Valleyview, Alberta

Valleyview is a town in northwest Alberta, Canada. It is surrounded by the Municipal District of Greenview No. 16 and in Census Division No. 18.

It is at the junction of Highway 43 and Highway 49, between the Little Smoky River and Sturgeon Lake. Its position, in the junction of the two highways into the Peace Region, has led to the town motto, "Portal to the Peace".

The area around Valleyview has been inhabited by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years due to the area's rich hunting and fishing grounds. The local Cree population has lived in the region since at least the 18th century.

In the early 1800s the first visitors to the area arrived, seeking natives to exchange goods for furs. The trading was good and a Hudson's Bay Company post was established on Sturgeon Lake in 1877. Peace River Jim' Cornwall established the Bredin and Cornwall Trading Post nearby. The area was surveyed in 1900 for a possible settlement, but little developed of it. The following year the area was surveyed again by Fred Young who was particularly impressed with a piece of land on the northwest shore of Sturgeon Lake. By 1916 the first pioneers settled in the area nearby as its soil was rich for farming.

The community that formed to serve the growing population was initially named Red Willow Creek. Only when the first post office was opened in 1929 did the community change its name to Valleyview.

In late 1950 oil was discovered near the hamlet. The Whitecourt Cutoff project was completed in 1955, significantly reducing the travel time between the Peace Country and Edmonton. In 2020, the Town of Valleyview and Chamber of Commerce renamed a stretch of the highway to recognize the 65th anniversary of the cutoff's completion. By the late fifties Valleyview had firmly achieved boomtown status having been incorporated as a village in 1954 and then a town only three years later in 1957.

The town is located in the southern Peace Region between the Little Smoky River and Sturgeon Lake. As noted by its name, the town is elevated and overlooks the surrounding valleys. Sturgeon Lake is located approximately 15 km west of the town and is home to Young's Point Provincial Park, a popular provincial park in the area. Residing next to the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation reservation #154, within the land of Treaty 8.

Valleyview lies on the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin known for some of the largest coal and oil deposits in the world and the Duvernay Formation a rich source of natural gas and oil. The town is also located in an active geothermal area.