Canadian Checkerboard-Part 2

Last week's post featured a map of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba showing lands available for homesteaders in 1918. Here is a much more detailed map of Northern Alberta, beginning a bit south of Edmonton. Grid cells are 1 mile square sections.

Here are some detailed views.

The meanings of the categories in the legend are a bit unclear to me but the lightest orange are lands reserved for soldiers. These are mostly in the northern and western parts of the province. The middle orange are lands the are "finally disposed of" meaning they have been claimed and are being actively used as homesteads, schools or other. The red squares are "unpatented (entered for, sold or reserved)" - possibly meaning that a claimant is working on establishing a homestead. The uncolored (white-ish with some yellowing of the paper) areas were surveyed and available (my assumption) to be entered as homesteads.

These maps also show parks, timber berths, coal seams, tar sands, borings for oil and gas and grazing leases.

As seen below, most of the land in and around Edmonton has been transferred to private owners.

There is a lot of unsurveyed land (another assumption based on no grid lines) but the map comments seem to be trying to sell people on the virtues of these lands with comments about the high quality of the water, soil and potential for industry.

I'm ready to move here!