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Notes · 2026-10-08

Parcel of the month: a Crown-land quarter in Cooking Lake–Blackfoot

We ran the report on public land east of Edmonton so we could publish the whole thing. Here is what it found and what we would do next.

Every month we will run the free report on a parcel nobody owns privately, publish the unedited output, and talk through it the way a buyer or a farm operator would. October's parcel is a 64-hectare quarter of Crown land in the Cooking Lake–Blackfoot Provincial Recreation Area, legal description SW 35-51-20-W4, on the Strathcona County side of the moraine. The full report page is here.

What the water file says

The pipeline found 311 provincial well records within 5 km and settled on a predicted completion depth of 38.9 m with a band of 25.7 to 53.1 m. Look at the nearest ten records on the report page and you will see why the band is wide: two wells 900 m away finish at 20 m and 70 m respectively, and a 108 m hole sits 1.4 km out. That is the Cooking Lake moraine in one table. If this were a purchase, we would pull the drilling reports for the three closest records and read their lithology before trusting any single number.

Terrain and the design rules that fired

Mean slope is under 4% with a south aspect and a keypoint present, which is why the pipeline recommended a contour swale and keyline cultivation rather than a terrace. Canopy cover from 1 m LiDAR came back at 64%, so the shelterbelt rule fired for the north-west wind but with the note that trees already exist. The elevation grid shows 28 m of relief across the quarter, enough to matter for frost drainage.

What the report could not get

The provincial flood-hazard query and the soil-polygon service both timed out on this run. The report says "unknown" instead of guessing. We think that is the right behaviour; we also think the second run usually fills them, which is why the generator tells you to try again.

What we would do next

For a farm operator: price a frost-free pasture waterer and cross-fencing, both of which have been RALP-eligible in past intakes. For a buyer: this is a recreation area, so the lesson is the method, not the parcel. Run the 15 questions against any Strathcona listing and start with the wells.