Tucked into the prairies roughly 45 kilometres northeast of Drumheller, the small village of Delia sits just 1.6 kilometres south of Highway 9 in southern Alberta. The community takes its name from Delia Davis, the wife of a local merchant named Alvin L. Davis. Interestingly, the settlement was briefly known as the Village of Highland between 1914 and 1915, though the post office had already been operating under the Delia name since 1912. The village holds a notable place in Alberta’s history: in 1920, it became the first community in the province to be governed by a female reeve, when Violet Barss was appointed to the role by her fellow council members.
Delia covers a land area of 1.33 square kilometres and recorded a population of 152 residents in the 2021 Census, a decline of nearly 30% from the 216 people counted in 2016, which was itself up from 186 in 2011. Despite its modest size, the village offers a surprisingly broad range of amenities, including a kindergarten-to-grade-12 school serving around 130 students, a skating and hockey arena, a three-sheet curling rink, a municipal library, a historical museum and grist mill, and a campground with eight sites. Delia also has a connection to the big screen – it served as one of several Canadian filming locations for the 2001 Hollywood film Knockaround Guys, which starred Barry Pepper, Vin Diesel, John Malkovich, and Dennis Hopper.