Trailblazer
Eric Harvie
The phone rang on Feb. 13, 1947…that call changed the life of Eric Harvie. He was 55 at the time, and the call was from the president of Imperial Oil. The Leduc No. 1 exploration well had hit a gusher on land where Harvie owned the mineral rights.
This savvy owner of a one man legal practice had moved to the West several years earlier and kept his eye on business opportunities in the new province of Alberta. He and his wife Dorothy spent their weekends with their three children on the ranch they owned, and called Glenbow. It was once part of the historic Cochrane Ranche and they’d owned it since 1933.
Eric Harvie’s passion was telling the story of the North American West through an extensive collection of artifacts. He established the Glenbow Foundation in 1954 and donated his vast collection to the people of Alberta in 1966. To this day, the Glenbow Museum expresses his vision; “Where the World Meets the West.” His donations to the Luxton Museum, the Calgary Zoo, Heritage Park and similar projects totaled over half a billion dollars.
Today the Glenbow Museum plays a major role in defining the culture of the Canadian West.
And what about Glenbow Ranch? In 1953, he passed it on to his son, Neil, a legendary beef producer who died in 1999. The Harvie family has sold it to the Alberta Government and it will become Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park, sparing it from development and fulfilling the wishes of their late father, Neil Harvie.
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