HTML: Perplexity AI
Source: Susan Hornburg acreage SW of Calgary AB 1989
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| AI‑generated c/w Dad’s Chinook Arch, Foothills near Calgary, early spring light |
The Susan Hornburg mystery acreage
Searches for Susan Hornburg in connection with an acreage southwest of Calgary in the late 1980s turn up almost nothing in digitized sources. The surname Hornburg does appear in Alberta (for example, in military memorials and general obituary listings), but not tied to a specific SW Calgary property in 1989.
In Alberta, detailed ownership information for that period lives mainly in:
- the Calgary Land Titles Office (name searches, historical titles),
- municipal assessment/tax rolls (City of Calgary or surrounding counties), and
- local newspaper archives (Calgary Herald and similar) where sales, disputes, or community notes might mention a property.
Without a legal description, quarter‑section, or at least a road name, this particular “Hornburg acreage” remains a local unknown: a story that clearly existed, but hasn’t made it into the searchable record in a way that connects name, place, and year.
Author note: she helped me get into beekeeping (story here), and she later took me on a hack in the Foothills by her acreage that stayed with me
(a hack is simply a horseback ride in the surrounding fields or woods... the later IT meaning comes from going back to original code to either fix it & protect it, or to break into it, respectively white- & black-hat hacking!).
Zahava Hanen’s ranch in the Pekisko Valley
A short drive further south, and the picture sharpens. In the Pekisko Valley, about 100 km south of Calgary and southwest of Longview, sat the ranch of Zahava “Goldie” Hanen (1928–2015).
Hanen’s property was not a suburban acreage but a substantial working ranch—roughly 1,800 acres of deeded and leased grassland along Pekisko Creek. She was a Calgary‑born rancher, writer, and environmentalist who became well known for taking on Esso/Imperial Oil over pollution from the Quirk Creek gas plant in the early 1990s, eventually reaching a settlement after a long fight through the Energy Resources Conservation Board and the courts.
Archival summaries describe her as an “author, environmentalist, and ranch owner” and note that she founded the Samuel Hanen Society of Resource Conservation in 1993. On her land, amid the foothills and traditional Indigenous territories, there are references in local memory to a teepee on the property—consistent with how many ranchers in the region used tipis as cultural or educational features, even if that detail rarely appears in short catalog descriptions.
Her personal papers—the Zahava Hanan fonds at the University of Calgary Archives—include extensive material on her ranch, conservation work, and the Esso dispute, and likely hold more nuance about relationships, land use, and daily life than the public abstracts show.
Author note: only in W. Canada would you call 100 km. 'a short drive' (mind you I drove to Banff from Calgary for dinner way back when).
Andy Russell: from mountain man to national conservation figure
In the same broad sphere of southern Alberta ranching and environmental advocacy stands Andrew G. A. “Andy” Russell, CM (1915–2005). Born near Lethbridge and raised on a ranch near Pincher Creek, Russell worked as a trapper, cowboy, and big‑game guide before becoming one of Canada’s best‑known wilderness writers and filmmakers.
His home base for decades was the Hawk’s Nest Ranch, a log house along the northeastern boundary of Waterton Lakes National Park. From there he produced books and films such as:
- Grizzly Country (1967)
- Trails of a Wilderness Wanderer (1971)
- Memoirs of a Mountain Man (1984)
- The Life of a River (1987), on the Oldman River and the fight against the dam
Russell was a leading voice against the Oldman River Dam, a recipient of the Order of Canada (1977) and the J.B. Harkin Conservation Award (1990), and an inspiration for later proposals to protect the headwaters of the Oldman and St. Mary rivers—some explicitly framed as an “Andy Russell–I’tai sah kòp Park” in recognition of both his legacy and Piikani traditional territory.
Archival notes also mention that in the 1980s, Zahava Hanen became the companion of Andy Russell. Whether that relationship was romantic, a partnership of fellow conservationists, or something in between may only be clear in letters, diaries, or unpublished memoir material in collections at the Glenbow Museum, the University of Calgary, and the Provincial Archives of Alberta.
Author note: the teepee in the "back 40" was apparently occupied by him
(land was originally homesteaded in 640 acre lots: the 'back 40' was either the original lot often with the original sod or log cabin, or the part left undeveloped or uncleared either to dump clearing debris or to leave as-is as part of early conservation efforts; Russell & teepee would fall under the latter category).
From local unknown to broader famous
The arc here runs from a barely traceable name on a SW Calgary acreage—Susan Hornburg, a local mystery—to a fiercely independent rancher and environmental litigant in the Pekisko Valley—Zahava Hanen—and then to a province‑wide and nationally recognized figure—Andy Russell.
All three are tied to the same landscape: the ranchlands, foothills, and river systems of southwestern Alberta. The difference is how much of their story has so far made it into public archives, published books, and searchable indexes. The Hornburg acreage may yet surface in a land‑title search, an old newspaper clipping, or a family album; Hanen’s and Russell’s stories are already part of Alberta’s conservation history, waiting for the next researcher to connect the dots.
Tags: Alberta history, Calgary acreages, Pekisko Valley, Zahava Hanen, Andy Russell, environmental history, land titles, local archives
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