| There isn’t a massive For Sale sign as you cross the rickety Bailey Bridge past the big ice cream billboard on the way into Seebe, but there may as well be.
That’s because the entire town is for sale – 22 houses, 600 acres, the one-room schoolhouse, the curling rink and the 17-unit apartment complex are all up for grabs. But like hot dog buns and single parents, Seebe comes as a package deal. If you want one piece of the town, you’ve got to take it all.
The hamlet, located about 20 kilometres west of Morley, just off the TransCanada Highway on the banks of the Bow River, is a company town that’s almost as old as Alberta. It is owned by electricity giant TransAlta and was originally used to house employees working at the nearby power plant on the Bow River. But the company has changed over the years and so has the land. There are fewer employees on site and Seebe isn’t as isolated as it was in its early days – employees no longer need to live where they work.
So TransAlta is getting out of the landlord business, at least in Seebe. The land has been on the market for months, and although no deals have been signed, most residents seem resigned to the fact that it’s only a matter of time before it’s sold. After all the waiting is over, the quiet little hamlet tucked into the shadows of the Rockies will undergo the biggest change in its century-long history.
Quirky Character
It’s a quirky story, a whole town being sold at once, but in some ways it’s fitting for Seebe – the town certainly has its quirks. Seebe’s beginnings date back to 1909, when TransAlta’s predecessor, the Calgary Power Company, purchased the land from the nearby Stoney Nakoda Nation as part of the construction of the power generation plant. Completed in 1911, the plan was the first on the Bow River and was built partly to provide power to the nearby cement plant at Exshaw. Over the next 40 years, the town took on homes for plant employees and built a post office, a baseball diamond and a one-room schoolhouse (the last of its kind in the province when it closed). The town even boasts its own world-class amenity – the smallest one-sheet curling rink with artificial ice in the world (which is surprisingly small, even when you are armed with that knowledge).
Seebe hasn’t exactly been a sleepy hamlet ever since. In 1954, Marilyn Monroe filmed River of No Return nearby. The King and Queen of England visited in 1939 and tossed a rose to a resident with the last name Strappazzon – the lucky recipient’s first name may be lost to history because a chunk of the commemorative plaque detailing that information is missing. That same plaque brags of armoured gun carriers set up to defend the dam during the Second World War, but fails to mention the Kananaskis-Seebe internment camp set up at the same time, which, according to author David J. Carter, housed "alien internees and pacifists and later German officer personnel."
Although the town has some stunning scenery for a backdrop, it isn’t exactly a postcard itself. Seebe is a company town built upon pragmatism rather than an idealized marketing plan for tourism, like its Canmore and Banff neighbours. The houses are mostly well-lived-in bungalows with rusty swingsets in the backyards. The Seebe General Store and Cafe, which has stood since 1918 and still sees regular traffic throughout the day, has a utility light illuminating the grocery section, and its workers wear scarves indoors when the weather is cold.
The esthetics of the town, however, isn’t the issue. Seebe has heritage, history and, most importantly, residents who wonder what’s going to happen when their town is sold.
Development Potential
TransAlta spokesperson Nadine Walz doesn’t have a lot to say about the town’s future, mostly because even she doesn’t know what’s going to happen. The company, predictably, isn’t offering up any information on potential buyers, but does say it is being diligent about finding a good purchaser and helping out the residents as best it can.
"It's a sensitive area, so the company is being careful about who it's being sold to," Walz says. "The new owners will make decisions on the use of the property, but tenants are given a six-month notice to changes in their lease."
Walz only laughed at the suggestion that TransAlta follow the lead of the owners of the California town of Bridgeville, who put the town for sale on auction Web site eBay and netted nearly $1.8 million late last year. TransAlta could be sitting on an Internet diamond mine.
Walz’s laugh presumably means that Seebe won’t be pawned off online anytime soon, but that doesn’t mean there is no demand for the land.
Seebe’s proximity to the mountains and the river make it an attractive investment for developers looking to cash in on the eco-tourism boom. On the other hand, it’s almost completely surrounded by Stoney Nation reserve land, and there’s speculation that the nation will buy the land back, although nobody will confirm such rumours.
The land sits within the Municipal District of Bighorn. Greg Birch, Bighorn’s assistant municipal manager, says the land has some great development potential, but it is also ecologically sensitive. Anyone looking to develop the land will have to apply for changes to a number of planning documents in the area – which is bureaucratese for "jumping through a lot of hoops."
"(Seebe) is very important in terms of its development potential," Birch says. "It’s a huge land area relative to the rest of the parcels of land in the Bow corridor, but it does have some constraints."
Birch says the municipality is currently working on changes to its overall Municipal Development Plan, which will guide future development in the area. Those changes may be holding up the sale of Seebe because it has an impact on the value of the land and its development potential. Birch says he expects the process to be completed before the end of the year.
Community Spirit
As a result, Seebe residents may be forced to wait a lot longer before they know what their future holds. For their part, most seem to be taking a wait-and-see approach to the sale, although they do express some reticence – one resident joked that the sale is taking so long she hoped TransAlta had forgotten about the whole thing.
Resident Ernie Klem says there was some anxiety in the town when the sale was first announced, but it’s been so long since the announcement that people have become resigned to the fact that it’s out of their control – they’ll only worry about it when it happens. It’s an attitude of practicality that shouldn’t be surprising in such a town.
"I don’t think anybody is particularly happy about what’s happening. The town’s been here a long time. Some people have lived here 20 or 30 years," Klem says. "There was a lot of concern when the first news came, but I don’t think people are all that worried about it now.
"Personally, I’m not too worried about it because we’re surrounded by natives and I think they want the land."
Paul Ryan, who represents Seebe on the council of the Municipal District of Bighorn, says he’s not holding his breath for any news either.
"Mostly people are being pragmatic," Ryan says. "Without knowing what’s happening in the future I can sympathize with anxiety, but that’s not something I’m hearing a lot of from the community."
If he had his way, Ryan says he would like to see the town remain a residential neighbourhood.
"I like what’s there now," Ryan says. "It’s a very close-knit community. It’s got some great community spirit. Hopefully what goes there is responsible."
Such comments must drive some developers mad – many have been dropping millions of dollars for urban-sized riverside lots 10 minutes down the TransCanada Highway in Canmore, so Seebe could be a steal.
But Ryan's talk of community spirit has more substance than the marketing slogans of city developers trying to sell a new suburb – he is talking earnestly about an intangible reality that most urban dwellers have a difficult time understanding.
Seebe may not have the alpine architectural design standards of Canmore or the scrubbed tourist sheen of Banff, but it has its own beauty lying in cluttered backyards, sitting on blocks in driveways and peeling off the sign at the baseball diamond. You just have to look for it. |
Copyright ©2003 FFWD. All rights reserved.