Along Highway 62 at the south end of the town of Magrath, named for
Charles Alexander Magrath, one of the principles in the Galt Canal project, is a large park, J.A. Spencer Memorial Irrigation Park, dedicated to another notable Magrath resident, historian
John Arthur Spencer. In the park just feet from a stretch of the original Galt Canal is a large boulder bearing a standard Historic Sites & Monuments Board of Canada plaque with a short history of the Galt Canal. Nearby is a second large boulder to which is affixed a plaque commemorating the opening of the canal on November 14, 1899 and recognizing it as the oldest operating system in Canada.
Prior to the 1890s, much of southern Alberta had been perceived as unsuitable for agricultural settlement. Enclosed within "Palliser's Triangle" - an arid expanse in the southern Canadian Prairies - the region had been largely avoided by settlers convinced of its dubious farming possibilities. This dreary vision was of particular concern to Elliott Galt, whose companies had amassed vast land subsidies in the area in return for constructing railway lines.
In the 1890s, Galt and his associate A. C. Magrath of the Alberta Irrigation Company (later the Canadian North-West Irrigation Company) spearheaded the St. Mary River Project to address the problem of aridity in southern Alberta. Galt succeeded in securing the support of the federal government, the Mormon community, and British investors for the project. The government agreed to offer a rebate on the surveying fees associated with the endeavour in order to encourage settlement in an otherwise unattractive region. The Mormons offered their labour and their considerable expertise on irrigation - cultivated through years of "making the desert bloom" in Utah - in exchange for land and cash payments. And the financiers agreed to provide capital in the hopes of substantial returns.
Begun in 1898, the St. Mary River Project was completed in 1900. As a result of this happy confluence of interests, vast tracts of southern Alberta were made viable for agriculture and settlement. The St. Mary River Project, of which the Magrath Canal was a part, was the first major irrigation project undertaken in Alberta and was essential in transforming the image of southern Alberta from a dry, desolate land unsuitable for agriculture to a region made fruitful by irrigation. The establishment of the communities of Magrath, Raymond, and Stirling was directly linked to the project.
GALT CANAL
LE CANAL GALT
The original canal, built between 1898 and 1900, stretched from the St. Mary River, near Kimball, to Lethbridge and Stirling. It was soon after extended and expanded, with concrete structures eventually replacing the first timber ones. Known by several names, usually those of the successive companies which owned it, the canal was built principally through the efforts of Elliott Galt, Charles Magrath and Charles Card. The Galt Canal was the
first large-scale irrigation project in Canada and was instrumental in opening up semi-arid land in southern Alberta to agriculture and settlement.
Le premier canal, bâti entre 1898 et 1900, s'étendait de la rivière St. Mary, près de Kimball, jusqu'à Lethbridge et Stirling. Il fut agrandi et élargi peu après, et des structures de béton remplacèrent, avec le temps, les structures de bois originales. Connu sous plusieurs noms, habituellement ceux des compagnies qui en furent successivement propriétaires, il doit surtout son existence aux efforts d'Elliott Galt, Charles Magrath et Charles Card.
Premier grand projet d'irrigation au Canada, il contribua à ouvrir les terres semi-arides du sud de l'Alberta à l'agriculture et à la colonisation.