How things get their names: Prince Island Park

Buried within the metal heart of downtown Calgary, there is an island that serves as a verdant sanctuary from the intimidatingly phallic buildings that define the city’s corporate core. It floats there in the Bow River, tethered to the city with bridges but otherwise seemingly disinterested in the machinations of commerce and power occurring a few scant blocks away. Indeed, it seems ready to float away to some balmier, more hospitable clime, and while I enjoyed the hospitality of the island during the Calgary Folk Music Festival this past July, I also cautiously eyed the bridges for those first groans and cracks that would signify Prince Island’s great escape.

Curious readers might wonder about the origin of the name Prince Island, and I am all too happy to indulge your spirit of inquiry. Many rumours abound as to source of the island’s name, each surely speaking to some obscure truth lost to history. In fact, the festival was rife with speculation. For instance, some claim the island was renamed for the musician Prince during the mid-eighties in an attempt to lure the man to take up residence there—all part of a poorly conceived scheme to resurrect the city’s then-struggling, now-vanished velvet industry. However, it should be noted this story never makes it past the beer garden fence.

A somewhat more persuasive explanation is that the island was named after Donald Prince, a tragic 19th century lumber baron (“A prince among men,” his friends liked to say, “and yet still a pauper among women”). Donald was renowned across the whole of the prairies for his knowledge of the forest, while being equally infamous for his ignorance of his loyal wife, Theodosia.

Born in England, Theodosia had braved the journey to the colonies out of necessity, not desire, though she had resolved to make the most of her life there. As an opera singer of some regard in London, she would have been content to live the cosmopolitan life until her last strangled note, but the sooty air of her rapidly industrializing homeland steadily crippled her voice until that once mighty instrument tooted but a squeak. The fresh air of Canada proved to be a balm for her strained voice, and she salvaged her song, even though none in the fresh, uncultured land cared to hear her sing it.

The marriage had come about largely due to the persistence of Theodosia—she had snuck into the life of the perpetually distracted Donald by first posing as a maid, then a cook, and finally a lumberjack, felling a mighty pine tree and then revealing her true identity to the stupefied Donald, who proposed on the spot, so stunned was he by her superb axmanship—and the union continued due only to her dedication. The man’s fortune accumulated at an astounding rate, huge piles of bills molding and coins rusting in the mildewed corners of his mansion. But Theodosia cared not one whit to spend the rotten money, for it was that most precious commodity—time—which Donald hid away from her. Neglected by her love, Theodosia took to shadowing Donald on his walks into the forest, passing the time by whistling tunes to the birds, her only appreciative audience in this rude country.

Donald treated the forest with a reverence and intimacy typically reserved for lovers. He could tell the age of a tree just by lightly caressing the bark, while a birthmark in the shape of Italy on his wife’s lower back remained foreign territory to him. Blindfolded, he could note the type of tree just by the odor of its leaves, while the fragrant scent of his wife’s delicate farts—which, as befitting a lady, smelled only of hyacinths floating on a creek in summer—passed unremarked every Wednesday after their weekly chili night.

And so it came to pass that he would lose his wife through his own carelessness, while chopping trees—his favourite hobby, which he often pursued in the woods around their home. So forgetful of his wife, Donald cut a tree without considering that his lonely wife might be out there in the woods, singing to her birds. The tree cut her down in one blow, and the stunned Donald realized with horror his loss.

Atonement was in order. He took to the island in the Bow River and proceeded to clear it with his bare hands, tearing up trees by the roots and causing others to wither and die with his tears, salted to the point of poison with self-loathing. Next, he built a stage on his lonely little island, and each night he sat before it, waiting for the ghost of his wife to return and perform her music to a dedicated audience.

None were permitted onto the island, save for Donald, so who knows what he saw there each night? But people on the banks of the river reported an unearthly sound of unbearable sadness drifting across the water each night. Perhaps it was the voice of the dead Theodosia, or perhaps—more plausibly—the sorrowful lamentation of Donald himself. When he died, he was buried beneath the stage and the island named in his honour. Area residents still notice that ghostly song some nights, save for those four tranquil evenings in late July, when the Calgary Folk Music Festival comes to the island and the joyous tunes calm Donald’s restless spirit—or simply drown out his keening cry.