Spirit River is a town in

northern Alberta Northern Alberta is a geographic region located in the Canadian province of Alberta. An informally defined cultural region, the boundaries of Northern Alberta are not fixed. Under some schemes, the region encompasses everything north of the cen ...

, Canada. It is approximately north of

Grande Prairie Grande Prairie is a city in northwest Alberta, Canada within the southern portion of an area known as Peace River Country. It is located at the intersection of Highway 43 (part of the CANAMEX Corridor) and Highway 40 (the Bighorn Highway), a ...

at the junction of Highway 49 and Highway 731.

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, the Town of Spirit River had a population of 849 living in 378 of its 432 total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of 995. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021. In the 2016 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, the Town of Spirit River recorded a population of 995 living in 442 of its 487 total private dwellings, a change from its 2011 population of 1,025. With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2016.

Economy

The community is largely agricultural, being located in the fertile

Peace Country The Peace River Country (or Peace Country; french: Région de la Rivière-de-la-paix) is an aspen parkland region centring on the Peace River in Canada. It extends from northwestern Alberta to the Rocky Mountains in northeastern British Columbia, ...

. It also features an active

oil and gas A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and combustion, burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, petroleum, oil, and natura ...

industry.

History

The name Spirit River comes from the Cree ''Chepe Sepe'', or Ghost River. In 1891, a trading post became the original settlement along the banks of the Spirit River. Ranching in the area started as early as the 1840s and

farming Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled peopl ...

in the 1880s. The first school opened in 1910. In 1915, to the northwest, on Section 22, the Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway subdivided a townsite called ''Spirit River Station''. The residents and storekeepers at the old settlement then moved, creating a village in 1916. On February 16 of that year, the Herald Tribune reported that McRae & Co. opened a general store. Spirit River was incorporated as a town in 1951. In 1923, the

wheat pool A wheat pool is a co-operative that markets grain (mostly wheat) on behalf of its farmer-members. In Canada in 1923 and 1924, three wheat pools were created. They were farmer-owned co-operatives, created to break the power of the large for-pr ...

was established. In October 2013, a pipeline inspection crew working in the Saddle Hills area southwest of Spirit River unearthed a 10-metre long dinosaur fossil. It was later confirmed to be that of the duck-billed

hadrosaur Hadrosaurids (), or duck-billed dinosaurs, are members of the ornithischian family Hadrosauridae. This group is known as the duck-billed dinosaurs for the flat duck-bill appearance of the bones in their snouts. The ornithopod family, which incl ...

. The Town of Spirit River, along with the Municipal District of Spirit River celebrated its 100th anniversary in August 2016.

Government

The Municipal District of Spirit River No. 133's municipal office is located in Spirit River. It is also home to the Peace-Wapiti School Board and provincial offices for Alberta Agriculture and Fish and Wildlife.

Infrastructure

;Transportation A paved airport accommodates medical emergency flights and private aircraft. ;Recreation The town features a curling rink, arena, outdoor pool, library, museum and community hall. ;Health care Spirit River is home to a hospital and the Central Peace Health Centre, a newly constructed clinic that has physician, dentist, physiotherapist and massage therapist offices. A new 92-bed seniors care home is set to open in 2024.

Education

The town is home to two schools – Ste. Marie Catholic School (elementary) and Spirit River Regional Academy (K-12).

Notable people

Hilarion Kapral Metropolitan Hilarion (born Igor Alexeyevich Kapral, russian: Игорь Алексеевич Капра́л; 6 January 1948 – 16 May 2022) was a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR), Metropolitan of Eastern America a ...

, a bishop and First Hierarch of

ROCOR The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (russian: Ру́сская Правосла́вная Це́рковь Заграни́цей, lit=Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, translit=Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov' Zagranitsey), also called Ru ...

* Patricia Joudry, screenwriter. * Tim Howar, singer and dancer, known as a London-based rock vocalist with Mike + the Mechanics *

Aaron Goodvin Aaron Goodvin is a Canadian-American country music singer and songwriter. Active since 2016, he has charted multiple singles on the ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard'' Canada Country charts, including the number-one hits "You Are (Aaron Goodvin s ...

, country singer * Frank Grigware, who escaped from

Leavenworth Prison The United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth (USP Leavenworth) is a medium security U.S. penitentiary with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in northeast Kansas. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Unite ...

while serving a life sentence for train robbery, and was elected mayor in 1916 using the name James Fahey

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1916 establishments in Alberta Hudson's Bay Company trading posts Municipal District of Spirit River No. 133 Towns in Alberta