Hat Creek, Alberta is on the Northern Range. It is a town where the time between the going down of the sun & the coming of sleep belongs to the tellers of stories and lies. Hat Creek is a place that time has truly forgotten. Hat Creek is incorporated under Alberta Provincial Laws but somehow was omitted from maps as a result of errors made by the first surveyors through the northern range. It was the Simon Coleman Survey of 1907 that completely omitted a 50 square mile area on the northern range. This included Hat Creek. And, then in 1933, the Alberta Legislature proposed that the province try to recover the lost area. However, it never actually happened. Since that time, Hat Creek’s main industry appears to be speculation and hope of things to come. Even the railroad bypassed the town of Hat Creek. And today, Hat Creek has no postal code. The town of Hat Creek, Alberta can be found nestled in the foothills where the prairies meet the Rocky Mountains on the northern range. Looking east you can see forever as the rolling prairies disappear gently into the big Alberta sky. If you look to the west you will see the prairies meet the mountains and rise with greatness and touch the blue Alberta sky.
From the south, the gravel road winds along the river and bends hard left and over the old wooden bridge into town. The gravel road brings travellers into Hat Creek on 50th Street towards the town’s one and only traffic light, which is almost always green. What is it about Hat Creek? It looks pretty much like any other prairie town? Yet, there is something about Hat Creek that makes it very different. It is a quiet town. It is a town that time has truly forgotten. In fact, you could stand in the middle of 50th Street all day and not ever be in anyone’s way. Like lots of prairie towns, 50th Street is a wide street. It seems that the first mayor of Hat Creek, Alfred J. Tramore, thought that there was a need for wide streets out here on the northern range. Alfred J. Tramore had the idea that wide streets would be able to handle the crush of traffic from the city. It never happened. Like most prairie towns in Alberta, it’s angle parking in Hat Creek and it’s free. There are a couple of parking meters in town but nobody puts any money in them any more. And, nobody minds. Besides, there is plenty of free parking just off 50th Street in front of Hat Creek’s only restaurant, the Golden Flower Cafe. There is even more free parking across the street from the Community Hall. Hat Creek is the home of the annual Cowboy Campfire Festival held each year in July since 1997.
