Welcome to Sylvan Lake, Alberta, Canada
Your Sylvan Lake (Red Deer, Blackfalds, Innisfail, Penhold)
area contact is Len Parsons (REMAX Real Estate Central Alberta.) Please refer to the "Relocating to Sylvan Lake" section to the right for
the phone number, address, website, and email address to contact Len Parsons directly.
Ask about the RE/MAX MLS homes for sale including residential houses, apartments, condos, duplexes, acreages and farms.
Sylvan Lake summary
Sylvan Lake is a town in central Alberta, Canada. It is located 25 kilometres (16 mi) west of the city of Red Deer along Highway 11 or Highway 11A. It is
situated on the southeast edge of Sylvan Lake, a 15 kilometres (9 mi) long freshwater lake, in Red Deer County.
REMAX MLS real estate homes for sale including
residential houses, apartments, condos, duplexes, acreages and
farms. The lake is a popular destination for tourists from around Alberta, with over 1.5 million visitors each year. Popular tourist activities include sunbathing, swimming,
water-skiing, and visiting the local Wild Rapids Waterslides.
Sylvan Lake was originally settled by French speaking immigrants from Quebec and the United States. Arriving in 1898 from Michigan, Alexandre Loiselle and his family
originally homesteaded the quarter section that later became the west side of today's Main (50th) Street and the businesses and homes immediately to the west.
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residential houses, apartments, condos, duplexes, acreages and
farms.
The early twentieth century saw groups of Finnish settlers moving to homesteads to the south and west of the fledgling settlement at Sylvan Lake. With their arrival
came the early business community, a general store, a blacksmith, a hardware store, post office, barber, restaurants and more. The completion of the Canadian Northern
line to Rocky Mountain House and Nordegg in 1912 and the parallel Canadian Pacific in 1914 opened the west country to settlement and resulted in the incorporation of
Sylvan Lake in 1913 under Mayor E. S. Grimson, a local hardware store owner. The anniversary of the founding of the town is celebrated every year in Sylvan Lake as
"1913 Days." REMAX MLS real estate homes for
sale including residential houses, apartments, condos, duplexes,
acreages and farms.
Farming quickly became a mainstay in the area and in 1923 an Alberta Pacific grain elevator was built on the CPR line immediately north of what is now Cottonwood
Estates. The elevator was torn down in the 1970s and the CPR line was abandoned in 1980 and subsequently removed. Since then, the right of way has survived as a natural
area and walking path through Sylvan Lake.
Elevators were also constructed along the CN line and were used by local farmers in the mid-century decades. They were torn down in the late 1990s.
Even prior to the building of the railways, Sylvan Lake was quickly becoming a summer resort for families in Red Deer. With the coming of the trains, "the Lake" quickly
became a favorite of families from both Edmonton and Calgary. Initially the summer visitors camped in tents, but soon the "Cottage Area" east of 46 Street and in "Lower Camp"
on the southeast shore began to fill with summer cottages. In the 1930s and 1940s people also began arriving by car and the areas around Norglenwold, Sylvan Lake Provincial
Park and Jarvis Bay Provincial Park began to fill up with summer visitors.
The influx of summer residents and visitors also brought businesses and services that catered to the ever increasing number of tourists. 1913 saw the first motor launch to
take paying passengers on tours around the lake. A large boathouse was constructed in 1926, allowing visitors to rent a boat, canoe, swimsuit, or buy ice cream and pop as
well as many other items necessary to a summer day at the lake. Regatta's were also held on the lake for a number of years beginning in 1923.
In 1928 the Dominion Government, assisted by the Sylvan Lake Women's Institute, built the long pier that jutted out into the lake from the bottom of Main Street. This pier
was connected to the earlier WI Pier and formed a square area used for swimming and mooring boats. The first "waterslide" at Sylvan Lake was also part of this facility.
The piers were prone to ice damage over the winter and were finally replaced by the existing "landfill" that now hosts beach volleyball tournaments and dragon boat racing
as well as the entertaining lake tour on the "Zoo Cruise."
Text & photo credits
The text contained in 'Sylvan Lake Summary' above is courtesy of Wikipedia.com.
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residential houses, apartments, condos, duplexes, acreages and
farms.
The article ('Sylvan Lake Summary') is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License
(See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.)
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sylvan Lake, Alberta".
The Sylvan Lake header image on this page is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Reference:
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