Whitecourt

Sister cities

• Yūbetsu-chō

History

The community was formed in the place known by the Cree as Sagitawah (the place where the rivers meet). The first Hudson's Bay Company trading post was established at the site in 1897, and Klondike gold rush-ers used the place as a way station on the overland trek to the goldfields. The first permanent resident on the present day townsite was HBC employee and farmer John Goodwin, who settled there in 1905. A post office was established in 1910, and Walter White, who carried the mail from nearby Greencourt, was honored with the name Whitecourt. The name "Whitecourt" was chosen in 1909 by Walter White, the postmaster of the young community. White was the son-in-law of former Kansas governor John W. Leedy who also settled in the community. The name conformed to the style of the name of Green Court, White's previous hometown, located nearby. In early 1910, MLA Peter Gunn announced that a government wagon road had been opened from Entwistle to Whitecourt. With the expansion of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1910, immigrants were encouraged by Premier Arthur Lewis Sifton to settle in the vast scarcely inhabited area between Edmonton and the Peace River Country. With the growth of settlement in the area and as it was on the route to the Pine Pass through the Rockies, the Canadian Northern Railway line was planned to be completed to Whitecourt in 1913. But it was not until after that railway company was rolled into the Canadian National that a railway was built to Whitecourt.

Geography

Whitecourt has three identifiable geographic components: * the Valley that includes the town centre, the Athabasca Flats residential area, Millar Western's sawmill and pulp mill, and three manufactured home parks; * the Hilltop that includes the Hilltop and Southlands Estates residential areas, the Hilltop industrial area, a 2.5 km highway commercial strip along Highway 43 and two manufactured home parks; and * West Whitecourt, between the McLeod and Athabasca Rivers, includes an industrial area, a 1.0 km highway commercial strip along Highway 43, and a manufactured home park. Whitecourt has a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc), falling just short of a humid continental climate (Dfb) due to May and September having mean average temperatures just below . Winters are long and cold (though milder than many areas farther east, even at lower latitudes), and summers are fairly short and relatively warm. The record high temperature was recorded June 30, 2021, with the record high daily minimum of recorded the same day. |source 2= weatherstats.ca (for dewpoint and monthly&yearly average absolute maximum&minimum temperature) }}

Most-observed species

• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  386
• Red-breasted Nuthatch

  Sitta canadensis Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  276
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  261
• White-breasted Nuthatch

  Sitta carolinensis Latham, 1790 · Aves
  231
• White-throated Sparrow

  Zonotrichia albicollis (J.F.Gmelin, 1789) · Aves
  202
• Downy Woodpecker

  Dryobates pubescens (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  197
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  177
• Hairy Woodpecker

  Leuconotopicus villosus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  171

Most recent

• M 4 — 2026-02-01
  40 km NW of Swan Hills, Canada
• M 4.4 — 2016-01-12
  15 km WNW of Fox Creek, Canada
• M 4.6 — 2015-06-13
  34 km SSW of Fox Creek, Canada
• M 2.5 — 2008-01-31
  10 km NNW of Edson, Canada