Alberta
Province
Located in western Canada bordered by British Columbia on the west and Saskatchewan
on the east side.
In 1870, the Hudson's Bay Company transferred its territory Rupertsland to Canada. In 1875 this North Western Territory was organised into the North-West Territories. In 1882
the whole area was divided into four "provisional districts" namely Assiniboia,
Saskatchewan, Athabasca, and Alberta.
The governor-general at the time was Marquis of Lorne who had been appointed Canada's governor-general in 1878. Seven years earlier, he married Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the 4th daughter of Queen Victoria. Fifty years later Princess Louise was asked about the truth of the claim that she was the person after whom our province was named - she replied: "...the beautiful, sunlit and prosperous province of Alberta was named after me by my husband, the Marquis of Lorne, when governor-general of Canada. He was asked
to name it, and it was wished that the name should be associated with his tenure
in office."
The Marquis of Lorne wrote at the time of the naming:
In token of the love which thou has shown
For this wide land of freedom, I have named
A province vast, and for its beauty famed
By thy dear name
Princess Louise was born in Buckingham House on the 18th of March 1848, and died over
91 years later on December 3, 1939. She married John Campbell, first son of the Duke of Argyll on March 21, 1871. She was the sixth of nine children born to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. She was a strong, independent woman of artistic temperament and exquisite taste. In her youth, she took sculpting at the National Art Training School, and a statue she did of her mother adorns a building in Montreal. One of her other statues of her mother was placed near Kensington Palace. Both Princess Louise and her husband were concerned for the welfare of the less fortunate. Among many other philanthropic causes often associated with the aristocracy, they were both instrumental in setting up thirty-five day schools for girls who, for a small fee, could get an education usually only available to the wealthy.
Apart from a province, she also had a lake in the mountains named after her in 1884 (Lake Louise). This lake had earlier been called Emerald Lake. The Stoney Nation referred
to it in their own language as the "Lake of the Little Fishes." Some years later, a mountain was named in her honour Mount Alberta. From: Canadian Encyclopedia. Edmonton, Alberta: Hurtig Press, 1988; Geographic Board of Canada. Place-Names of Alberta. Ottawa, Ontario: Department of the Interior, 1928; Geographical Names Program. Geographical Names Inventory database. Alberta. Department of Community Development. Historic Sites Service; McDougall, D. Blake. Princess Louise Caroline Alberta. Edmonton, Alberta: Legislature Library, 1988.