Spring

For millennia, Nose Hill stood silent vigil as Glacial Lake Calgary receded and a river surging out from the mountains carved its way through the old lake bottom. Over the centuries that followed, the hill witnessed a succession of people sculpting a unique history within and around the Bow River Valley. Many of those people visited the Nose Hill itself, and its immediate surroundings.

The origin of the hill's name is unclear but common legend tells of a European explorer asking an aboriginal translator the name of the hill seen far off in the distance. The man replied: Nose Hill is the name it was given because from here it resembles the nose of our chief.

In December 1779 a well-known Hudson's Bay Company trader, Peter Fidler, recorded an excursion to the hill he went on with Peigan guides. HBC trader David Thompson wintered at a Peigan encampment on the Bow River in 1787-1788, and in 1800 returned to the area as a North-West Company employee. In his journal for the year, Thompson made specific note of Nose Hill