With the eastern face of the Rockies as its backdrop, the crisp concrete-and-steel skyline of Calgary, Alberta, seems to rise from the plains as if by sheer force of will. In fact, all the elements in the great saga of the Canadian West -- Mounties, native peoples, railroads, cowboys, oil -- have converged to create a city with a brand-new face and a surprisingly traditional soul.

Calgary, its name believed to be derived from the Gaelic phrase meaning "bay farm," was founded in 1875 at the junction of the Bow and Elbow rivers as a North West Mounted Police post. The Canadian Pacific Railway arrived in 1883, and ranchers established major spreads on the plains surrounding the town. Incorporated as a city in 1894, Calgary grew quickly, and by 1911 its population had reached 43,000.

The major growth came with the oil boom in the 1960s and 1970s, when most Canadian oil companies established their head offices in the city. Today, Calgary is a city of nearly 800,000 mostly easygoing and downright neighborly people. It is Canada's second-largest center for corporate head offices. Downtown is still evolving, but Calgary's planners have made life during winter more pleasant by connecting most of the buildings with the Plus 15, a network of enclosed walkways 15 ft above street level. Among the major cities on the prairies, Calgary usually has the most reasonable winter, thanks to the annual series of warm chinook winds that blow in from the nearby Rockies.