Wonderful Wabasca

Appreciating the wild beauty of this small northern Alberta hamlet.

- James Hamilton

When I visited relatives in Wabasca, Alta., about 40 years ago, I felt an attraction to the place that just wouldn’t go away. It was a wild place with lakes, a river and an expanse of bush just waiting to be explored. A few years later, during a glorious boreal forest fall, I was back, building a log house on a hectare of land on Blueberry Street. I still live on that land. The gravel road is paved, the dark winter nights are now brightened by streetlights and there is a beautiful new golf course about five minutes away, but I still feel the “wildness” as I travel the trails that lead out of my backyard.

When I moved here with my family, oil production was just getting started in the area. The good times brought many changes. Residential land was developed, and families were able to buy property and set up homes. People who had been forced to leave the community to find work came back and new people arrived from all over the country, and all around the world. Soon, we had a hospital, an aquatic centre, a fieldhouse and an indoor hockey rink.