Until last year, when the community hit the number-three spot on Avenue Magazine's 2017 best neighbourhoods list, Edgemont was one of Calgary's best-kept secrets.

"We were really excited by the recent ranking," said Paul Clark, president of the Edgemont Community Association. He's been living in the neighbourhood for 24 years and can't say enough about the location.

"It's the green spaces within the community that make this such an amazing place," he said. "And we are right next door to Nose Hill Park, which is literally a five-minute walk from my doorstep."

For those who enjoy being surrounded by nature and other green spaces, the communities of Beddington Heights and Huntington Hills might be just the ticket.

Tucked in amongst Calgary's northwest hills, brimming with prairie grasslands and high-plains formations, are the adjacent communities of Edgemont and Hawkwood.

Nose Hill Park looms large over Calgary's northwest – an expanse of unspoiled grassland enveloped by the vastness of an ever-evolving city. Nearly unchanged from the days when herds of buffalo roamed the Prairies, the park now serves as a stomping ground for the herds of Calgarians that jog, walk and bike their way around its 300 kilometres of trails every day.

The year is 1960. Calgary's population sits at 234,428. Completion of the Trans-Canada Highway is still two years away. A new $1-million terminal at McCall Field welcomes airline passengers, with the first non-stop, transatlantic flight from Calgary to Amsterdam still a year away. The first two buildings on the new University of Calgary campus open and the newly minted community of Brentwood sits on the very edge of the city.

How times have changed.

How Calgarians banded together to protect nature and create Nose Hill Park

In the early 1970s, the booming city of Calgary was expanding ever outward.

Developers looking for new areas to build communities cast their eyes upward in the northwest to Nose Hill, which dominated the area landscape.

Nose Hill was prime real estate, untouched by residential development, but it was also viewed by some Calgarians as an important remnant of the fast-vanishing prairie grassland ecosystem.

Calgary's urban parks offer nearby residents a slice of the great outdoors in the heart of the city

At the beginning of July last year, John and Ildi Arlette took their first-ever walk through Confederation Park.

By the end of that month, they had bought a home in Mount Pleasant sitting near the crescent-shaped green space that stretches across 162 hectares – including eight hectares of wetlands – in northwest Calgary.

"We were on a date night and someone had told me about Confederation Park," said John Arlette. "Ildi is from Ontario and I realized I hadn't shown her much of Calgary – I hadn't even been to the park myself."

After that visit, the Arlettes sold their home in Signal Hill, becoming both inner-city – and park-side living – devotees.

Reportedly taking its name from the distinctive (at least if you use a little imagination) nose-like hillsides that surround the area, the Nose Hill Natural Environment Park – as it's officially known – is one of the largest municipal parks in North America.

Encompassing 11 square kilometres of native grassland in Northwest Calgary, the park was created in 1980 after citizens spoke out against a plan to turn the area into a residential development.

Living in Calgary gives the big city feel, but the city offers so many easy ways to find nature. Nose Hill Park is just one of the many vast open parks found within city limits.

Located along 14 Street NW, Nose Hill Park spans 11 square kilometres and is surrounded by 12 Calgary communities. The park
was created in 1980 and it is believed the name comes from the fact that from certain areas with some imagination the hill can look like a nose.

Calgary resident, Pamela Chapman loves taking her dog to spend time at Nose Hill Park.