Betty Parr, left, and Amanda Gotmy stand under a De Winton sign along highway 2 on Aug. 3. The signage, in particular the road signs along the highway, have multiple variations of the spelling of De Winton, even when signs are placed directly across from one another.Jude Brocke/The Globe and Mail
Maps, road signs and historical documents agree the hamlet just south of Calgary has eight letters in its name. The order in which the letters appear is consistent, too. D-E-W-I-N-T-O-N.
But which letters should be capitalized, and whether the hamlet’s name is one word, two or hyphenated, is up for debate in Alberta’s De Winton/Dewinton/DeWinton/De-Winton.
HWY 201
Auburn Bay
Academy
Bow River
ALBERTA
De Winton
ALTA.
Calgary
Detail
3 km
john sopinski/the globe and mail, source: openstreetmap
HWY 201
Auburn Bay
Academy
Bow River
ALBERTA
De Winton
ALTA.
Calgary
Detail
3 km
john sopinski/the globe and mail, source: openstreetmap
HWY 201
Auburn Bay
Academy
Bow River
ALBERTA
DeWinton
ALBERTA
Calgary
Detail
3 km
john sopinski/the globe and mail, source: openstreetmap
Variations of the hamlet’s name litter highway signs, with options changing in just a few clicks of the odometer. The DeWinton Community Association’s website lists a mailing address in De Winton. Consistency was not a priority in the community’s 587-page history book, dubbed Sodbusting to Subdivision.
The doorstopper was published in 1978, by the “De Winton & District Historical Committee,” according to the copyright details on Page 2. The dedication, on Page 3, starts: “The DeWinton and District Historical Society is proud to present …” And the RCMP, in a 2017 press release, deployed the rare hyphenated option after responding to a single-vehicle collision in a place the Mounties called “De-Winton.”
Betty Parr, left, and Amanda Gotmy, from the DeWinton Community Association, stand under the De Winton sign and hold a historic picture of the hamlet's former train station in De Winton's Community Centre.Jude Brocke/The Globe and Mail
Amanda Gotmy, from the DeWinton Community Association, said she has been part of the discussion around the various spellings on the highway signs directing travellers to her hamlet. There are no plans to pick a winner, she said.
“I personally giggle when I see them, especially the ones coming from Okotoks,” a town south of the hamlet, she said in an e-mail in which she consistently called her home DeWinton. “Completely different spellings, even though they are across the highway from each other.
Betty Parr, left, and Amanda Gotmy lean against the De Winton sign, which is missing a space in this case, outside De Winton's Community Centre.Jude Brocke/The Globe and Mail
“I hope they never change them.”
Betty Parr is one of the community’s unofficial historians, having moved into her home 50 years ago this fall. When the Western Wheel, the newspaper in Okotoks, investigated the hamlet’s name, she declared DeWinton correct.
“That is the way I always saw it spelled by the old-timers when I got here,” she told the Western Wheel in 2012.
But she caught heat for that assessment from one of her pals, who had lived in the area longer. So when asked in 2023, Ms. Parr turned to the community’s religious text: Sodbusting to Subdivision.
The sign out front of the Saint Andrews United Church in De Winton includes a space in the hamlet's name.Jude Brocke/The Globe and Mail
A sign advertises events for the DeWinton Community Association.Jude Brocke/The Globe and Mail
A sign on the road from Calgary points to the De Winton Community Hall.Jude Brocke/The Globe and Mail
The book first refers to the hamlet as “De Winton,” Ms. Parr accurately noted. “Therefore, I would take that as the official correct spelling,” she said. De Winton is, indeed, the preferred, although not exclusive, spelling in the history book, written by local contributors.
The hamlet is named after Major-General Sir Francis Walter de Winton (or De Winton, depending on the authority), a British army officer, courtier and global colonizer. For a time, he served as the secretary to Sir John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, the Marquis of Lorne and governor-general of Canada between 1878 and 1883. The hamlet’s namesake visited the area about two decades before Alberta became a province.
“He arrived in 1883 on a special train and after reaching the end of the steel, travelled, in company with Colonel Williams, to several farms and ranches south of Calgary,” according to Sodbusting. The De Winton Ranch was on the south side of the Bow River.
De Winton, the hamlet, came to be in 1892, when the railway arrived, according to Sodbusting. And today, the Alberta government’s Municipal Services division spells the hamlet “De Winton,” and its assigned code is 0678.
In June, Calgary released a report summarizing feedback from the public regarding the city’s proposal to annex part of Foothills County, in which the hamlet resides. In letters and responses to an online survey, residents called the hamlet De Winton, DeWinton and diwinton. While spelling varied, area residents were generally united in their distaste for Calgary’s growth ambitions.
Calgary noted that it hosted an information session at the De Winton Community Hall, which breaks from how the DeWinton Community Association spells the name of its gathering place. But locals aren’t bothered by the debate over spelling and spacing.
“The only thing that matters for me is for people to know that De Winton is a wonderful village, community and area,” Ms. Parr said.