Waterways, Alberta

Waterways is located in Alberta
Waterways
Waterways
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Location of Waterways, Alberta

Waterways is a locality within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo[1] in northern Alberta, Canada. It is now a neighbourhood within the Fort McMurray urban service area along the west bank of the Clearwater River, south of the river's confluence with the Athabasca River.[2]

History

In 1921, Waterways became a major shipping hub when the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway reached the town, making it the northernmost point on the North American railroad grid.[3] Cargo for destinations farther north was shipped to Waterways and then transferred to barges, after which fleets of tugboats took them to destinations in the Mackenzie River watershed.[3][4][5]

In 1930, Karl Clark shipped a plant designed to separate bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands to Waterways and set it up nearby across the Clearwater River.[6] Since that time, the rail line to Waterways has played an important role in transporting heavy equipment and supplies needed for the development of the oil sands and the accompanying growth of the surrounding communities.[7]

In 1933, Waterways gave its name to the Waterways Formation, a sequence of limestones and calcareous shales that outcrops along the Clearwater and Athabasca Rivers near the town.[8]

Waterways in 1939

In 1937, a salt plant was built at Waterways to recover rock salt from the subsurface by solution mining and evaporation. The salt was part of the Prairie Evaporite Formation, which was about 61 metres (200 ft) thick and lay at a depth of about 210 metres (700 ft) at that location. The plant operated until 1950, producing 207,000 tonnes (228,000 short tons) of salt.[9]

Waterways was an important, transfer point for pitchblende ore during the Second World War. The ore was mined at Eldorado Mine, then shipped by barges to Waterways, where it was transferred to rail cars for shipping onwards to Port Hope, Ontario. The whole operation was all a top-secret uranium source for the Manhattan Project. An unwanted legacy was nuclear contamination of soils around Waterways, which were much later cleaned up.[10][11]

In 1964, shipping from Waterways to the Mackenzie River region ceased after Hay River, on Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, became the northern terminus of the rail grid.[3] Local shipping from Waterways continued, however, and the rail line to Waterways eventually became part of the Northern Alberta Railway, the Canadian National Railway, and then the Athabasca Northern Railway, and finally back to the CNR.[7]

During the 2016 Fort McMurray Wildfire, Waterways was critically damaged. According to fire damage reports on May 4, 90% of homes in Waterways had already been lost to the wildfire.[12]

Demographics

The population of the Waterways neighbourhood in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo's 2006 municipal census was 750.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) 2006 – Economic Regions (4816037 - Wood Buffalo, geographical codes and localities, 2006)". Statistics Canada. 5 March 2010. Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
  2. ^ a b "Envision Wood Buffalo: Towards 250K – Fort McMurray" (PDF). Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. May 2004. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 December 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
  3. ^ a b c "Atlas of Alberta Railways: The Alberta and Great Waterways Railway". University of Alberta. Retrieved 21 October 2017.
  4. ^ "Fort McMurray tourism". Archived from the original on 9 August 2011. Rail reached Lynton in 1919 and pushed through to "Old Waterways" (now called Draper) in 1921. The rail service from Lac La Biche and Waterways was largely built across muskeg, a dangerous surface subject to frequent derailments. Canadian National Railway assumed control of the line in 1980. Mixed passenger and freight services came to a halt when Canadian National closed the line in 1989. Athabasca Northern Railway Ltd. has since brought the line back to life in a limited commercial capacity. The new shortline railroad company was established in 2000 and services industries in the Fort McMurray area, as well as customers along the line.
  5. ^ "Radium King en route: Eldorado Subsidiary's Ship Leave for West by Train". Montreal Gazette. 15 April 1937. p. 20. Retrieved 31 May 2012. Both ships were built for the Northern Transportation Company, a subsidiary of Eldorado Gold Mines, Limited, and will ply the Mackenzie and Athabaska rivers, 1,600 miles north of Edmonton.
  6. ^ "Karl A. Clark - University of Alberta Archives". archives.library.ualberta.ca. Archived from the original on 20 October 2015. Retrieved 26 October 2017.
  7. ^ a b Bourgonje, T. and Diercks, S.A., 2011. "Rehabilitation of Canadian National Railway tracks servicing oil sands in northern Alberta; the Athabasca Northern Railway." (PDF). Arema. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 November 2015. Retrieved 24 October 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Glass, D.J. (editor) 1997. Lexicon of Canadian Stratigraphy, vol. 4, Western Canada including eastern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba. Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, Calgary, 1423 p. on CD-ROM. ISBN 0-920230-23-7.
  9. ^ Hamilton, W.N. 1971. Salt in east-central Alberta. Alberta Research Council, Bulletin 29, p. 34.
  10. ^ "Remediation of Canada's Historic Haul Route for Radium and Uranium Ores: The Northern Transportation Route".
  11. ^ "LLRWMO - Programs & Projects - Historic Waste - Fort McMurray - Low Level Radioactive Waste Management Office". www.llrwmo.org. Archived from the original on 13 April 2008.
  12. ^ "Fort McMurray Wildfire Updates". Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. May 4, 2016. Retrieved May 4, 2016.
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56°42′00″N 111°20′24″W / 56.700°N 111.340°W / 56.700; -111.340 (Waterways)