Fitzgerald, also known as Fort Fitzgerald and originally Smith's Landing, is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

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 ce ...

, Canada within the

Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (abbreviated RMWB) is a specialized municipality in northeast Alberta, Canada. It is the largest regional municipality in Canada by area (105650.88km2 , this number includes Wood Buffalo Nation Park o ...

, located south of the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

border, and southeast of Fort Smith.

History

Prior to the extension of

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

service to

Hay River, Northwest Territories Hay River (South Slavey: ''Xátł’odehchee'' ), known as "the Hub of the North", is a town in the Northwest Territories, Canada. The town is located on the south shore of Great Slave Lake at the mouth of the Hay River (Canada), Hay River. It i ...

, on

Great Slave Lake Great Slave Lake is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada (after Great Bear Lake), List of lakes by depth, the deepest lake in North America at , and the List of lakes by area, tenth-largest lake in the world by area. It ...

, all cargo being shipped to or from the north had to be

portage Portage or portaging ( CA: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a '' ...

d from Fitzgerald to Fort Smith, to avoid four impassable rapids. The community was known as Smith's Landing until 1915 when it was renamed Fort Fitzgerald after the late

Francis Joseph Fitzgerald Francis Joseph Fitzgerald (12 April 1869 – 11 February 1911) was a Canadian who became a celebrated Boer War veteran and the first commander of the Royal North-West Mounted Police detachment at Herschel Island in the Western Arctic (1903). F ...

Services

Most of the community's services are provided from Fort Smith, including fire, law enforcement, health care, social services, and telecommunications. Law enforcement is part of the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; , GRC) is the Law enforcement in Canada, national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also provides police services under contract to 11 Provinces and terri ...

'G division' in the Northwest Territories. Since

telecommunication Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

services, including cellular and internet, are from Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, the area code is 867, although Fitzgerald is located in what would be

area code 780 Area code 780 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the Canadian province of Alberta. The numbering plan area comprises the northern two thirds of the province, including the Edmonton area. The area code was esta ...

in Alberta. An all-weather road, named Hay Camp Road, links Fort Smith and Hay Camp through Fitzgerald.

Demographics

Fitzgerald had a population of 8 people in the 2018 Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo census. The population of the Thebathi 196 Indian Reserve in the federal 2016 census was 20, a 33.3% decrease from the 2011 census which had a population of 30.

Climate

Fitzgerald has a

subarctic climate The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a continental climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

''Dfc''). Summers are short and warm, and winters long and cold.

References

External links