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Irvine, Alberta

human settlement in Alberta, Canada

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ6074292 ↗
Source-derived summary

Irvine is a hamlet in Alberta, Canada within Cypress County. It is located approximately 35 kilometres (22 mi) east of Medicine Hat on Highway 1 and has an elevation of 763 metres (2,503 ft). The hamlet is located in census division No. 1 and in the federal riding of Medicine Hat.

History

The vast prairies were home to the Cree and other indigenous groups who traversed the area in and around the nearby Cypress Hills, following the routes of the bison. By 1870, the bison were all but gone. The Palliser Expedition passed through the region in 1859. Métis settled in the hills during the mid-1860s, and the Cypress Hills Massacre occurred in 1873.

A settlement developed around a trading post, and became known as 20 Mile Post - 20 miles from the next trading post at Medicine Hat. It later was renamed Irvine in honour of Colonel A. Irvine, a commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police who served with General F.D. Middleton during the North-West Rebellion of 1885.

Editorial summary

“Irvine, Alberta” enters the record as human settlement in Alberta, Canada. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Irvine, Alberta and human can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1870, 1859, 1873, 1885—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Irvine, Alberta and human.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Irvine, Alberta” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Irvine, Alberta and human provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6074292. Authority coordinates are 49.955, -110.277. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1870, 1859, 1873 and 1885.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Irvine, Alberta”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Irvine, Alberta primary sources, Irvine, Alberta archive and Irvine research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Irvine, Alberta” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.