A few years back this came up on another forum. I sent an email to the Riparian Land Management & Water Boundaries Unit
Land Management Branch, Lands Division
Alberta Sustainable Resource Development
Chris, this was forwarded to me for an answer.
I have received questions like this from others before, particularly about fishing below the banks of the Crowsnest River in southern Alberta.
In general, and for the vast majority of water bodies, the Crown is the owner of the stream bed. This is so because the streambeds were never subject to grant and were specifically excluded from titles, or by Section 3 of the Public Lands Act grants title to streambeds to the Crown.
There are some exceptions to the general rule.
The main exception is lands that were formerly owned by the Hudson's Bay Company. Prior to confederation of Canada, the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) of fur traders through a Royal Charter from King Charles II of England, owned by deed what was then called Rupert's Land which included all the land in the Province of Alberta as we know it today. When the HBC surrendered its lands in 1870 to the Dominion of Canada, it did so with some conditions attached including the retention of a portion of lands for the HBC. These lands included their posts, a block of land adjoining each post, and a grant of land in each township within the lands set out for settlement not exceeding one twentieth of those lands. Of these lands, the HBC retained ownership of all lands south of the North Saskatchewan River within Section 8 and all of Section 26 except the northeast quarter section in every township as it was surveyed. In every fifth township surveyed, the HBC retained full title to all of Section 26 and all of Section 8. Today, the beds and shores within these parcels of land are generally understood to be owned by the current titleholder as titles based on the original deeds were passed onto subsequent landowners (unless expressly conveyed otherwise).
The other exception would be where a land grant/title specifically includes the bed and shore of a stream in its description. The only way to determine this is to view the title. If it is silent (i.e. doesn't say anything) then section 3 applies and the crown owns the bed and shore.
Additional information is available on our website at
http://srd.alberta.ca/
Then I did a follow up email asking
The two main areas are on the Crowsnest(Sara's B&B SW and NW of 17, Twp 7, Rng 2, W5M) like you mentioned and the Jumpingpound Creek just down stream of highway 1 with the odd mention of the North Raven. From the info you have provided below it would seem that I will need to find the titles of these lands in question or is there a reference somewhere that pinpoints these owners? I have zero knowledge of the workings of land titles and any help would be appreciated.
And then I got this responce.
Actually, I had a feeling you were implying Sara's as I have heard this many times before when I have been down south! I specifically checked our files before I responded and can tell you that the bed and shore of the Crowsnest River in sections NW 17, SW20 and all of 18 in TWP 7 Rg2 W5 are Crown owned by exception. The titles exclude the river specifically. The adjoining landowners cannot force a fisherman out of the stream bed if they are traversing it below the bank.
I am not aware of issues involving Jumpingpound Creek but a legal land location would suffice to begin search of a land title.