page_title: Waterways, Alberta
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Waterways, Alberta / History
caption_attribution_description: Tugs moored at Waterways, Alberta.
context_page_description: Waterways is a locality within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in northern Alberta, Canada. It is now a neighbourhood within the Fort McMurray urban service area along the west bank of the Clearwater River, south of the river's confluence with the Athabasca River.
context_section_description: In 1921, Waterways became a major shipping hub when the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway reached the town, making it the northernmost point on the North American railroad grid. Cargo for destinations farther north was shipped to Waterways and then transferred to barges, after which fleets of tugboats took them to destinations in the Mackenzie River watershed.
  In 1930, Dr. Karl A. Clark shipped a plant designed to separate bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands to Waterways and set it up nearby across the Clearwater River. Since that time, the rail line to Waterways has played an important role in transporting heavy equipment and supplies needed for the development of the oil sands and the accompanying growth of the surrounding communities.
  In 1933, Waterways gave its name to the Waterways Formation, a sequence of limestones and calcareous shales that outcrops along the Clearwater and Athabasca Rivers near the town.
  In 1937, a salt plant was built at Waterways to recover rock salt from the subsurface by solution mining and evaporation. The salt was part of the Prairie Evaporite Formation, which was about 200 feet (60 m) thick and lay at a depth of about 700 feet (210 m) at that location. The plant operated until 1950, producing 228,000 tons (206,838 tonnes) of salt.
  In 1964, shipping from Waterways to the Mackenzie River region ceased after Hay River, on Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, became the northern terminus of the rail grid. Local shipping from Waterways continued, however, and the rail line to Waterways eventually became part of the Northern Alberta Railway, the Canadian National Railway, and then the Athabasca Northern Railway.
  During the 2016 Fort McMurray Wildfire, Waterways was critically damaged. According to fire damage reports on May 4, 90% of homes in Waterways had already been lost to the wildfire.
caption: Waterways in 1939
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