“WILWIC” series - (“Why I Like Working In Camrose”)
As an employee of the City of Camrose, “J” gets to be involved in a number of really neat projects. As well, thanks to the great work of a number of former employees and municipal Councils from years’ gone by, the City of Camrose is home to a number of facilities and amenities which help make this a great place to live. Fortunately for the geocaching community, there are a number of great caches already in Camrose which highlight some of the amazing amenities of this fair City. The intent behind this caching series is to highlight a few of the remaining – and possibly lesser visited – locations within Camrose, and to hopefully provide some interesting history or facts along the way.
Warning: Not all hides within this series will be winter-friendly. Some of the stages are also more kid friendly than others; although as a family with young kids, we’ve tried to keep these as accessible as possible without losing some of the challenge.
WILWIC #5 - "The Interchange"
In the development of the Canadian prairies in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, arguably nothing was more critical than the construction of railroads. As rail was extended west across the country, it brought with it young families looking to find a place to call their own. Rail lines in western Canada were key in the growth of agriculture, travel and general commerce in the early years, and of heavy industry over the past few decades.
Most towns and villages were developed along rail lines, and the places which had multiple rail lines often had a distinct advantage. Camrose was fortunate to develop along the rail lines of 3 separate rail companies (Canadian Pacific, Canadian National, and the Grand Trunk Pacific, which was later bought out by CN).
There are only a few locations within AB where the two remaining nation-wide rail companies (CN and CP) still operate a ground level interchange to allow rail traffic to switch from one rail line to the other. One such interchange is located ~100m south of the cache site (near the south end of 41 St). This interchange is arguably one of the reasons why Camrose has developed as it has: the NE corner of the city is home to a number of pipe manufacturing and pipe coating industries which service the oil and gas industry, in recent years a number of large scale agricultural companies have also made the Camrose region home, again due to the proximity of both major rail companies.