Amber Valley, Alberta

Amber Valley is an unincorporated community in Alberta, Canada, about 160 kilometres (99 mi) north of the capital Edmonton. Its elevation is 608 m (1,995 ft). Originally named Pine Creek, Amber Valley was among several Alberta communities settled in the early 20th century by early Black immigrants to the province from Oklahoma and the Deep South of the United States. About 1,000 African Americans emigrated to Alberta from 1909-1911. Amber Valley is the location of the Obadiah Place provincial heritage site, a homestead of one of the first African-American settler families.

Amber Valley
Unincorporated
Amber Valley Cultural Centre
Amber Valley
Location of Amber Valley in Alberta
Coordinates: 54°43′58″N 112°55′46″W
Country Canada
Province Alberta
RegionNorthern Alberta
Census division13
Municipal districtAthabasca County
Government
 • ReeveDoris Splane
 • Governing body
Time zoneUTC-7 (MST)
 • Summer (DST)UTC-6 (MDT)
Websitewww.athabascacounty.com

History
See also: Black Canadians

In 1909, a group of 160 African-American homesteaders established the community.[2] The homesteaders, African Americans from Oklahoma and Texas, were attracted by the government's promises of land to homestead, as it was trying to encourage immigrant settlers to develop the land.[3] They were leaving Jim Crow conditions in the United States that discriminated against their rights.

Parson Harrison Sneed, a clergyman and mason,[4] led a group of settlers from Oklahoma to an area by the Athabasca River. For the first few years they had difficulties, as the climate was harsher than what they were used to in Oklahoma. They had both to clear and cultivate land for crops, and build their houses from the ground up. Most of the early ones were log cabins. The settlers were resilient and three quarters of the African Americans stayed on their land in Alberta long enough and developed it in order to secure their homestead patents, a higher percentage than of some other settlers groups. They built a school house in 1913 and a nondenominational church in 1914. They developed a baseball team that was widely known in the north.

Amber Valley was the largest community of Black people in Alberta until the 1930s. It received a post office in 1931, when it officially established the name of the community. At that time the community had about 300 people, and supported a two-room schoolhouse.[5] Because of a decline in population as people moved to cities and areas with more economic opportunity, the post office was closed in 1968.[6]

Other primarily American Black settlements formed at this time were Junkins (now Wildwood), near Chip Lake; Keystone (now Breton), southwest of Edmonton; Campsie, near Barrhead; and Eldon, near Maidstone, Saskatchewan.[5] From 1908 to 1911, about 1,000 African Americans settled in Alberta to homestead.[6]

Beginning in the 1950s, many descendants of the original settlers began moving to near cities such as Edmonton to escape the rigors of rural life and have more economic opportunity. In Edmonton, Amber Valley descendants founded the Shiloh Baptist Church, one of the few Black churches in Western Canada.[7]

Amber Valley is now considered a ghost town.[8]

Original settlers

Willis Reese Bowen (also known as Willace Bowen) organized the original group of five families who moved from Oklahoma to Vancouver, and then to Amber Valley.[5] Willace Bowen established a homestead that his son Obadiah Bowen continued to work. Obadiah replaced the first house with a brick one in 1938. The house and homestead, with outbuildings, has been preserved as Obadiah Place and honored for its historic provincial significance.

Notable people
  • The community was the subject of the 1984 documentary film We Remember Amber Valley, directed by Selwyn Jacob.[12]
  • Esi Edugyan's debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne (2004), is set in the fictional town of Aster, based on this historic settlement. It features a Ghanaian-Canadian civil servant from Calgary who moves his family there in 1968 after inheriting property.[13]

See also

Similar Alberta homesteader settlements of Black Canadians, founded in years 1908 to 1910:

References
  1. "Municipal Officials Search". Alberta Municipal Affairs. September 22, 2017. Retrieved September 25, 2017.
  2. Boyle and District Historical Society (1982). Forests, Furrows and Faith : A History of Boyle and Districts. Boyle. p. 27.
  3. Rowe, Allan (2015-02-12). "African American Immigration to Alberta". Historic Resources Management Branch. Alberta Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Retrieved 2017-02-06.
  4. "Amber Valley". Retrieved 2020-04-20.
  5. Mikell, Montague (Summer 2000). "Fixing Obadiah Place". Alberta Settlement. Legacy Magazine. Retrieved 5 Feb 2017.
  6. "Black Settlers Come to Alberta", Alberta Settlement
  7. "Archived copy". Edmonton Examiner. 9 February 2012. Archived from the original on 2015-05-20. Retrieved 2014-06-24.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2010-12-08. Retrieved 2010-12-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  9. Brennan, Brian. "John Ware wasn't the only Black settler in Alberta at the turn of the 20th century". Brian Brennan. Brian Brennan. Retrieved 5 Feb 2017.
  10. "OBADIAH PLACE". HistoricPlaces.ca. Retrieved 5 Feb 2017.
  11. "A Farmer from Amber Valley: J.D. Edwards". whitepinepictures.com. Retrieved 2017-03-30.
  12. Turner, Patricia (27 December 2011). "Exclusive interview with Selwyn Jacob: The Producer of the documentary on Harry Jerome". Mega Diversities. Retrieved 21 February 2014.

Further reading
  • Mathieu, Sarah-Jane. North of the Colour Line: Migration and Black Resistance in Canada, 1870-1955. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
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