Tucked into central Alberta at the crossroads of Highway 63 and Highway 661, Newbrook sits roughly 28 kilometres northeast of Thorhild and about 36 kilometres south of Boyle, at an elevation of 665 metres above sea level. The hamlet falls within Thorhild County, in Census Division No. 13, and is represented federally by the riding of Westlock-St. Paul. The surrounding area carries a deep cultural heritage shaped by Polish and Ukrainian settlers who arrived in the region around the turn of the 20th century, and that influence remains a defining characteristic of the community and its surroundings to this day.
Newbrook is perhaps best known beyond its borders as the home of the former Newbrook Observatory, a meteor observatory that holds a remarkable place in the history of space exploration – it was the first facility in North America to successfully photograph Sputnik 1 after the Soviet satellite’s launch in 1957. In terms of population, the hamlet recorded 63 residents in the 2021 Census, a notable decline of 31.5% from the 92 people counted in 2016, which itself was a slight drop from 95 residents in 2011. Newbrook covers a land area of 0.52 square kilometres, giving it a population density of approximately 121.2 people per square kilometre as of 2021. Of its 50 total private dwellings, 32 were occupied at the time of the most recent census.