Major fires swept the Beaver Hills area between 1892 and 1895. The 1895 fire charred the ground to a depth of six inches. The rash of prairie fires, some natural and others man-made, led to the setting aside of 6 townships in the Beaver Hills by the Canadian Government Department of the Interior (the Honourable Frank Oliver, Minister) to protect the wood supply.

Alberta's first forest ranger, William Henry Stephens was appointed in 1895. His cabin, the Provinces's first ranger station was located southeast of Walter Lake, in Elk Island National Park.

Cooking Lake Forest Reserve was officially proclaimed by Departmental Order on June 5, 1899. As Alberta was not yet a Province, this was the first forest reserve in the Western Territories. Now a protected area, in 1910 reforestration was promoted by hiring a forester and the creation of a tree nursery.

One hundred and nine years later Ranger Stephens was honoured by a commemorative plaque mounted on a large boulder to be placed at the location of his cabin.

The inscription reads ...

In 1895, on this site NW 28-52-20-W$, Ranger W.H. Stephens built a log cabin to serve as the first Forestry Headquarters in the District of Alberta, Northwest Territories. The Stephens Cabin, on the Edmonton - Beaver Hills Trail, was a welcome stopping place for travellers to and from the Logan Settlement on West Beaver Hills Lake. Cooking Lake Forest Reserve was officially established June 05, 1899. Ranger Stephens, a well-known pioneer of Strathcona, served on this Forest Reserve from 1895 to 1912.

The ceremonial unveiling was attended by family and friends and officials from the Governments of Canada and Alberta, the County of Strathcona and Elk Island National Park and six generations of the W.H. Stephens family.