Nope never heard of it, but it does sound nice. Where did he get his tree from? I have a publication from 1946 called Tree fruits Grown in Prairie Orchards and they list an Alberta but I don't think it is this one, the description is not the same.

Sometimes apples become collateral damage when people redo their landscape, so there may be less around than expected.

I scanned the GRIN site and the U of S gene bank looking for the Alberta Red apple. Is this a new name? Maybe it was not officially named and goes under the breeding number or another name?

Assume it's a old name, ...at least as old as Norkent. This guy with the apples said that there was a Saskatchewan Red and Saskatchewan bluff also. OH...I asked today what about eating qualities, he said nice...he cut the last ones up today and flavor was still very good...but skin wrinkled which is expected. Their apples from Westlock area had zero blemishes. Have asked Thean and he never heard about.

That is a very good storage time, longer than most apples around here. Not too many last beyond fall.

I've asked Gabor Botar...former Teacher at Univ. of Alberta in Horticultural Technologist (retired)

Sorry, I know nothing about this apple. As for general history, the
thousands of apple seedlings in the Prairie Fruit Breeding Program were
evaluated in a restricted way. Testers from the various provinces would
come together on a particular day and compare the apples from their own
orchards. Of course, some of the same fruit was not quite ripe, some was
overripe, some was just right. Selections for naming were made from the
lines that happened to be generally good all around. This way, good
selections were made but little allowance was made for identifying
excellent fruit that was truly early or late but still reliably
productive. If the testers had gotten together several times during each
fruiting season for a few years (an expensive proposition, I will
grant), a lot more good early-, mid, & late-season lines would now
be registered. Ieuan and others have done a great service in "rescuing"
what would otherwise have been considered rejects by the testing
institutions, but of course the problem is that we usually have
incomplete pedigree records for these apples.
If you have the 2016 Prairie Garden, see Dr. John Davidson's article on
'Norkent' to get a taste for how difficult it is to trace an apple's
parentage even when official records are kept...
I had collected a few scions for you this spring but they were mostly
curiosities (e.g. Japanese hawthorn, which is an excellent rootstock for
'Ure' pear) so you did not really miss out on much. Next year I hope to
be able to collect scions at our old place again. Our little Evans
sapling here is 60cm high so it will need a couple more seasons before
it is tall enough to take some sweet-cherry scions (which I hope to get
from you !)...
Re all your rodent damage, the good folks at the Green and Gold Garden
(who manage our former orchard) took my advice and sprayed all the trees
& bushes with egg emulsion. This was a time-consuming exercise, but
believe it or not, this spring not a single tree or bush was lost to
mammal damage ! I was truly impressed !
Cheers,
GB

Incredibly good info, I wonder how many of these seedlings did make it and are still holed up in someone's backyard. Today I am going to check out a local farm where Les Kerr used to visit and plant fruit trees for the owner. I am not hopeful that they kept any, but the conversation should be interesting.

On another note, Japanese Hawthorn would it be good for other pears, and reliably winter hardy here?

It would work I think ...just a matter of how many years it would last, unless you put a compatible hawthorn interstem to help compatibility but I don't think it's a sure thing.

I have an Alberta Red tree I purchased it about 12 or 13 years ago from DNA Gardens as a 1 year sapling It froze out one winter but has grown steadily since, espaliered on my fence It looks like it will bloom for the first time this spring