Saunders Creek is a ghost town in west-central Alberta, Canada. Built as a

coal mining 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 from ...

community, the town existed from 1913 to 1954. It is located in the foothills of the

Canadian Rockies The Canadian Rockies (french: Rocheuses canadiennes) or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part ...

near the David Thompson Highway, about 55 km west of the town of Rocky Mountain House. It was named for Saunders Creek, a small stream that runs immediately west of the townsite. The North Saskatchewan River flows nearby to the south.

History

Prior to the opening of the Brazeau Branch rail line in 1913, the only access into the Saunders Creek area was via trails by horse, or via the North Saskatchewan River by sledge when the river was frozen or by canoe when it was not. The Brazeau Branch line was part of the Canadian Northern Railway (which later became part of the

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN i ...

), and was built to transport coal from the mine at

Nordegg Nordegg is a hamlet in west-central Alberta, Canada within Clearwater County. It is located in the North Saskatchewan River valley in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, just east of the intersection of the David Thompson Highway and the Hig ...

to markets to the east and south. New towns like Saunders Creek, Alexo, and Harlech quickly sprang up near the tracks to support additional coal mines. Saunders Creek had a railway station, a school house, a hotel, a boarding house, a rooming house, a union hall, and about 35 cottages, as well as a number of mine buildings. Recreation facilities included tennis courts, a skating rink, a baseball diamond, and a pool hall, and the town had hockey and baseball teams.Anonymous. Historical information poster at the townsite (pictured, left above)). The mine had steam boilers and electrical generating facilities, and all buildings in the town had electric lighting and water. The coal in the Saunders Creek area is of high-volatile bituminous "C" rank and is part of the early Paleocene

Coalspur Formation The Coalspur Formation is an Upper Cretaceous to lower Palaeocene stratigraphic unit of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in the foothills of southwestern Alberta. Its deposition spanned the time interval from latest Cretaceous (Maastrichtian ...

. Fossils from the Paleocene period have been found near Saunders Creek, including a possible pantodont upper molar and Paleocene fossil leaves. The mine at Saunders Creek was operated by the Bighorn and Saunders Creek Collieries, Ltd. and worked a single seam that was about 4.5 to 5.0 feet (1.4 to 1.5 m) thick with a shallow dip to the northeast. Mining was done by underground room and pillar methods and, from 1926 to 1940, by the

longwall Longwall mining is a form of underground coal mining where a long wall of coal is mined in a single slice (typically thick). The longwall panel (the block of coal that is being mined) is typically long (but can be upto long) and wide. Histor ...

method. Production ranged from 200 to 350 short tons (180 to 320 t) daily, depending on the season. The product had a heat content of from 11,500 to 12,500

British Thermal Unit The British thermal unit (BTU or Btu) is a unit of heat; it is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. It is also part of the United States customary units. The modern SI ...

s per pound and was sold primarily in the Prairie Provinces and western Ontario.Morgan, O. 1948. Bighorn and Saunders. Western Miner, vol. 21, no. 8, p. 96. Total production over the life of the mine was 853,100 tonnes. Coal markets went into decline when the railroads started replacing

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

s with diesel,Dutton, J.A. 1954. Alberta coal output declines. Western Miner, vol. 27, no. 4, pp. 42, 44–46, April 1954. and the mine at Saunders Creek closed in 1954.Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board, 1985. Coal Mine Atlas: operating and abandoned coal mines in Alberta. ERCB Report Series ERCB-45. The town was abandoned and the buildings were sold and removed, or dismantled. As of 2016, no buildings remain at the Saunders Creek townsite, but it is a popular camping spot and former residents and their descendants have held reunions there in the summer. An information poster at the site (pictured at left) relates some of their memories. A few quotes from the poster provide a picture of life in this rather isolated small town:

"The stairs adjacent to the hotel were a popular toboggan run in the winter months." "Annually, on
July 1 Events Pre-1600 * 69 – Tiberius Julius Alexander orders his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as Emperor. * 552 – Battle of Taginae: Byzantine forces under Narses defeat the Ostrogoths in Italy, and the ...
, a greased pig was suspended from a light standard adjacent to the store; men returning from the mine would attempt to climb up and over the arcass God knows why." "Vera Water's horse Pat was struck by the train on the "silver bridge" in 1931. Pat did not survive." "The culvert was a popular winter recreation facility. Skating through the abyss was not an uncommon sport for the brave of heart." " Gate Night, the night before
Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...
, involved participants attempting to remove yard gates undetected by owners."

References

{{Coord, display=title, 52.457625, -115.721800, type:city(64)_region:CA-AB Localities in Clearwater County, Alberta Ghost towns in Alberta