Albert Canyon is a railway point in the West Kootenay region of southeastern British Columbia. The community was immediately east of the mouth of Albert Creek on the south shore of the Illecillewaet River. That settlement no longer exists, but the Canyon Hot Springs Resort borders to its north. On BC Highway 1, the locality is by road about northeast of Revelstoke and southwest of Glacier.
Explorers
In 1865, the government dispatched Walter Moberly to explore from Kamloops to the Canadian Rockies. He was the first European to penetrate the valley of the Illecillewaet, including Albert Canyon. However, the gorge, east of the station, was named after Albert Rogers, who accompanied his uncle, Major A.B.Rogers, on the exploration of Rogers Pass in 1881.
Railway
Albert Canyon, one of the original Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) stations opened to regular service in 1886, was the Rogers Pass, then Connaught Tunnel, western slope base for pusher locomotives, which predominantly assisted eastbound freight trains up the 2.5 grade. The station name derives from the gorge, where the track crosses the south wall of the short box canyon on a narrow ledge. All passenger trains from the late 1880s until at least 1910 made a five-minute stop for passengers to alight and view the Illecillewaet River rushing through the wide gorge below. A stone parapet later replaced the wooden lookout on a rock outcrop. The final train to stop was in 1939.
A dispatcher staffed the station telegraph office. A wye and water tank existed. To satisfy the anticipated mining boom, CP added a long siding westward in 1898, and lengthened the wye southward. In 1910, a spark from a locomotive ignited leaves and timber near the tunnel west. Initially controlled, the fire later spread, almost reaching the section house. Quarries in the area provided ballast for the region.
A 1916 CP building program included a rooming and boarding house, cottages, and a five-stall engine house that replaced an earlier building. CP erected a oil fuelling tank in 1917, for oil-fired locomotives, and a mechanical coaling plant in 1921, for coal-fired locomotives. The engine house closed in 1940 when the pusher fleet relocated to Revelstoke.
Still operational in 1948, it is unclear when the telegraph office closed. Passenger service ended in early 1965. The section crew probably relocated about this time.
In 1984, CP constructed a test section of PaCT track at Albert Canyon to determine its suitability for laying in the Mount Macdonald Tunnel.
A hot box detector operates to the east. Prior to double tracking, a siding existed, which measured 73 cars long west and 77 east in the late 1890s, and 97 cars long in 1935.
Built in 1887, the standard-design (Bohi's Type 3) two-storey station building was destroyed in 1971.
Mining
In the late 1880s, the government built a wagon road from the station, across the Illecillwaet River, and up the Tangier River (then called the North fork) to serve the branch trails to various mines. However, this artery was little more than a trail itself. The road reached the famous Jumbo Mine of Corbie, Kennedy & Co. In 1897, Grant Govan, a mining entrepreneur, initiated a wagon road to the Waverley mine on Downie Creek. The approximate length appears to include a rehabilitation of the original road. Barry & Ross, the road contractors, completed the project by that November.
The Farm, a hotel, was established north on the road. Patterson Bros, who were unsuccessful in leasing the Springs Hotel from John H. Skogstrom , built a hotel at the mark on the road.
When the Waverley mine began shipping ore in November 1897, using horses, mules, and sleighs, proposals were developing to build a narrow-gauge railway line from Albert Canyon to the mine. Soon, more grandiose railway plans emerged for the northward line to connect with the Tangier mine, continue north, then west, and finally south to Revelstoke. The Waverley mine erected a further warehouse at Albert Canyon, and Fred Forrest opened a store at the mine site. A sawmill was installed on the North fork to meet the expected lumber demands. When the avalanche danger ruled out any railway line, the Waverley mine quickly abandoned the assembly of the new concentrator plant at the site. In 1900, the Tangier mine closed. When Goldfields of BC had been floated in 1897 for £2 million, the Tangier and Waverley mines were the prime properties. After the speculative frenzy evaporated, Marble Bay Mines purchased all the equipment (sawmill, compressor plant, concentrator plant, and stores) from the liquidators in 1901 for shipping to Texada Island.