Just south of Siksika Nation and not far from the Hamlet of Mossleigh in Vulcan County we stumbled upon the Village of Arrowwood. It’s a very pleasant place with a population of about 225. Our curiosity was piqued by a large wooden tube resting at the side of the road. It having obviously been put there with some care and forethought, we stopped to read the descriptive plaque. Thus were we introduced to the Arrowwood Siphon.
If farmers choose to grow crops that need more moisture in a more timely manner than nature provides, these crops must be irrigated. A complex irrigation system was developed to bring water from the Bow River through a canal to be stored and used to irrigate farms in the Lomond / Vauxhall area. The canal passes north of Arrowwood and continues southeast to feed McGregor Lake, the first in a series of reservoirs making up the irrigation system.
Engineers had to design a system to carry the water across the West Arrowwood Creek valley seven kilometres to the northwest. A siphon, which is a tube or pipe that uses pressure to move a liquid against gravity, was chosen as the best way to accomplish this.
For display purposes, bracing has been added to the interior of old wooden siphon.
Gravity pulls the water through the canal and down the north side of the valley inside the siphon. The pressure of the water in the siphon is high enough to enable the water to flow up the south side of the valley to resume its course toward McGregor Lake.
The first West Arrowwood siphon was built in 1936. A second siphon was built parallel to the first one in 1951 so that more water could be transported. These wooden siphons were replaced in 1991 by a single large concrete siphon. What we see here is a section of the original siphon that was kindly donated to the Arrowwood Museum by Alberta Environment.
Taking a break in Arrowwood, Alberta