Alberta

A

Agriculture

Alberta’s major agricultural products are livestock and grain. The province is second only to Saskatchewan in the production of wheat and is the leading province in the raising of beef cattle and barley. Its livestock production also includes hogs, sheep, poultry, and dairy cattle. Dairy farming is widespread, and Alberta ranks third among the provinces in the production of milk. Other important crops are canola, oats, sugar beets, potatoes and other vegetables, nursery products, and rye.

In 2001 there were 53,652 farms in Alberta. The total farm cash receipts for 2001 were C$9.9 billion. Crops accounted for two-fifths of the total, and the livestock made up the remaining three-fifths.

There are three principal agricultural regions in Alberta. The first is Palliser’s Triangle, a semiarid prairie region that includes most of southeastern Alberta and extends eastward into Saskatchewan. Captain John Palliser, who surveyed the area between 1857 and 1860, called it a semidesert, unfit for agriculture. Its soil, however, classified as brown and dark brown, is quite fertile when it has sufficient moisture. Several large rivers, fed by the snows of the Rockies, cross southern Alberta and provide water for one of the most extensive irrigation systems in Canada. The province has about 466,000 hectares (about 1.15 million acres) of land under irrigation. Sugar beets, potatoes, and other vegetables, fruit, oats, alfalfa, and barley are the principal irrigated crops. The Saint Mary Irrigation Project, near Lethbridge, is the largest in Canada and was established as a joint federal-provincial project. Livestock is raised in the southern foothills and on the grasslands of Palliser’s Triangle. These two areas comprise the typical “cattle country” of Alberta, where large ranches are found.

The most fertile soils are found in the second region, a large triangle formed by Westlock, Lloydminster, and Calgary. This triangle lies, for the most part, in the Parklands, which is the major mixed-farming area of Alberta. Wheat is the chief crop, but cattle, hogs, poultry, and vegetables are also raised. The principal soils in this area are black (deep and extremely fertile) and dark brown (only slightly less fertile).

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Far to the north is the Peace River Valley, the third important agricultural region. Here wheat and other grains are grown and cattle and hogs are raised. The region’s soil, which is dark gray or gray, is not as fertile as the black soil to the south.

B

Forestry

Supported by strong government investment, Alberta’s forestry sector expanded rapidly in the last two decades of the 20th century. Once confined mainly to lumber production, the forestry industry now manufactures many products, including pulp and paper, plywood, oriented strand board, medium density fiberboard, building products (including trusses, beams, and treated wood), furniture, and other goods.

C

Mining

C

1

Oil and Natural Gas

Alberta’s most important mineral resources are oil and natural gas, and they account for about 90 percent of Alberta’s income from mining. Alberta produces approximately two-thirds of Canada’s oil and more than three-quarters of its natural gas. Nearly half of Alberta’s oil is mined from vast oil sands, which are deposits of a heavy crude oil called bitumen. Alberta’s oil sands represent the largest known deposits of bitumen in the world. The oil sands occur in three major areas of the province: the Athabasca River Valley in the northeast, the Peace River area in the north, and the Cold Lake region in east central Alberta. Bitumen is more costly to mine than conventional crude oil, which flows naturally or is pumped from the ground. This is because the thick black oil must be separated from the surrounding sand and water to produce a crude oil that can be further refined.

Oil seepages from exposed oil sands along the Athabasca River were long known to indigenous peoples, who used the seeping petroleum to caulk their canoes. In the 1700s fur traders in Alberta also learned of the region’s petroleum and coal. In 1883 a railroad crew drilling for water struck natural gas near Medicine Hat. In 1914 natural gas was discovered in Turner Valley, about 65 km (about 40 mi) southwest of Calgary. Later, numerous other gas fields were discovered. Bitumen was discovered at Wainwright in the east central part of the province in 1925, and in 1935 the Turner Valley field began producing oil. In 1947 a large oil deposit was found near Leduc, about 30 km (about 20 mi) south of Edmonton. Another rich oil field was soon discovered at Redwater, about 70 km (about 40 mi) north of Edmonton. By 1950 several major fields were producing within a radius of about 120 km (about 75 mi) from Edmonton.

During the 1950s and 1960s, oil deposits were discovered in other regions, such as the Peace River area and the Swan Hills, south of Lesser Slave Lake. By the late 1960s the last major oil deposits had been found. Production of oil had slowed somewhat by the 1980s, and exploration shifted to natural gas. Since that time, the volume of gas production has continued to increase.

A network of pipelines transport Alberta’s crude oil and natural gas to the industrial centers of eastern Canada, to British Columbia, and to the Northwestern and Midwestern United States. In addition, oil and gas are shipped to refining centers throughout Canada and to U.S. terminals.

C

2

Coal

Coal mining was the first significant form of mining in Alberta, and it remains economically important. The first coal mine in Alberta was opened near Lethbridge in 1870. The industry soon developed in that area to supply the Canadian Pacific Railway and growing numbers of settlers. Early in the 20th century mining spread to the Crowsnest Pass and Banff areas and later to the Edmonton and Drumheller areas.

In the mountains and foothills the harder bituminous and coking coals are produced, while on the plains softer subbituminous coals are mined. The soft coals predominate. Both surface and underground mining methods are used. The principal coal-mining districts in the plains are Wabamun, west of Edmonton, and Sheerness, northeast of Calgary. In the mountains and foothills the principal coal-mining districts are in the Hinton area, near Jasper and Grande Cache in the northwest. Alberta ranks as the leading province in coal production. The coal is burned in power plants and exported abroad.

C

3

Other Mining Activities

Alberta also has commercially important reserves of peat, sulfur, silica sand, salt, clay, gold, and limestone. Known deposits of iron ore and uranium in the northeast have yet to be commercially developed.

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