for a future shopping centre. After extensive lobbying by those interested in preserving this historic site, a compromise was reached: the hill would be graded, but the Calgary military cadet units would recreate the numbers on the new slope with the original stones. The result is Battalion Park, a park on the side of the hill with interpretive signs explaining the history of the numbers and of the military units that they represent."
Anyway, I'm off to Edmonton bright and early in the morning - I'm aiming to be on the road by 6am... yuck! I'm staying overnight in a pretty nice hotel called the Matrix and by looking at the photos, it's very slick. Then the double header baseball game on Saturday between Edmonton and Calgary where we'll be promoting the Tomorrow Project. We were on CTV news last night, and some of my team got some air time. The Project's getting a lot of publicity and attention which is fantastic, since we need 50,000 participants! You can see the news clip here:
CTV News Clip
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