Talk:Strathcona County, Alberta

Name

Uh, N really sure where to put it, but, "strath" is Scots, "valley of". Trekphiler 03:19, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Other communities

hey, some of the places under the other communites heading are just subdivisions... I wouldn't call them communities. I'm just saying it isnt exactly correct. --Stratguy 02:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

All those communities were probably taken from a statcan webpage. I've separated the hamlets (as listed at Alberta Municipal Affairs). If you know a better way to sort "other communities", please do so, by all means. --Qyd 11:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Special event right now

Did you know right now that Strathcona County is hosting the 2007 Western Canada summer Games? --Virtue account 21:32, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Fuller History of Strathcona County

I believe the History section of Strathcona County should be re-written as follows: In the late 1800s, what is now Strathcona County filled with farmers, immigrants from eastern Canada, Britain and Continental Europe, the U.S. and other parts of the world. The community of Clover Bar grew up in the 1870s on the west edge of the present county, centred on the pioneer home of gold-panner Thomas Clover. Clover Bar was officially recognized in 1893 by the Territorial Legislature (it was then part of the North West Territories) as Statute Labour District #2. In 1913 Statute Labour District #2 was renamed Local Improvement District #517 (Clover Bar)and later re-organized as a municipal district. Meanwhile, a farming area east and south of the old city of Strathcona, Alberta was organized as Local Improvement District in 1917 and re-organized the following year as the Municipal District of Strathcona (No. 518), with offices in a building still standing at 10318 Whyte Avenue, Old Strathcona, Edmonton. (source: Monto, Tom (2011), Old Strathcona, Edmonton's Southside Roots, Crang Publishing/Alhambra Books, p. 10-11, 394 In 1943, the two municipal districts merged to become Municipal District #83 (Strathcona). By joining with local school divisions in 1962, Municipal District #83 officially became a county. The county offices were located in Old Strathcona, at 10426 81 Avenue, until county offices were built in 1976 in the hamlet of Sherwood Park, that had been created in the 1950s and 1960s. source: Monto, Tom (2011), Old Strathcona, Edmonton's Southside Roots, Crang Publishing/Alhambra Books, p. 394 County status was revoked in 1995 when the the provincial legislature repealed the County Act but was returned in 1996 when the County of Strathcona #20 officially changed its name to Strathcona County and received Specialized Municipality status.[5]

Tom Monto, Alberta historian (talk) 18:21, 16 January 2012 (UTC)Tom Monto, Alberta Historian

Per my reply at Talk:Cloverdale, Edmonton#enlargement of residential development section, improper linkage, it appears the reference you've provided is from a book you wrote. I suggest you review WP:COI, and particularly WP:SELFCITING within, before proceeding with any further Wikipedia contributions based on your published research. Hwy43 (talk) 22:09, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I care to differ about Highway 43's comments regarding my edits to the Strathcona County site. Wikipedia does not prohibit self-citing although these sources could be added as references to back up my proposed early part of the history section: Story of Rural Municipal Government in Alberta, 1909 to 1969; Edmonton Henderson's Directory; Aubrey, Merrily K. (2006), Concise Place Names of Alberta, Friends of Geographical Names of Alberta. If other sources presented the importance of the old city of Strathcona to the county's history (and to expalin the origin of its name), they could be cited as well, but my book, to my knowledge, was the first that addressed the recently-created need to pull the threads together, the attempt to separate the county from the old city of Strathcona being of fairly recent origin. Tom Monto, Alberta historian (talk) 16:30, 17 January 2012 (UTC)Tom Monto

Wikipedia does prohibit self-citing, it is called WP:SELFPUBLISH. 117Avenue (talk) 03:25, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

Per WP:SELFCITING, "Excessive self-citation is strongly discouraged" and citations "should not place undue emphasis on your work, giving proper due to the work of others".

As you have undoubtedly undertaken a significant amount of research to write this book, referencing your original sources of research will go a long way against claims that you might be placing undue emphasis on your book. This echoes Sunray's comments on your talk page about taking care in avoiding conflicts of interest and being fair and balanced with referencing in an effort minimizing editors from thinking you are promoting your own book. Hwy43 (talk) 07:18, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Fort Saskatchewan's inclusion

Yesterday, 207.148.163.30 removed Fort Saskatchewan from the "Communities and localities" section, stating "The City of Fort Saskatchewan is an entity unto itself and not related to Strathcona County in any way as citations 12 and 13 attest to" in the edit summary. I reverted this. Another user has reverted the revert. Although not a policy or a guideline, I have suggested we use WP:BRD to resolve, restoring the content in the meantime until after a discussion reaches consensus.

Firstly, there are multiple pieces of rationale to restore the content. However, this issue is a tad complex to explain, and I chose to use the shortest piece of rationale that I could fit in the edit summary with hope of being sufficient on its own. Obviously it wasn’t enough. I’ll first respond to 207.148.163.30's edit summary.

"The City of Fort Saskatchewan is an entity unto itself"

Yes, this is true. Cities are entities unto themselves, as are the three other types of urban municipalities in Alberta (towns, villages and summer villages). Nowhere does the current content within the "Communities and localities" section assert that Fort Saskatchewan is not its own separate entity.

"... and not related to Strathcona County in any way as citations 12 and 13 attest to"

“Not related” is ambiguous and I’m not sure what is meant by this. To clear the area, my intent in recently editing the “Communities and localities” section was to list those communities that are spatially within Strathcona County.

Citation 12 is intended to support Fort Sask’s inclusion, and admittedly, it is difficult to interpret and I can understand why at first glance it doesn’t appear to support the inclusion. However, it should not be discredited as a citation in isolation because Fort Sask’s spatial relationship to Strathcona County is unique compared to the relationships of the majority of other Alberta cities and their neighbours. Look at the comparable section at Grande Prairie County No. 1 and this citation that confirms that Grande Prairie is a community (in this case, a city) that is within (in this case, completely surrounded) by the County. In Fort Sask’s case, it just so happens that it is located along the edge of Strathcona County instead of being completely surrounded by it. As a result, it also borders Sturgeon County to the northwest and Edmonton to the southwest (since 1982 when Edmonton annexed those lands from Sturgeon County). At no point did Sturgeon County include lands south of the river. The river has always been the boundary between Strathcona and Sturgeon. Since Fort Sask is on the south side of the river, Fort Sask is thus within Strathcona, not Sturgeon.

As for Citation 13, yes, it does not explicitly confirm Fort Sask is within Strathcona County. Instead, Citation 13 is intended to support inclusion of towns (none), villages (none), summer villages (none), and hamlets (nine, of which one is an urban service area) that are within Strathcona County. If the entire cited document is reviewed, it will be noted that it doesn’t list any city as being within any specialized or rural municipality (I don’t know and can’t speculate why). For the interim, I will move both citations to the appropriate locations within the section so that it is no longer inferred that Citation 13 applies to Fort Sask’s inclusion.

As for the second reverter’s edit summary, which states “not what this article is about, nor what the section explains”, this is correct. We could explain that within the section if the above is not enough to maintain Fort Sask’s inclusion in the list, and could do the same for all the other articles that list cities as well if necessary. Not sure if we need to go there.

Note: I should advise that the lists of urban municipalities within specialized and rural municipalities published by Municipal Affairs (Citation 13) is consistent with the municipalities within StatCan census consolidated subdivisions, for those specialized and rurals that do not have cities or Indian reserves (IRs) within them. e.g., the list at Lamont County, which is based on the former, is consistent with the latter as there are no cities or IRs within Lamont County, whereas there is inconsistency between the two within the list at Parkland County as there is a city and 3 IRs within Parkland County.

Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 05:31, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the problem stems from Strathcona County being special. Ironically this is the municipal status that the Alberta government decided to call it. Strathcona County governs everything inside of it, USA, hamlets, all of it, because there are no towns, villages, summer villages, or IRs. When a reader comes to this page they expect that the list of communities is of the hamlets and other unincorporated communities that Strathcona County over sees. When a reader visits a page of a municipal district I expect that like I, are expecting a list of populated places within the MD's boundaries. Strathcona County is only on one side of Fort Saskatchewan, so I do not consider the city inside any county. But I had not considered how Fort Saskatchewan has expanded into Strathcona County, and that it is separated from Sturgeon County and the City of Edmonton by a river. The City of Calgary has annexed lands from Rocky View County many times, and it is on three sides of Calgary. Why is Calgary not listed as a community in Rocky View County? 117Avenue (talk) 02:00, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

May want to consider aligning expectations of visiting specialized municipality articles with those of municipal district and other rural municipality articles though, as Mackenzie County has urban municipalities within it. It and Wood Buffalo each have numerous IRs. It is only a coincidence that Strathcona has no towns, villages, summer villages, or IRs within it, and Strathcona still could have changed its status to a specialized municipality if ones did exist within it. A few things to consider...

• Bruderheim is a similar and nearby example to Fort Sask's situation (among numerous). Although a town, it is an urban municipality like Fort Sask. Also like Fort Sask, it abuts Lamont County's boundary (coincidentally with Strathcona). The difference is the divider is a range road rather than a river. Bruderheim is listed as being within Lamont County in Citation 13. If Fort Sask were to revert its city status back to town status, it would be listed as a town within Strathcona just as Bruderheim is listed under Lamont County. Further, if Bruderheim were to incorporate as a city, it doesn't suddenly become a void and lose its historic spatial relationship with Lamont County.
• Chestermere is still within Rocky View County despite sharing its western boundary with Calgary, as confirmed by the citation. If it were to incorporate as a city, it also doesn't lose its historic spatial relationship with Rocky View.
• If Rocky View County was to become a specialized municipality, either through Chestermere dissolving and becoming a USA (like the Wood Buffalo situation) or Langdon growing to beyond 10,000 and becoming a USA (like the Strathcona situation), Rocky View will still surround three towns and a village and will have no change in governance jurisdiction over them.

The Calgary situation is somewhat but not outright similar to the Fort Sask situation. At one point, Calgary was wholly surrounded by Rocky View. However, it annexed to Rocky View's southern boundary with Foothills and then beyond into Foothills, so now it can be described as either within both or being a void between the two. Its situation is like the more obvious situation where Edmonton is a void between four (Leduc, Parkland, Strathcona and Sturgeon Counties), although it has not yet annexed anything from Leduc County (although likely not for long). This is why Calgary is not listed as a community in Rocky View and Edmonton is not listed as a community within any of its neighbours. Hwy43 (talk) 03:43, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I was unaware that Calgary had expanded into the MD of Foothills, that would make it like Edmonton. I went to see if Drumheller was in the list of Starland County, it isn't. So, if St. Albert expanded into Parkland County, or Fort Saskatchewan expanded into Sturgeon County, or Red Deer expanded into Lacombe County, or Lethbridge expanded into Cardston County, they would be removed from the lists of their respective counties. I'm guessing Bruderheim as well. I understand now. Thanks, 117Avenue (talk) 06:56, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly! You got it. Add Canmore and Peace River to the Calgary, Drumheller and Edmonton club as well. Thank you for your patience and enduring the above detail to get to this. Hwy43 (talk) 08:19, 1 November 2012 (UTC)