Few months ago when I was in Vancouver, British Columbia I went wander around its nicen little downtown with my cousin. We passed by a pretty old building with columns in front, and, driven by curiocity, went in to look around. All of a sudden we were shocked by the highly ornamented stained glass dome. Looking stright in front, it was an ordinary watch maker's supply store, named Page & Wilson. People there saw us coming in, approached us very freindly and started to tell us the history of this building. It was the old Vancouver branch of Bank of Canada, build after the greate Vancouver fire in 1905-1907. It used to be the only building around the region. On the second level panel there are stained glass panels of each canadian territories' Coat of Arms in addition to the british one (with a tag line: deu et mon droit). Back in 1905 not every current provinces of Canada were established. Alberta was one of the newly founded territorries founded in 1905. The worker in Page & Wilson pointed at me the Alberta Coat of Arms, explained the weirdness of it. It wasn't the current Alberta Coat of Arms where can see blue sky and cloud and mountains. Instead, there was a strange animal looks like a big rat. Nobody he asked know what it was.
It was an interesting visit especially for an almost touristic traveler to get to know the first-hand local information. I went to google the strange coat of arms on the panel. There weren't many information until I found this page on the Alberta Assembly where in a paragraph it stated:
"It is interesting to note than an editorial in the July 14, 1906, issue of the Lethbridge News appears to contradict Conrad Swan. It states, "The old Territorial shield contains an animal which may be either a polar bear or a white haired gopher, crawling on a checkerboard with four sheaves of wheat - not very original - on a white ground underneath." Since this editorial is quite humorous in nature, it is difficult to determine whether the information noted regarding the territorial arms is authentic or not. No other information has been found to substantiate it."
Ah-ha! It was exactly what it is on the stained glass panel. Did I made a touristic..nono...historic discovery? I was excited but did not do anything about it until two days ago (it was already 3 months later) I finnnnnaaaalllyyy decided to email it to the Alberta Legistlation regarding this found. Today I received a letter from the legislation library Valerie Footz that I was the first one who sent this pience of information to them; and they will conduct research about it. Sweet! Here's her original reply:
Hello,
Your email was forwarded to the Alberta Legislature Library. We were unaware that there was a reproduction of this Alberta Coat of Arms in existence. Yours is the first piece of further information we have received on this subject. We will now be able to conduct further research based on your information.
Thank you again for taking the time to let us know about this interesting find! We are very grateful to you!
Sincerely,
Valerie Footz
Manager, Library Operations
Alberta Legislature Library
I felt great for this found. I felt like I was Columbus who just quote unquote found the American continent. Obviously this thing has existed for years and many before me knows and thoghut about this question. I just sent an email to the legislation and it made me Columbus of the old coat of arms of alberta. The moral of this story is, is Columbus better off?
btw here are some pictures I took and a picture worth more than a thousand words, that's for sure.
this is the stained glass dome
A frontal view of the watch maker supply company
Second Floor Panel, due et mon droit is the central one, Alberta is the one to the left of the central one
This is the Old Alberta Coat of Arms, gopher on a chess board
