If you’re heading east on the Trans-Canada Highway, there’s a remarkable piece of Alberta history just outside Brooks that’s worth a stop.
Today, southeastern Alberta is home to a thriving agricultural community. But more than a century ago, the dry landscape was considered a challenging place to farm. That changed with one ambitious idea: bring water to the land.
The Brooks Aqueduct was built between 1912 and 1914, by the Canadian Pacific Railway’s irrigation division. The structure runs over 3.2 kilometres of farmland and is one of the largest aqueducts of its kind in the world.
Once it was operational, the aqueduct carried water from the Bow River to the drylands of southeastern Alberta. The system included the Bassano Dam, Lake Newell and hundreds of kilometres of smaller canals, supplying water to more than 50,000 hectares of land that was vulnerable to drought. With water and fertile land now available, farms quickly developed around the region.
It operated for 65 years, until it was decommissioned in 1979 and replaced by a parallel canal. While some of the structure was demolished, a large portion remains as a lookback into Alberta’s early engineering feats. The site was designated a National Historic Site in 1983 and a Provincial Historic Resource in 2000.
How to get to the Brooks Aqueduct
The Brooks Aqueduct is located eight kilometres southeast of Brooks, off the Trans-Canada Highway at the Tillebrook Provincial Park entrance intersection.
If you’re looking for other nearby attractions while visiting, check out the protected dinosaur bone beds at Dinosaur Provincial Park, where some of the world’s most important fossils were discovered. The park, which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is located around 50 kilometres northeast of Brooks.
AMA Membership on the Road
Remember that whenever you head out to explore Alberta, you can fuel up at Shell before you leave, where AMA members save 3¢/L on fuel, and 10% off in-store purchases. Drive with the knowledge that you’ll be covered by AMA roadside assistance if the unexpected happens on your trip.