Beiseker is a village in the Province

Province

A province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.-Etymology:The English word "province" is attested since about 1330 and derives from the 13th-century Old French "province," which itself comes from the Latin word "provincia," which referred to...

 of Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. It is approximately 70 kilometres (43.5 mi) northeast of Calgary. It is considered to be an outermost part of the Calgary Region

Calgary Region

The Calgary Region is an area centred around Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It consists of the City of Calgary, Rocky View County and the municipalities it encloses, and the Municipal District of Foothills No. 31 and the municipalities it encloses. The Calgary Census Metropolitan Area and Calgary...

 and is included within Calgary's Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). The village is surrounded by rural Rocky View County, and the closest neighbouring communities are Irricana

Irricana, Alberta

Irricana is a town in southern Alberta, Canada. It is located in the wide-open spaces of the Canadian prairies, northeast of Calgary, and west of the Drumheller badlands off Highway 9....

 and Acme

Acme, Alberta

Acme is a village in south-central Alberta, Canada. It is located northeast of Calgary, Alberta. It was the first village to be incorporated in Kneehill County....

.

History

Lying in a belt of rich black soil, Beiseker was developed as an agricultural service centre. It was founded by the Calgary Colonization Company whose purpose was to promote settlement by demonstrating the grain growing potential of the area. The Village name comes from Thomas Beiseker, one of the partners of the Company. Initial colonization took place in 1908 when the company recruited a number of ethnic German settlers from the Great Plains of the Dakotas. This is reflected in the number of German family names which predominate the area.

The Village began to grow in 1910 when the branch line of the Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

 was completed. The Grand Trunk Pacific

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway

The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway was a historical Canadian railway.A wholly owned subsidiary of the Grand Trunk Railway , the GTPR was constructed by GTR using loans provided by the Government of Canada. The company was formed in 1903 with a mandate to build west from Winnipeg, Manitoba to the...

 line - now owned by Canadian National Railway

Canadian National Railway

The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. CN's slogan is "North America's Railroad"....

 - was constructed in 1912 to the east of the Central Business district. With the construction and intersection of Highways 9, 72 and 806 at the northeast edge of the Village, Beiseker came to have a very favourable location in terms of road and rail access. Since it is located almost equidistant from Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

 and Drumheller

Drumheller, Alberta

Drumheller is a town within the Red Deer River valley in the badlands of east-central Alberta, Canada. It is located northeast of Calgary...

, Beiseker began to emerge as a local service and trade centre for the surrounding rural agricultural area. Village status was achieved in 1921.

The surrounding area's great potential for grain-growing is shown by Beiseker's status as "World Wheat King Capital", or as a top producing area of wheat.

Infrastructure

An elementary and high school is located in the village, and Beiseker Community School is part of the Rocky View School Division.

The village is also home to Baptist

Baptist

Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...

, Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 and Anglican congregations. As Beiseker is at the intersection of three Provincial highways, equipped with a campground and motel it is a popular stop for campers and other travellers coming to and from Saskatoon and Drumheller. There is also a small airport

Beiseker Airport

Beiseker Airport, , is located east of Beiseker, Alberta, Canada along Alberta Highway 9. The airport is located within rural Rocky View County.-External links:* on COPA's Places to Fly airport directory...

 which serves the community, located a few miles east of town along Alberta Highway 9.

Economy

Beiseker currently serves as a centre for local agricultural services including fertilizer, seed cleaning, and soil testing. There is also a local UFA

United Farmers of Alberta

The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...

 outlet serving farmers in the area. Local industries also serve the oilpatch, and there are many sites extracting natural gas

Natural gas

Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...

 in the immediate area surrounding Beiseker, as well as several major pipelines

Pipeline transport

Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....

.

Beiseker also has a number of small businesses on its main street offering a variety of services, including a local credit union

Credit union

A credit union is a cooperative financial institution that is owned and controlled by its members and operated for the purpose of promoting thrift, providing credit at competitive rates, and providing other financial services to its members...

, grocery store, pharmacist

Pharmacist

Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...

 and hair dressers, as well as several small restaurants.

The Canadian office of Lampson International

Lampson International

Lampson International is a crane manufacturer located in Kennewick, Washington established in 1946 by Neil F. Lampson. Lampson operates one of the largest crane fleets in the United States with a fleet including Heavy Lift Cranes with capacities from 100 tons to 750 tons and Heavy Lift Transi-Lift...

, a large international company specializing in construction cranes

Crane (machine)

A crane is a type of machine, generally equipped with a hoist, wire ropes or chains, and sheaves, that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to move them horizontally. It uses one or more simple machines to create mechanical advantage and thus move loads beyond the normal capability of...

, is based in Beiseker. There is also a biomedical incinerator based in Beiseker, which handles waste from hospitals in the Province and abroad.

Since 2005, and the release of Ang Lee

Ang Lee

Ang Lee is a Taiwanese film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman , Sense and Sensibility , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Hulk , and Brokeback Mountain , for which he won an Academy...

's Academy Award-winning film Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee. It is a film adaptation of the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx with the screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry...

, Beiseker has gained another claim to attention. Just off RR 252 is the site of the 'Twist Ranch' that figures so importantly in the penultimate scene of the film. Although located on private property, it has become something of a shrine to its characters, real and fictional.

Notable residents

William Samuel McGee (b 1868, Lindsay

Lindsay, Ontario

Lindsay is a community of 19,361 people on the Scugog River in the Kawartha Lakes region of south-eastern Ontario, Canada. It is approximately west of Peterborough...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 - d 1940, Beiseker) lived for several years on a farm with his wife and daughter just outside of Beiseker and is buried in the area. His name was to be the inspiration for the poem The Cremation of Sam McGee

The Cremation of Sam McGee

"The Cremation of Sam McGee" is among the most famous of Robert W. Service's poems. It was published in 1907 in The Songs of a Sourdough...

 by Robert W. Service

Robert W. Service

Robert William Service was a poet and writer who has often been called "the Bard of the Yukon".Service is best known for his poems "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", from his first book, Songs of a Sourdough...

.

Demographics

The population of the Village of Beiseker according to its 2008 municipal census is 837.

In 2006, Beiseker had a population of 804 living in 318 dwellings

House

A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...

, a -4.1% increase from 2001. The Village has an area of 2.84 km² (1.1 sq mi) and a population density

Population density

Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...

 of 283.5 inhabitants per square kilometer.

External links

• Village of Beiseker - Official Website
• Big Things. Squirt the Skunk, Beiseker's mascot