Entwistle () is a
hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
in
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, within
Parkland County
Parkland County is a municipal district in central Alberta, Canada. Located west of Edmonton in Census Division No. 11, its municipal office, Parkland County Centre, is located north of the Town of Stony Plain on Highway 779.
History
;2 ...
.
It is at the
Yellowhead Highway
The Yellowhead Highway (french: Route Yellowhead) is a major interprovincial highway in Western Canada that runs from Winnipeg to Graham Island off the coast of British Columbia via Saskatoon and Edmonton. It stretches across the four western ...
's intersection with
Highway 22/
Highway 16A, approximately west of
Edmonton
Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...
. Entwistle sits on the east banks of the
Pembina River near the halfway point between Edmonton and
Edson.
Entwistle has grown to become a staging area for the oil and gas industry. It has an annual
rodeo, the
Pembina River Provincial Park, and calls itself the Diamond Capital of Canada.
Entwistle is within the federal riding of
Yellowhead, provincial electoral district of
Lac Ste. Anne-Parkland and Parkland County's Division 6.
History
Entwistle was founded by James Entwistle, an employee of the
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway
The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway running from Fort William, Ontario (now Thunder Bay) to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, a Pacific coast port. East of Winnipeg the line continued as the National Tra ...
(GTP). Entwistle knew that construction of the railway would be halted on the east banks of the
Pembina River for a few years as a bridge was built over the river. A boomtown would most certainly spring up. Seizing the opportunity, Entwistle staked a claim on a section of land very close to the Pembina River and the surveyed line for the GTP in 1907. In 1908, as the railway construction camps drew closer to the Pembina River, Entwistle built a
general store on his land, and left it in the care of his wife and children. The railway soon arrived, construction on the railway bridge started, and the boomtown formed around Entwistle's store.
Soon, there were enough people living in the boomtown to warrant a
post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional ser ...
. But, to get a post office, they needed a name for the town. The town was informally known as "Pembina", after the river, but that name was rejected by the federal government, citing duplication. The names "Burke" and "Harmer" were also proposed, and again, each one rejected on the grounds of duplication. Entwistle was quite embarrassed when people started suggesting that he name the town after himself. Entwistle was fairly certain that 'Entwistle' was already the name of a town, as he knew of at least
one town called Entwistle in England. But, Entwistle's wife Mary went and submitted the name 'Entwistle,' and it was accepted. For years after, Entwistle was often joked about how he found a way to put his name on the map, to which Entwistle would always reply, "It wasn't me who put it thereit was Mary."
Entwistle was officially incorporated as a village on March 26, 1909. James Entwistle was elected the first mayor in April 1909.
The railway
trestle was completed in 1910. Shortly after, the
Canadian Northern Railway
The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway. At its 1923 merger into the Canadian National Railway , the CNoR owned a main line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.
Man ...
came close to Entwistle, and built their own railway bridge from 1910 to 1912. The railway construction boom started moving west in 1912, but many stayed behind in Entwistle. In those early decades, Entwistle had a thriving agriculture industry, along with timber and the
coal mines
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron fro ...
in neighbouring
Evansburg.
Entwistle was dissolved on February 16, 1942, becoming a hamlet in the Municipal District of Pembina. Entwistle was once again incorporated as a village on January 1, 1955.
Entwistle was once again dissolved on December 31, 2000, becoming a hamlet in Parkland County.
Climate
Entwistle has a
humid continental climate
A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezing ...
(
Dfb DFB may refer to:
* Deerfield Beach, Florida, a city
* Decafluorobutane, a fluorocarbon gas
* Dem Franchize Boyz, former hip hop group, Atlanta, Georgia
* Dfb, Köppen climate classification for Humid continental climate
* Distributed-feedback ...
) with warm summers with cool nights and long, cold winters with moderate snowfall. Precipitation peaks during the months of June and July.
Demographics
In the
2021 Census of Population
The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...
conducted by
Statistics Canada, Entwistle had a population of 429 living in 195 of its 231 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 480. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.
As a designated place in the
2016 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Entwistle had a population of 389 living in 178 of its 187 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2011 population of 359. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2016.
Economy
Entwistle's economy is supported by the nearby oil and gas industries. The tourism industry also plays a role in the local economy due to Entwistle's location at the approximate midpoint between Edmonton and Edson at the intersection of the
Yellowhead Highway
The Yellowhead Highway (french: Route Yellowhead) is a major interprovincial highway in Western Canada that runs from Winnipeg to Graham Island off the coast of British Columbia via Saskatoon and Edmonton. It stretches across the four western ...
and Highway 22. Its tourism economy is seasonally supplemented by the nearby
Pembina River Provincial Park and the annual Entwistle
Rodeo every
Canada Day weekend.
Entwistle is undergoing a tourism boom, as many have discovered that the stretch of the Pembina River that winds through Entwistle is ideal for
tubing. The influx of tourists currently has Entwistle residents worrying that the river is being polluted and the community is being overrun. Residents also fear that the local
cemetery
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...
is being damaged, as one of the more popular access routes to the river leads through the cemetery. Parkland County is building a new
bypass route
A bypass is a road or highway that avoids or "bypasses" a built-up area, town, or village, to let through traffic flow without interference from local traffic, to reduce congestion in the built-up area, and to improve road safety. A bypass spe ...
around the cemetery, which is expected to relieve some of the pressure.
Diamond Capital of Canada
In 1958, Entwistle resident Einar Opdahl found a
diamond
Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, ...
in the banks of the Pembina River. The diamond weighed , and was described as being "a perfect
octahedron
In geometry, an octahedron (plural: octahedra, octahedrons) is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at ea ...
with eight faces; a clear, colorless stone."
[Thorne, Duncan (December 26, 1992) "Loner’s find the stuff of lore, PR" ]
The Edmonton Journal
' p. D1 Opdahl sold the diamond to gem cutter Ed Arsenault for $500. It was later claimed that Arsenault discovered the diamond.
When
De Beers staked a claim for diamond mining in Alberta's
Peace River
The Peace River (french: links=no, rivière de la Paix) is a river in Canada that originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows to the northeast through northern Alberta. The Peace River joins the Athabasca River in th ...
country in 1990, people were reminded of the discovery of a diamond in the Pembina River near Entwistle. Several Alberta-based exploratory companies staked diamond claims near Entwistle and the Pembina River in 1992.
Opdahl and Arsenault's discovery and the mini-boom in diamond prospecting led Entwistle to claim the title "Diamond Capital of Canada" in 1994.
Entwistle landmarks
Pembina River Bridge
The GTP railway bridge, whose construction caused Entwistle to spring up, is still in operation today. It is a vital part of the
Canadian National Railway main line, connecting
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
to the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...
. An average of 20 trains travel across it per day. The bridge itself is long and high. It is the fifth-highest railway bridge in Western Canada.
[Cappis, Ed (1994) ''Stratagems for the Village of Entwistle'']
Construction on the bridge began in 1908. As there were no cranes big enough to carry steel, a massive false bridge and scaffolding were built out of wood. The steel bridge itself was completely pre-fabricated in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
. The Scottish engineers assembled the bridge in Scotland, ran their tests on it, and then carefully dismantled it. The bridge was shipped in pieces across the Atlantic, and brought out to Entwistle on the railway. The pieces began arriving in 1909, and the steel bridge was slowly assembled. The engineers’ measurements were so accurate, that no modifications were needed on site.
As the steel structure was laid in place, the wooden scaffolding and false bridge were gradually dismantled. Construction was completed in 1910. After its first century of use, it has required no major repairs; only routine maintenance.
Yellowhead Highway Bridge
The Yellowhead Highway Bridge runs parallel to the Pembina River Viaduct and was built from 1961 to 1962. Even though it was opened to traffic in 1962, a grand opening was not held until July 24, 1963. A crowd of about 1500 assembled for the grand opening. Speeches were given by the chief bridge engineer, the deputy minister of highways, the mayors of Entwistle and Evansburg, and representatives of Entwistle's youth and senior communities. The ribbon was cut by
Gordon Taylor, the Minister of Highways.
The bridge is high and approximately long. It cost $1.7 million. When construction was finished in 1962, it was the highest highway bridge in Alberta.
The J.D. Read Memorial Building
John Davis Read was one of Entwistle's first citizens, having moved to town in 1908. He opened Entwistle's first lumber yard in 1910. In 1912, he started a feed business, which was hugely successful all throughout the 1940s. Read was also very interested in village matters, serving on the Entwistle Village Council from 1913 to 1942. He was mayor of Entwistle from 1925 to 1930, and 1935 to 1942.
Read sold his business and retired in 1946. When he died in 1965, he left the bulk of his estate to the Village of Entwistle, with the instruction that it be used "to build something that will be used by the whole community."
In 1973, the J.D. Read Memorial Building was built. Until recently, the J.D. Read Memorial Building housed Entwistle's bank, post office, and public library, and it is home to a newly expanded post office and a
travel agency
A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides travel and tourism-related services to the general public on behalf of accommodation or travel suppliers to offer different kinds of travelling packages for each destinati ...
.
Entwistle vs. Old Entwistle
to the east of Entwistle lies the hamlet of Old Entwistle. Old Entwistle has a population of around 20. The citizens of Old Entwistle have always maintained that their hamlet is all that remains of the original village of Entwistle. Usually, they offer up their hamlet's name as the only proof.
When the railway bridge was completed in 1910, the GTP decided that, since Entwistle and Evansburg were so close to each other, the two villages could share one
train station
A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing s ...
, in Evansburg. The people of Entwistle were furious, and demanded their own train station.
The GTP finally relented. Entwistle's train station had to be built one mile east of Entwistle, as this was the minimum distance required so as not to interfere with Evansburg's train station. The GTPR then proceeded to buy all the land around the train station. The GTPR then put the land up for sale, advertising the land around the train station as being "the future site of Entwistle." This area became known as the Grand Trunk Pacific subdivision, or simply, Grand Trunk. Despite the railway's efforts, the people of Entwistle opted to walk one mile to the train station, rather than move the town.
It is unknown when Grand Trunk started being referred to as Old Entwistle, but the name became common in the late 1980s. Old Entwistle is the original location of Entwistle's train station, not the whole community.
See also
*
List of communities in Alberta
The province of Alberta, Canada, is divided into ten types of Local government in Canada, local governments – urban municipalities (including List of cities in Alberta, cities, List of towns in Alberta, towns, List of villages in Alberta, vil ...
*
List of former urban municipalities in Alberta
The Province of Alberta currently has 256 urban municipalities including 19 cities, 106 towns, 80 villages and 51 summer villages. In addition, there are 100 communities that previously held some form of urban municipality status. These include ...
*
List of hamlets in Alberta
*
Pembina River Provincial Park
References
{{Alberta, hamlets=yes
Designated places in Alberta
Former villages in Alberta
Hamlets in Alberta
Parkland County
Populated places disestablished in 2000