Keoma, Alberta

Keoma is a hamlet in southern Alberta under the jurisdiction of Rocky View County.

Keoma is located approximately 35 km (21 mi) northeast of Downtown Calgary, on Highway 566, 2.0 km (1.2 mi) east of Highway 9 and 19 km (12 mi) north of the Trans-Canada Highway.

Keoma is an Indian name for "over there", far away. The hamlet was settled in 1910 when the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) opened up land for irrigation. It is assumed that the CPR named the site, but this is not definitive. The post office was in operation from January 15, 1910 to June 27, 1986.

Demographics

Rocky View County's 2013 municipal census counted a population of 85 in Keoma, a 26.9% change from its 2006 municipal census population of 67.

See also

References

Karamitsanis, Aphrodite (1992). Place Names of Alberta – Volume II, Southern Alberta, University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta.

Read, Tracey (1983). Acres and Empires – A History of the Municipal District of Rocky View, Calgary, Alberta.

Keoma (film)

Keoma is a 1976 Italian Spaghetti Western film directed by Enzo G. Castellari and starring Franco Nero. It is regarded by some as one of the better 'twilight' Spaghetti Westerns, being one of the last films of its genre, and is known for its incorporation of newer cinematic techniques of the time (such as slow motion and close/medium panning shots) and its vocal soundtrack by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis.

Plot

After the American Civil War, ex-Union soldier Keoma Shannon, part-Indian and part-white, returns to his home town to find his half-brothers in alliance with a petty tyrant named Caldwell. Caldwell and his gang rule over the town with an iron fist. With the help of his father and George, an old Black friend, he vows revenge. Keoma also shows compassion when he saves a pregnant woman from a group sent by Caldwell's group to be quarantined in a mine camp full of plague victims. Keoma is constantly visited by the apparition of an older woman ("The Witch") who saved him during the massacre of an Indian camp.