Athabasca
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Athabasca. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a river, lake, and region on the eastern slope of the Canadian Rockies. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, near the sources of the Saskatchewan, and flows in a tortuous, northerly direction into Lake Athabasca, whence its waters find their way ultimately through the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean. Its length is about 600 miles, equal to that of the Seine and the Thames combined. Lake Athabasca is about 200 miles in length with an extreme width of thirty-five miles. It is comparable in size to Lake Ontario. The district of that name was a quadrangular territory, comprising a quarter of a million square miles, lying east of British Columbia and extending from the sixtieth parallel of north latitude to Alberta and Saskatchewan. The population in 1901 was 6,615. In 1905 it was divided between the two provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Athanasius (296-373), bishop of Alexandria and head of the Christian church in Egypt. He was a learned Greek. At the time when the struggle was on between the followers of Arius and the supporters of the doctrine of the Trinity, Athanasius was leader of the Trinitarians. He was obliged to flee more than once to the desert for his life. Now that theological controversy affords less delight than formerly, Athanasius is likely to be forgotten; but for centuries his writings were regarded as one of the bulwarks of the Nicene or Trinitarian faith. Athanasius is one of the men who stand high in the history of the Roman church. See Nice ; Copts
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a river lake, and former district of Canada. The ATHABASCA or ELK RIVER rises on the E. slopes of the Rocky Mountains in the province of Alberta, flows in a N. E. direction through the province of the same name, and falls into Lake Athabasca after a course of about 750 miles. LAKE ATHABASCA, or Lake of the Hills, is about 190 miles S. S. E. of the Great Slave Lake, with which it is connected by means of the Slave river, a continuation of the Peace. It is about 200 miles in length from E. to W., and about 35 miles wide at the broadest part, but gradually narrows to a point at either extremity. The district of ATHABASKA, formed in 1882, lay immediately E. of British Columbia and N. of Alberta; area about 251,900 square miles. Its territory was in 1905 absorbed by the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 entry treats Athabasca purely as geography — a 600-mile river, a lake "comparable in size to Lake Ontario," and a district of 6,615 people divided between Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905. What neither account mentions is the bitumen soaking the sand along the river's lower course: commercial mining began only in 1967 with the plant that became Suncor, followed by Syncrude in 1978, and the Athabasca deposit now underpins Canadian reserves counted in the neighbourhood of 165 billion barrels, among the largest on earth. Fort McMurray grew from a fur-trade post into an oil city of some 70,000, evacuated wholesale during the 2016 wildfire. The river itself is still there, and Collier's 750 miles is nearer the modern figure of about 765 than Aiton's 600.
Written for this edition, 2026.