The City of Calgary's rendering of a restoration project in the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary that aims to tell the history of Chinese families who tilled the area almost 100 years ago. Photo supplied by City of Calgary.

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From 1929 to 1952, several immigrant Chinese families in Calgary tilled the land behind Col. James Walker’s historic home in what is now the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, farming vegetables that helped feed a growing city.

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For those 20-plus years, Chinese families and growers leased five-acre plots from Walker, who was one of Calgary’s founders and the owner of the land that would later become a federal migratory bird sanctuary on the west banks of the Bow River. He farmed the property, operated Calgary’s first sawmill and later leased portions of the land to Chinese-Canadian families, who operated successful gardens that helped supply Calgary with fresh produce and bedding plants.

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However, in the several decades since, the land — just south of the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary Nature Centre — has become degraded, allowing weeds and invasive species to proliferate, just steps from the Bow River and a hub for Calgary’s birdwatching community.

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Now, a city-led project aims to restore the land’s ecological health, while also teaching visitors about those Chinese urban agriculturalists and their contributions to Calgary’s history.

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Kaitlyn Pelletier, a landscape architect and project manager with the city’s parks delivery team, said the Chinese Market Gardens restoration combines habitat restoration, accessibility improvements and cultural interpretation to create a space where visitors can connect with nature and learn the history of the people who helped shaped the landscape.

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“It’s really about improving the habitat for the wildlife, while creating an interesting place for people to visit and celebrating the contributions of the Chinese immigrant families,” she said in an interview.

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“These stories have not been previously shared in this way, so I think it’s just an opportunity to leave a lasting environmental and cultural legacy for future generations.”

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While consultation with descendants of the Chinese Market Garden families — who Pelletier said have asked to remain in the background — began a few years ago, physical restoration work began in the space earlier this month.

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That work includes grading and levelling the site, removing or treating invasive weeds, tilling the soil, paving a new accessible asphalt pathway, installing fencing to protect new plantings and planting a protective crop cover to stabilize the soil during winter.

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Weeds and invasive species will be replaced with native grass species and wildflowers, with that work occurring throughout the next three years.

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“What we’ve been trying to communicate to the public is that green doesn’t always mean healthy,” Pelletier said. “It’s almost entirely invasive species and smooth brome grass, so that means it’s actually not a functioning, healthy landscape. So part of this work is removing those invasive species, replacing it with native species that provide a lot more biodiversity and habitat for the pollinators, the birds and the wildlife.”

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Because the site is now a protected federal migratory bird sanctuary, planting the same vegetable crops that were farmed nearly a century ago is not appropriate, according to the city’s web page.