The Blindman River is in south-central

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 ...

. It forms south of Winfield and flows southeastward before joining the

Red Deer River The Red Deer River is a river in Alberta and a small portion of Saskatchewan, Canada. It is a major tributary of the South Saskatchewan River and is part of the larger Saskatchewan-Nelson system that empties into Hudson Bay. Red Deer River ...

near

Red Deer The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or hart, and a female is called a hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Iran, and parts of wes ...

. The Blindman is bridged by

Alberta Highway 20 Alberta Provincial Highway No. 20, commonly referred to as Highway 20, is a highway in central Alberta, Canada, west of Highway 2. Route description Highway 20 begins Highway 11 and travels north for along the ea ...

a number of times in its upper reaches, before passing near the town of

Rimbey Rimbey is a town in central Alberta, Canada. It is located at the junction of Highways 20 and 53 in the Blindman River valley area approximately northwest of Red Deer and southwest of Edmonton. Provincially, Rimbey is part of the Rimbey-Roc ...

. The river then takes on the outflow of Gull Lake. It is bridged by

Alberta Highway 2 Alberta Provincial Highway No. 2, commonly referred to as Highway 2 or the Queen Elizabeth II Highway, is a major highway in Alberta that stretches from the Canada–United States border through Calgary and Edmonton to Grande P ...

at Red Deer before flowing into the Red Deer River. Blindman River Mouth

There are two competing theories regarding the name of the river. One theory suggests a

Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...

hunting party became snowblind while travelling and had to rest on the river banks until their eyes healed. The hunting party applied the name to the river, which translates as 'He is blind'. The second theory argues that ''Blindman'' is a descriptive term, applied to the river because of its numerous

meanders A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank (cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex bank w ...

and curves.Tracey Harrison, ''Place Names of Alberta: Volume III, Central Alberta.'' (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1994), page 28. The

Paskapoo Formation The Paskapoo Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Middle to Late Paleocene age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. The Paskapoo underlies much of southwestern Alberta, and takes the name from the Blindman River (''paskapoo'' means "blind man ...

, first described in its banks, takes its name from the Cree name for the Blindman.

Tributaries

*Anderson Creek *Lloyd Creek *Boyd Creek *Potter Creek * Gull Lake

References

Rivers of Alberta {{Alberta-river-stub

Tributaries

See also

References