Almost every drop of water that touches the earth must find its way to the ocean, but have you ever stopped and sought to see which way the water flows?

I was first struck by this thought while learning how to drive, my older brother insisting that we stay on the gravel to begin. The township system of range and township roads ensured that the majority of this driving was uneventful, but one section particularly enthralled me, that being where Township Road 772 snakes around Peavine Creek. From there, I developed a fascination of hopping in my car and raising dust to appreciate just exactly how humanity has conquered the whims of water’s flow.

Carving through the earth, the numerous creeks within the M. D. of Smoky River No. 130 have acted as both a cradle for the development of colonies steeped in religious symbology and the ire of farmers suddenly told a portion of their acreage has eroded away. The countless dams, ditches, and drainages constructed over the years have occupied the municipality second only to road maintenance, the two paths overlapping in the form of 135 bridges and hundreds of culverts within it. Local history does not find itself inadvertently connected to these creeks but rather informed by it. Human geography, the study of how geography, human action, and culture inform one another, can be applied on the micro-historical level to help us become more familiar with our communities, causing us to think about something we drive over constantly and perhaps better appreciate it.

1. Overlooking Hunting Creek from the north-side plateau (June, 2024).
2. Hunting Creek after receiving the waters of Lalby Creek, east of Range Road 255 (Dec. 2023).
3. Hunting Creek at its mouth during a dry season (June 2024).
4. Hunting Creek in its germinal state west of AB Highway 744 (November, 2023).

Hunting Creek was the cradle of settlement for the first pioneers of Girouxville, still densely covered in game trails near its confluence as an essential corridor for deer. A tributary of the Smoky River, it runs roughly 35 km through the Municipal District of Smoky River. It forms north of Dreau, receiving its waters primarily from the Kimiwan Lake canal, and secondarily from the Bremont Drainage. Upstream are multiple hay marshes in places where the creek widens, and the creek increasingly forms a deeper ravine that measures over 120 feet deep near its mouth. It has been colloquially called Le Crique [à] Remillard in the past, referring to pioneer Rémi Remillard (1848-1921) and his descendants, who homesteaded off the banks of the creek.¹

W. Selby writes of Hunting Creek in 1909 as having a good water flow, though lacking in August. This is the first mention of the name, and it likely relates to Selby’s comment that those townships it crosses are abundant in wildlife: “Moose, bears and some of the smaller fur-bearing animals are killed here every year.” C. D. Brown, surveying in 1913, considered Hunting Creek (not referenced by name) to be instead a tributary of Racing Creek, which he describes as flowing “in a westerly direction through the northern part of sections 21, 20 and 19 and the southern part of sections 28, 29 and 30” in T78-R22-W5. This description makes Racing Creek include the lower portions of Hunting Creek and the entirety of Lalby Creek.² Later government maps determined that Racing Creek would begin at the confluence of Hunting and Lalby Creeks.

1. Lalby Creek at its source, surrounded by hay marsh (April, 2024).
2. The Guenette Drainage weir (April, 2024).
3. Along the banks of Lalby Creek was an important pack trail to facilitate travel between Girouxville and Lac Magloire, which was used for cutting ice in the winter. Pictured are portions of townships T78-R22-W5, T79-R22-W5, and T79-R21-W5.
4. F. Lalby, namesake of the creek, pictured during the First World War (1914-1918).

The primary tributary of Hunting Creek, Lalby Creek runs approximately 25 km from Lac Magloire to its mouth. A weir dams the creek to control the outflow of the lake, after which its uppermost section is diverted through a ditch called the Guenette Drainage. It receives the waters of Boisvert Drainage east of Range Road 220 as it begins to form a shallow ravine. Lalby Creek is named after the early homesteader Robert François Lalby (1889-?), a native of Bordeaux who returned to serve in the French Army during the First World War. He took his homestead on NW-S36-T78-R22-W5 in 1914, second only to Charles & Paul Bourgeois in settling on the banks of the creek. He and his wife, Suzanne (née Bonnamour), moved back to France in 1936.

It was first recorded as Reed Creek by H. W. Selby in 1909 in reference to its source (called Reed Lake before the arrival of Francophone settlement), and later recognized by surveyor C. D. Brown in 1913 as extending to the Smoky River under the name Racing Creek.

1. Peavine Creek pooling after the meeting of its two branches (July 2024),
2. Source of the northern branch, draining muskeg at the corner of Range Road 194 and Township Road 770 (July, 2024).
3. Source of the southern branch, draining gently rolling hills south of Township Road 770, modified by riprap and a culvert (July 2024).
4. Flooding of Peavine Creek on Philias Maisonneuve’s property, common before proper drainage systems (1935).
5. Weir built by Philias Maisonneuve to prevent flooding (1930s).
6. An example of the marshes on the banks of the Peavine near its mouth (August 2023).

Peavine Creek runs approximately 40 km from its southern source and over 50 km from its northern source in the heights south of Donnelly and McLennan. The northern branch is largely diverted through the Gervais Drainage, while the southern branch retains its original shape. The two branches of Peavine Creek then meet west of Range Road 205 before flowing 8 km through the Peavine Drainage and meeting the undiverted section of Roundlake Creek, more than doubling the size of Peavine Creek with its waters. It begins to frequently meander before forming a wooded coulée that drains into the Little Smoky River, 2.5 km southeast of Blue Bridge Crossing.

H. Smith mentions in 1910 that the land on the west side of the creek in T76-R21-W5 was “thickly covered in vetch and peavine and it is a favourite feeding ground for horses and big game,” pointing to the common name for Vicia americana as being the creek’s namesake.³ The French name Ruisseau (less often Rivière) au Jargeau, as contained in historical works such as the memoirs of Jean Pariseau, is actually a misnomer, as jargeau specifically refers to the non-endemic Vicia cracca.⁴

Despite its insufficient water supply, Peavine Creek’s status as the cradle of settlement has given it wider cultural significance. This has allowed the name to prevail in common usage over Roundlake Creek, such that the distinction has even been lost in modern municipal maps. Its cultural impact can be observed in the English-language translation of the first Falher and Donnelly history book, “Leurs rêves, nos mémoires” (Their dreams, our memories), which was given the new title of “By the Peavine, in the Smoky, of the Peace,” the narrative of which is ultimately based on the memoirs of Ovila Sabourin. Father Jean-Baptiste Giroux is directly compared to Moses, leading his people to a promised land, the banks of Peavine Creek. In their company was a Métis guide named Pailloux, who told of a river to the west of their camp. Fathers Giroux and Falher took their horses to scout this prospect out; rather than a river, they found a stream. As this tale recounts, it was on the banks of the Peavine that the party’s first meal was consumed – a bear shot by Fred Brulotte. At the confluence of the northern and southern branches of the creek is the Parc Maisonneuve, a historic site close to where Philias Maisonneuve (1872-1940) operated his sawmill along the creek, beginning in 1916. There, a metal replica of the cross erected by the first settlers in 1912 sits engraved with their 16 names.⁵

Footnotes

1. As per oral communication from Cécile (née Lanctôt) Brulotte, and confirmed by an interview with Yvette (née Couillard) Charest, see: Project de Recherche Historique Francophone Collection (1989), Cassette #2 – Yvette Charest.
2. For Selby’s testimony see: Canada Department of the Interior (Topographical Surveys Branch), Description of Surveyed Townships in the Peace River District in the Provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, 3rd Edition (1913), p. 120; for Brown’s, see Ibid, p. 133.
3. Dept. Int., Description of Surveyed Townships in the Peace River District (1913), p. 118.
4. Jean Pariseau, Les contes de mon patelin (Éditions des Plaines, 1985).
5. Marie Cimon-Beaupré, ed., Leurs rêves, nos mémoires (1979).