Central Alberta’s seaside town, resorting since before the railway came
Fifteen kilometres of freshwater lying across the line between Red Deer County and Lacombe County, and the closest thing central Alberta has to a seaside town. People were coming out here for the summer before the railways arrived, which is the part that explains the place: this was a resort by habit before it was one by plan. In 1928 the Dominion Government, pushed along by the Sylvan Lake Women’s Institute, built the long pier out from the bottom of Main Street, and the waterfront has been organised around that idea ever since. Around a million people come through in a year now. The Wild Rapids waterslides that opened in 1983 were the largest of their kind in western Canada until they closed in 2016, which locals will tell you about whether or not you ask.
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
