Calgary is a hamlet on the northwest coast of the Isle of Mull, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland, United Kingdom. The hamlet is within the parish of Kilninian and Kilmore. It was the origin of the name of Fort Calgary in Canada, which became the city of Calgary, Alberta.
Geography
Calgary is situated on the B8073, about west of Dervaig, and from the island's capital Tobermory. The settlement is a small community of houses scattered near a hotel and the Calgary Farmhouse.
The hamlet is at the eastern end of Calgary Bay and is framed by low hills, partly wooded. A broad area of machair (a grassy meadow growing on calcareous sand) lies between the land and the beach. As the tide falls a river meanders across the sands. The beach is served by a small car parking area and public toilets. It is not an official campsite but there is a designated area for short-stay wild camping in tents. Calgary Castle overlooks the bay.
History
Calgary Bay|left|thumb
The name comes from the Gaelic, Cala ghearraidh, meaning Beach of the meadow (pasture). "Cala" is the word specifically used for a hard, sandy beach suitable for landing a boat, which relates plausibly to the location. However, the museum on the Isle of Mull explains that kald and gart are similar Old Norse words, meaning "cold" and "garden", that were likely used when named by the Vikings who inhabited the Inner Hebrides. A small stone pier, originally built to allow "Clyde puffers" (small steam-driven cargo boats) to deliver coal to the Mornish Estate, was also used to take sheep to and from grazing on the Treshnish Isles and gives a further possible reason for the name of the bay. A rocky knoll above the houses still has the remains of a dun, though many of its stones were taken to build the houses.
alt=Rope sculpture at Calgary Bay|thumb|Rope sculpture at Calgary Bay
On the East side of the bay Calgary House, now called Calgary Castle, was built in 1817 extending an earlier Calgary Estate laird's house. Colonel James Macleod, Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police, was a summer guest here. In 1876, shortly after returning to Canada, he suggested its name for Fort Calgary which gave rise to the city of Calgary, Alberta, a metropolis of 1,700,000.
Literature
The second verse of Sorley Maclean's poem Tràighean (from Dàin do Eimhir) opens with a powerful invocation of the natural beauty of Calgary bay as symbolic of spending eternity with a loved one: