Inside UCalgary’s archives: Letters from Einstein and a leaf of Gutenberg

When a Calgary mechanic wrote to Albert Einstein with a big idea, he probably didn’t imagine his letters would end up in a university vault.

While fishing near the Ghost River Dam in 1943, Tim Horne developed a theory linking lunar cycles to water oxygenation and created a timetable predicting optimal fishing times.

Horne shared his theory with the famed physicist, and, in an unexpected twist, Einstein wrote back with some thoughtful and direct feedback.

Those exchanges now sit in Archives and Special Collections (ASC) at the University of Calgary, where they quietly bridge an amateur scientist with one of history’s greatest minds.

“A lot of what’s interesting in our collections is who something belonged to, whose hands it passed through, and the fact it survived at all,” says Annie Murray, Rare Books and Special Collections librarian.

For Murray and Curtis Frederick, university records archivist, those little jolts of wonder are part of the workday. Together, they help steer a collection that has grown into one of the largest academic library archives in Canada — and, increasingly, one of the busiest.

As UCalgary marks 60 years as an autonomous institution, ASC is helping make sure those decades, and the many that came before, don’t fade from view. 

More than ‘a museum of paper and books’

ASC’s shelves now stretch roughly 13 linear kilometres. The collection doubled in size when the Glenbow Library and Archives transferred to UCalgary starting in 2019, bringing in 5.5 kilometres of archival records and a second life for thousands of rare books.

Frederick manages the “institutional record” — the significant documents created by faculties, governing bodies, student organizations and prominent faculty. He also works with broader archival collections in education, labour, politics, communications and media, much of it also drawn from Glenbow.

“We look for records with real research value — material that fills gaps, or reveals the fuller story,” he says.

A time machine you can walk into

The Glenbow Western Research Centre (GWRC) — a glass-walled reading room on the second floor of the Taylor Family Digital Library (TFDL) — is where students, faculty, staff and community members can consult rare books and archival records.

The reading room sits in one of the busiest parts of the library. Behind it are vaults, shelves, boxes and cabinets — all of which feature heavily in tours.

The TFDL’s design is what makes hands-on teaching possible. Murray has made it a personal mission to link collections with curriculum.

That means building relationships with instructors, suggesting assignments that use rare books or archival material, and showing students what it feels like to handle something that has survived centuries.

“Our lives are so digital,” Murray says. “When you see a book made in the 16th or 17th century, where a family has written their names inside the cover, that does something to people. 

“Sure, you can consult a copy of the Bible — but imagine examining a leaf from Gutenberg’s 15th century bible, the first printed using moveable type.”

Six weird and wacky things you didn’t know UCalgary holds

UCalgary’s collections are home to all kinds of weird and wonderful surprises.

1. WWI Honour Roll

The archives hold a hand-painted honour roll created for students of the Provincial Normal School — the early precursor to UCalgary — recognizing those who served in the First World War, with red stars marking the fallen and blue stars marking the wounded. Originally displayed in what is now the McDougall Centre, the piece offers a vivid early record of the people who shaped the university’s earliest chapter.

2. Founding prospectus

In 1912, Calgary launched a private University of Calgary after losing the provincially funded institution to Edmonton, releasing a promotional booklet that outlined its planned campus, proposed faculties and early donors. Although classes ran for two years, the university collapsed when the province refused degree-granting powers and the First World War began — leaving this booklet as a rare glimpse into the city’s first, unbuilt university.

3. ‘88 Winter Olympics mascot cartoons

In 1981, the university commissioned Alberta cartoonist Vance Rodewalt to create a series of black-ink mascot illustrations featuring Dinnie (or Dexter) performing each sport included in Calgary’s Olympic bid. Rarely used at the time, these original drawings now offer a playful snapshot of campus culture on the eve of Calgary’s Olympic era.

4. Gutenberg leaf

This single leaf from a 15th-century Gutenberg Bible — the first book ever printed with movable type — offers a rare glimpse into the revolutionary craft that transformed how knowledge spread. Taken from the Book of Ezekiel, the page shows the blend of machine precision and hand-added flourishes that defined Gutenberg’s landmark two-volume edition.

5. Einstein letters

In 1943, Calgary service station owner Harold “Tim” Horne sent his homemade scientific theory to Albert Einstein — and, remarkably, received multiple thoughtful, four-page replies in which Einstein praised his ingenuity while gently outlining the theory’s flaws. The correspondence offers a rare glimpse of Einstein’s generosity and the bold curiosity of a local amateur scientist who dared to write to one of the world’s greatest minds.

6. Mawson City Plan

In 1912, renowned planner Thomas Mawson produced a series of elegant, European-inspired city plans that imagined Calgary as “Vienna on the Bow,” complete with grand boulevards, cultural districts, public gardens and a downtown university. Forgotten after the First World War and later rediscovered in a Calgary garage in the 1970s, the restored drawings now reveal an ambitious early vision for a city still taking shape.