Twelve Mile Coulee Natural Environment Park - Calgary, AB, Canada - Municipal Parks and Plazas on Waymarking.com

Twelve Mile Coulee is the most recently designated Natural Environment Park in Calgary. Part of Calgary’s river valley park system, this 190 hectare park is located adjacent to the community of Tuscany in NW Calgary. Dominant features of the park include an escarpment area and a coulee. City of Calgary Parks has a draft management plan for the park; if implemented in its current form, many of the informal trails through the area will be closed off and remediated. The draft plan calls for approximately 10 km of formal trails, interpretive signage, some benches and two parking areas.

The term coulee is most commonly used in the prairies. What’s called a coulee here would be considered a gully in eastern Canada. The term originated with the voyageurs, who noticed as they crossed the prairies that the main rivers and streams had many small side valleys, some with intermittent water flow. These areas were called “coulees”, after the French verb “couler” which means “to flow”. Today, the word coulee refers to relatively small, V-shaped valleys that may have permanent or intermittent streams. Development of coulees is generally not economically feasible, so they are often preserved as natural areas. Twelve Mile Coulee is approximately 290 meters wide and 50 meters deep at its southern end; a spring and stormwater fed creek meanders through the base of the coulee in a southerly direction from Tuscany Boulevard.

The coulee is not, however, 12 miles long. Rather, the name originates from the fact that it’s approximately 12 miles from Fort Calgary and was a convenient mileage marker on the stagecoach run from the Fort Calgary main post office to the mission church built in 1873 at Morleyville, by Methodist minister George McDougal.

The human history of Twelve Mile Coulee is far older than the days of the NorthWest Mounted Police. An archeological assessment of the area prior to the development of Tuscany found evidence of camping and hunting dating back 8000 years. A 2000 year old stone circle (Blackfoot tipi ring) has been preserved in the park.

Vegetation - grasslands comprise a large area of the park; however, a number of other vegetation communities exist including: low shrub, upland tall shrub, riverine tall shrub, white spruce, balsam poplar and aspen. There is also a limited wetland area along the intermittent stream.

Wildlife – the diverse vegetation in the park means there is habitat suitable for over 100 vertebrate species; most commonly seen are Richardson’s ground squirrels, northern pocket gophers, meadow voles, and Swainson’s and red-tailed hawks.

Geological interest – towards the south end of the coulee, the creek as cut through the bedrock. The trail through this area is one of the best places in Calgary to get up close to the Porcupine Hills Formation bedrock which underlies most of the city. The Porcupine Hills Formation is a sandstone sedimentary rock that was laid down approximately 60 million years ago.

Name: Twelve Mile Coulee Natural Environment Park Street Location: west of Stoney Trail, north of Nose Hill Drive Local Municipality: Calgary State/Province, etc.: AB Country: Canada Web Site: [Web Link] Recreational Facilities: Hiking and biking trails Art (murals/sculpture, etc.): Sunning Buffalo Ponds/Lakes/Streams/Rivers/Beach: intermittent creek Traditional Geocaches: At the time of submission, there were about half a dozen geocaches in the park area. Use the usual link to geocaching.com for current information. Memorial/Commemoration: Not listed Date Established: Not listed Picnic Facilities: Not listed Monuments/Statues: Not listed Fountains: Not listed Special Events: Not listed

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Date Logged Log   04/18/2009 wildwoodke visited it

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