Alberta Provincial Highway No. 48, commonly referred to as Highway 48, has been the designation of two separate highways in Alberta's history. The first was a north–south highway in southern

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada that existed between the 1950s and 1979. It now forms the southernmost portion of Highway 41. The current Alberta highway 48 connects to Northwest Territories Highway 5 at the Northwest Territories border in Fort Smith NWT to

Fort Fitzgerald Fitzgerald, also known as Fort Fitzgerald and originally Smith's Landing, is an unincorporated community in northern Alberta, Canada within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, located south of the Northwest Territories border, and southe ...

and Hay Camp Road. The road was chip sealed in July 2021.

Current Highway

The current Alberta Highway 48 was previously known as the Fort Fitzgerald Highway. In 2020 the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo spent $4.1 million to begin upgrades of the highway. It was designated Alberta Highway 48 in 2020 and Alberta Highway 48 signs with the new Alberta wordmark were installed in 2021 when Chip Sealing of the road was completed at the border. Construction was completed by Rowe's Construction from Hay River. The road runs from the Northwest Territories border at Northwest Territories Highway 5 (Fort Smith Highway) in Fort Smith, through the Smith Landing first nation, Pine Lake road which enters Wood Buffalo national Park and ends at Hay Camp Road and Fort Fitzgerald. The road parallels the Trans Canada Trail and also provides access to the Fort Smith Winter Club. The road is not contiguous with any other provincial highway.

Border restrictions

In 2020 the Northwest Territories established a border checkpoint to regulate traffic on Highway 48 as part of its COVID-19 restrictions for traffic and people coming from Alberta and Wood Buffalo. It was removed in August 2021.

Former alignment

Highway 48 began appearing on maps in the 1950s and travelled from the Canada–United States border at

Wild Horse The wild horse (''Equus ferus'') is a species of the genus ''Equus'', which includes as subspecies the modern domesticated horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') as well as the endangered Przewalski's horse (''Equus ferus przewalskii''). The Europea ...

, through

Cypress Hills Provincial Park Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park is a natural park in Canada straddling the Alberta / Saskatchewan boundary and jointly administered by the two provinces. Located south-east of Medicine Hat, it became Canada's first interprovincial park in ...

, to the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean on ...

( Highway 1), approximately west of Irvine. Other than the small hamlet of Elkwater within Cypress Hills Provincial Park, Highway 48 did not pass through any communities. Highway 41 was developed in the 1960s and 1970s northeast of

Medicine Hat Medicine Hat is a city in southeast Alberta, Canada. It is located along the South Saskatchewan River. It is approximately east of Lethbridge and southeast of Calgary. This city and the adjacent Town of Redcliff to the northwest are with ...

; and in 1979, Highway 48 was renumbered and became part of Highway 41.

References

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