Who remembers the Waterways Train station?
Waterways used to be the busier part of the Fort McMurray area thanks to the train station and the river barges. In fact the site of the Heritage Shipyard is close to where the northern terminus of the entire North American railway system was – for a time.
The old Waterways station was still standing until it burned down in the mid-90’s. We lived up on the hill in Waterways and my family watched as it all went down. Afterwards the people of Waterways flocked in and salvaged tons of railway ties and spikes. My mom build an entire stepped-garden in our back yard using those railway ties. There was a little waterfall and fish pond and everything. It was gorgeous. We’ve long since moved and that house didn’t survive the 2016 wild fires, but even before then I found out that new owners wanted to flatten out the yard and landscaped all of that history right out of there. I’ll probably die mad about that one, but nothing stays forever.
The railway actually used to go beyond Waterways right up to where the Heritage Shipyard is now to transfer cargo – largely uranium – from the river barges to the rail cars. And I find that stuff FASCINATING. Looking back, we were far more tied to that old building than I realized.