The once proud and famous Hudson’s Bay Comany Fort Edmonton V (c.1830 – 1915), one of the largest fur trade establishments in the Canadian Northwest, sits dwarfed by the New Alberta Legislature building, as Alberta moves onto a new era, c.1912. 1
When I took my first trowel strokes, as a field school student at the historic Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Victoria (c.1864 – 1898), Alberta in 1974, I knew immediately I could get to like this work. Nearly fifty years later that feeling remains.
Removing the sod layer at the Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Victoria in 1974. Beneath the sod, we found the archaeological remains of the fort trading store, which after over a hundred years, still contained the foundation logs and well-preserved cellar remains.
Canada has a long, colourful, and often tumultuous fur trade history. The fur trade, in beaver pelts, was the prime economic driver of early Canada for over three centuries. However, the trade was often viewed with either disdain or opportunity by Canada’s First Nations people who participated in it.
“Of what use to us are the skins of beavers, wolves, and foxes? Yet it is for these we get guns and axes.” (First Nations leader, Kootenae Appee, c.1808, recorded by David Thompson)
What the people of the Canadian fur trade did and how they lived is preserved in the thousands of documents left behind by Company officers, clerks, explorers, and first missionaries. It was occasionally captured in paintings by frontier artists such as Paul Kane.
A painting of the Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Edmonton V (c.1830 – 1915) by artist Paul Kane, 1849-56. 2
But fur trade history is also preserved in the remains of many fur trade forts constructed across Canada as it expanded westward in search of new fur-rich lands. Often those fur trade forts left behind a rich archaeological record.
Alberta is no exception. In fact, the then AthapuskowCountry in today’s northern Alberta, was among the richest fur districts in North America. When American fur trader Peter Pond first discovered it in 1778, he acquired so many furs that he had to cache some because he couldn’t take them all back to Montreal.
Trader Colin Fraser, in his warehouse, examining his lot of furs worth an estimated $35,000 – a huge sum of money in the 19th century. As the Hudson’s Bay Company 1826 fur returns show, both the Athabasca and Saskatchewan Districts, mostly located in today’s Alberta, had among the highest numbers of beaver pelts in the entire Canadian Northwest. 3
I am often asked, how many fur trade establishments were there in Alberta? According to our Alberta inventories, that number is over 300. We are probably missing a few forts that were never recorded in the sometimes ‘sketchy’ historic documents. And as Alexander Ross’s description of Fort Assiniboine suggests, some of these places hardly deserved the name ‘fort’.
“…a petty post erected on the north bank of the river, and so completely embosomed in the woods, that we did not catch a glimpse of it until we were among huts, and surrounded by howling dogs and screeching children. At this sylvan retreat there were but three rude houses….and there was not a picket or palisade to guard them from either savage or bear. This mean abode was dignified with the name of fort.” (HBC Fort Assiniboine, 1825, described by Alexander Ross)
The majority of fur trade posts were located in central and northern Alberta, built by the various fur trade Companies operating from eastern Canada or England. The ‘Whiskey’ posts listed here are a later nineteenth-century addition to the trade, located mainly in southern Alberta and operated primarily by American pedlars.
Many of these forts have not been found. Often their locations were poorly documented. The physical evidence they left behind is difficult to see in the dense bush when traipsing through Alberta’s densely forested river valleys.
Graph showing the number of fur trade posts whose location is known and those that have not been found. Only approximately seven percent of these forts have been excavated.
In the dense bush of the Peace River floodplain, there are only a few hints suggesting a fur trade post once existed there – mounds representing collapsed building fireplaces and depressions representing cellars or some other type of pit. Occasionally faint depressions marking the ditches dug to place in the palisade pickets for the fort walls, still appear on the surface of the ground.
But even these features are often hard to see. Despite having found the Boyer River fort site thirty years earlier, it took over an hour to relocate a few depressions and mounds in the dense undergrowth of the Peace River floodplain.
Students from the University of Lethbridge searched through the dense bush for evidence of the 1788 North West Company’s Boyer’s Post in 2018. Only a vague description of the location of the post existed – it was built near the confluence of the Boyer and Peace Rivers.With new technologies, we are now able to find archaeological sites hidden in the dense boreal forest more easily. LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) imagery strips the vegetation from the surface and then maps the surface contours with a high degree of accuracy. Above is an example of LIDAR imagery, an optical remote sensing technology that can measure the distance, or other properties of a target by illuminating the target with light often using pulses from a laser. Not only did LIDAR reveal the large cellar depressions at Fort Vermilion I (c.1798 – 1830) marked by the upper two circles, but a large depression of an unknown site marked by the lower circle.
The fur trade documentary record leaves many things to be desired. It is often a biased, one-sided description of the trade and the more important members operating in it. Company workers and Indigenous people have little or no voice in those documents.
Despite being an incomplete testimony of human history, the archaeological remains we find reflect not only the lives of a literate few but also those of the many Company servants and Indigenous peoples living at the posts who left no written record behind. Their lives are reflected in the dwellings they lived in, the possessions they made or bought, and the food they ate.
Fur trade society was stratified, primarily by one’s occupation, ethnicity, and gender. The fur trade archaeological and documentary records reveal that those individuals in the highest positions had access to the best resources. Officers’ quarters were bigger, and better constructed than those of the servants 4.
“…while the exterior is fair enough with its winter porch, protected doors, the inside was somewhat of a maze and more like a rabbit warren is supposed to be, both in excess of occupants…” (George Simpson McTavish describing the servants’ quarters at an inland fort)
The schematic drawing of the buildings at the North West Company Fort George (c.1792 – 1800) is a case in point. This drawing was completed primarily from archaeological remains since no map of the fort existed. The men’s quarters on the left housed the Company workers and their families, sometimes holding up to 10 – 12 people in tiny, confined single rooms. These dwellings were dwarfed by Chief Trader, Angus Shaw’s two-storey Big House, where he and his family resided.
The layout of Fort George is based on archaeological evidence. There are only five references to fort construction in clerk, Duncan McGillivray’s 1794-95 journal, the only surviving document from this late 18th century Fortes des Prairie.
The personal possessions of the Fort population inform us about their gender, beliefs, and cultural affiliations. For example, early in the fur trade when metals were new to Indigenous people, old, leaky copper pots and larger pieces of silver were repurposed and made into jewelry.
Copper and silver tinkling cones and tags, likely made by the Indigenous wives of Company men, were highly prized objects often replacing or incorporated with traditional shell and bone adornment. They also remind us of the importance of women in the trade and everyday operation of the forts.
Artifacts from Fort Vermilion I (c.1798-1830) were repurposed from metal and made into ornaments to suit the needs of Indigenous people living at the fur trade posts: A. Copper Tinkling cones to adorn jingle dresses; B and C. Silver tags (to adorn dress as in illustration D) cut from a larger piece of trade silver; D. A leather Dene dress adorned with metal tags made from scrap metal 5
The inequality existing among fur trade ranks is also reflected in their diet. During the early years of the western fur trade, wild game made up most of the food fort personnel ate. Often our fur trade posts contain an abundant, rich array of faunal remains.
Those animal bones, along with the surviving documents, show the large quantities of meat eaten by fort personnel. Meat and fat were rationed differently, depending on employees’ rank and position at the fort. Officers and their families often had more and better cuts of meat and were given more of the highly prized fat.
“…we have finished a Glaciere containing 500 thighs & shoulders for the consumption of April & May…” (Clerk, Duncan McGillivray, Fort George, 1794-95, describing the amount of meat required to feed the fort inhabitants.)
That amount of meat, representing 500 animals (likely bison), consumed over approximately sixty-one days, averages out to about most of eight bison a day required to feed the 160 hungry mouths at Fort George.
Faunal remains from the North West Company Fort George, Alberta. This fort, while primarily there to acquire furs, was essentially a meat factory, processing tens of thousands of pounds of meat necessary to supply the fur trade brigades on the journeys from the east into the Canadian interior. The photograph on the left shows butchered bone remains thrown up against the south palisade of the fort. Bone debris fills an old building cellar in the photograph on the right.
Category
Fresh Meat
Dried Meat
Pounded Meat
Grease
Officers Mess(2 persons)
2250 lbs
57 lbs
57 lbs
105 lbs
Officers Families (6 adults)
4283
159
6
108
Engages (8 persons)
7752
576
576
18
Engages Families (3 adults)
2612
148
148
4
Meat rations at Fort Vermilion II, 1832-33. While the Engages and their families are getting less fresh, dried, and pounded meat than the officers, they received far less fat per individual than the Officers and their families. 6
Despite the Northwest’s seemingly endless supply of resources, the fur trade’s impact on game animal populations soon showed, often in ugly ways.
“…we learn from Mr. McTavish that they are in a starving condition at Lac Verd, there being forced to pick up the fish Bones which they threw out last fall to prolong their miserable existence.” (Journal of Duncan McGillivray, 1794-95)
Alberta’s fur trade era, and that of the rest of Canada, has left a rich and varied historic footprint. It represents not only how an elite, literate portion of the population of the fur trade lived, but also how the rest of the many employees, representing a diverse number of ethnic groups, fared. While considered a darker side of Canadian colonialism, it nevertheless is part of Canadian history and cannot be ignored.
Pyszczyk, Heinz. 1992. The Architecture of the Western Canadian Fur Trade: A Cultural-Historical Perspective. Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada, Bulletin 17(2):32-41[↩]
D from Kate Duncan. 1989. Northern Athapaskan Beadwork. A Beadwork Tradition. Douglas and McIntyre, Vancouver.[↩]
Whenever I think of everyday objects that bind, I think of duct tape first. And one Red Green show in particular where Steve Smith tries to prevent Quebec from separating by duct taping it to Ontario.
“A museum should not just be a place for fancy paintings but should be a place where we can communicate our lives through our everyday objects.”
(Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.)
In a recent news article an Edmonton reporter trashed the 1966 Mercury pickup truck display at the new Royal Alberta Museum, Edmonton, Canada. It was too ordinary and boring and really was not museum worthy. I can’t imagine what she would have said about my choice of the first image for this post.
This 1966 Mercury M-100, on display at the new Royal Alberta Museum, talks to Albertans’ love for the pickup truck in the 1960s. It represents the many people who owned one for either travel or work in our province. In has meaning and a connection to our society.
The dilemma we often face when dealing with material culture, be it thousands of years or a few years old, is choice and selection. Museum staff are faced with the often impossible challenge of meeting the many expectations of many people. As formidable an experience as I have ever faced, either when curating a museum collection, or writing about human history using material culture as the medium.
We are expected to conserve and curate, inform and educate, entertain and stimulate, with the objects we choose to display or write about. Therein lies a problem. Many of those unique, precious, or rare artifacts certainly stimulate and entertain. They catch our attention. But, often they don’t inform a lot about the majority of society, past or present.
The rare bone toothbrush I posted on in an earlier blog has a certain WOW! factor to it. But, it says little about most of the people of the fur trade who didn’t use these articles. The more common duct tape however, informs more about Canadian culture than the toothbrush. I’m almost certain we have no duct tape in our Royal Alberta Museum collections. Perhaps had the Red Green show continued, duct tape would have reached museum status.
The more common folk artifact is often is underrepresented in displays or literature. While informative, it’s boring. Is there a solution?
Not be deterred or ignore the common artifact, I have chosen to write about the most mundane artifact I could think of (there are many to choose from). The common nail and that clunky railroad spike.
Even everyday things often have a complex history and perform an important role in society. And as one of my mentors, historical archaeologist James Deetz, in his book, In Small Things Forgotten once said, all material things, regardless of their size, value, or context have meaning and a story to tell. It’s up to those of us studying them to tease out that meaning and those stories.
We are all familiar with the common wire nail. Nails, like many objects, have a complex history and changed over time.
Nails, of every shape, size and material, were used for boat building, furniture making, attaching horseshoes to horses’ hooves, and of course the construction of log and wood-framed buildings. They occur in just about every society in the world that had some sort of metal forging technology. And they change in form and method of manufacture in time and space. The common wire nail you are most familiar with has had a shorter history than many of those before it.
In Canada we used hand-forged nails until about the middle of the 19th century (other dates, depending on where you live). To fashion a hand-forged nail a blacksmith heated a piece of square nail rod, then tapered it to a point. Then he put it into a nail heading jig and fashioned various types of heads depending on its function. In cross section, a hand-forged nail is tapered on all four sides from the head down to the tip.
These corroded ferrous hand-forged nails were relatively rare at the Fort Vermilion I (c.1798 – 1830) site, Alberta, Canada. Heavy iron nail rod had to be shipped inland for thousands of miles to these forts, so nails were used sparingly. Because the fort did not have a blacksmith, these nails were likely made at Fort Chipewyan and shipped upriver. This was the major nail type in western Canada until approximately the middle of the 19th century.
This rare artifact which we think is a nail heading jig was recovered from the blacksmith’s shop at the NWC Fort George (1792-1800), Alberta, Canada.
The machine-cut nail was already invented in the 1780’s (perhaps even earlier) but not present in western Canada until the mid nineteenth century. In this process a tapered nail shank is cut from sheet metal of uniform thickness (usually iron), and then a head shaped on it. In cross-section this nail is tapered on two opposite sides but the other two opposite sides are parallel to each other. This more mechanized process produced more nails faster, probably with fewer people required to make them. It was cheaper.
Machine-cut nails, from the HBC Fort Edmonton V (c.1830-1915) site. Because this site spans such a long period of time, we found hand-forged, machine-cut and common wire nails in the archaeological record.
The modern wire nail was developed in about 1880 in America and Europe. Pieces of steel wire were cut at an angle to make a point on one end, and a flat round head was fashioned on the other end. These nails were much cheaper to produce than square nails. The common wire nail began to appear by the turn of the 20th century in western Canada (likely earlier in the east).
A variety of common wire nails found at the HBC Fort Edmonton V site, Alberta, Canada.
Whenever I look at buildings of unknown age, I check out the nails. If they’re wire, the building likely dates after the turn of the 20th century. Even the common wire nail was superseded by the spiral shank nail in the early 1970s. Many different varieties followed.
This priest’s log house, at the St. Louis Mission, Fort Vermilion, Alberta was built in c.1909. Wire spikes were driven into the dovetailed log corners to better secure them. No square nails were present. Mind you, those spikes could have been driven in thirty years later.
If I were to only display this spiral wire nail there’s not much of a WOW factor here. But if I added that Gilbert Laughton, blacksmith at Buckingham House (c.1782-1800) was experimenting with some spiral square-shanked nails already 220 years ago, the story becomes more interesting (sorry, I don’t have good photo). I’m sure it didn’t leave you speechless, but more interesting nevertheless.
Many of these different nail types were gradually replaced by the newer types. However, some nails, such as the horseshoe nail and common railway spike maintained their square or rectangular shanks.
Common horseshoe nail has been around for a long time. Head shapes changed but the tapered square/rectangular shank remained.
Nails were made from various materials, depending on their function and method of manufacture. Probably one of the earliest type of fastener, performing the same function as a nail, was a wooden dowel. Dowels are still used today. And in the western Canadian fur trade, and early settlement period, where the transport of heavy finished nails or nail rod was costly, they often replaced nails in log building construction.
The logs in this building in northern Alberta were held together by wooden dowels between the logs.
The log corner of this cellar cribbing under the trader’s shop at the HBC Fort Victoria (c.1864-1898) contained a well preserved wood dowel to keep the corners together.
Other materials for nail-making include the more rust-resistant copper alloy nails used to build the first York boats in the western fur trade. However, for centuries the most common nail material was iron.
These copper alloy nails come from the HBC Fort Edmonton V (c.1830-1915). York boat building was an important industry at this fort. Boat nails had to be rust-resistant.
Both hand-forged and machine-cut nails had different head types either for decoration or better holding power. T-heads, L-heads, Rose-heads, and Gable-heads are just some of the head types found at our historic sites in Canada.
Different types of nail head types found at the HBC Fort Victoria site, Alberta, Canada. From Archaeological Investigations: Fort Victoria, 1974. Losey, Timothy, et. al. Occasional Paper No. 2, 1977. Alberta Culture, Historical Resources.
Square-shaped nails were superior to round wire nails for holding power. According to some research, the holding power of the square shank is almost double that of the round shank nail.
So, why change from a square to a round shank? Round-shank nails were easier and more economical to make despite not being as effective. However, once spiral or galvanized nails were introduced, they likely came close or were superior in holding power to the square shank nails.
So after that brief exposition on the common nail, can we now elevate it to national status, placing it beside the equally common maple leaf of national significance? Alas, despite its importance in Canadian history (what has maple leaf ever accomplished?), I just can’t visualize an image like the one below.
The Canadian flag with the common nail as the symbol of a Canadian identity. The following source seems to read a lot into a leaf: “Maple trees symbolize balance, offering, practical magic, promise, longevity, generosity, and intelligence. One reason behind these meanings is that maple trees have the ability to adapt to many different soil types and climates.” https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=the+meaniing+of+the+canadian+maple+leaf
Well, I tried. Alas, the poor common nail can’t compete with all the ideological baggage the maple leaf carries. There are few national flags that have an object(s) as a symbol. Angola, Mozambique, Portugal. The hammer and sickle of the former Soviet Union, representing contribution of the common people, is probably the best known.
Railroad Spikes
The common railroad spike. Does it have greater potential for national significance than the lowly common nail?
The 19th century railroad spike, used to build the Canadian Pacific Railway had a square or rectangular shank. As I was trying to drive these damn things into the railroad ties in the summer of 1973, I wondered (between curses) if the square hole on the rail tie plates and the square shank prevented the spike from turning (resulting in failure to hold down the rail), either during attachment or the constant pounding and vibration as the trains passed over them.
Tremendous holding strength was required from a rail road spike to make sure the rails stayed in place with the hundreds of tons of trains moving over them every day. The common spike was made from a softer iron, usually with 9/16 inch thick stock, approximately 5 1/2 to 6 inches long. The point was tapered so the spike would cut across the the grain of the wood tie to prevent it from splitting.
It cost over one-hundred million dollars to build the Canadian Pacific Railroad which was completed in 1885 at Craigellachie, British Columbia. Thirty-thousand workers labored four-and-one-half years to build the 3,200km (1,939 miles) long track across Canada. A ribbon of steel finally bound the country in which the lowly railroad spike played a huge part.
I’ve done a bit of math. Wood ties are about nineteen inches apart. There 3,250 wooden ties per mile. It would require 26,000 spikes for each mile of track laid. That number multiplied by 1,939 miles comes to a staggering 50,414,000 spikes (some claim only a mere 30 million were used) required for the job. Just for the CPR mainline. Clearly the common railway spike is one of the most important artifacts ever made and used in Canadian nation-building.
Perhaps one of the most iconic photographs in Canadian history. The driving of the last spike by Donald Smith at Craigellachie, British Columbia, 1885.
Yet this very important artifact receives little recognition. There are a few exceptions, mind you. The last spike driven at Craigellachie by Donald Smith in 1885, should be famous. It represents the completion of a national dream. Made of gold or silver perhaps. But no, it was just plain iron. And there wasn’t just one, but four.
The first one, made of silver, never reached Craigellachie in time to be used. The second one was bent by Donal Smith, when trying to hammer it home, and kept, eventually made into jewelry. The third one was pulled and mysteriously disappeared and has only recently surfaced. And the fourth one is still in the tracks at Craigellachie.
The silver spike that was to be driven at the last spike driving ceremony at Craigellachie, British Columbia by Donald Smith in 1885. But it never made it in time. Good thing. He probably would have bent it. Courtesy of the Canadian Museum of History.
What a mess. The first one doesn’t get there in time. Smith bends the second spike and makes it into jewelry. And the third one mysteriously disappears and is now a knife. How could you lose the last spike that symbolized one of the greatest engineering achievements of the time and the coming together of a nation?
We celebrate and revere the sensational, often at the expense of the common and mundane. Granted, the last spike, or the silver one on display, symbolize and solidify a great moment in Canadian history. But it’s not the only spike of significance in this story.
On that same November day, in 1885, workers who built the railway near Donald, British Columbia. This may be their version of the iconic photo of the Last Spike. Courtesy of BC Archives/D-02469. Story from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-other-last-spike-feature#
The above photo and the common spike in contrast to the silver one bring up an important point. There is always an alternate story or narrative about any given object. Like the photograph above we should also revere the common railway spike as it symbolizes the sweat, work and deaths of thousands of men who built the ribbon of steel. It represents men like my father and uncle, who maintained it after it was built. Their contribution are as important and meaningful as the completion of the railway and that silver spike.
Perhaps the best way to tell these stories is to display both the silver spike symbolizing one of Canada’s greatest accomplishments alongside the common railroad spike symbolizing the work of those who built it. As close to a solution to entertaining and informing as can be expected from this particular artifact.
Working on the Railroad
I’ll end on a personal note which also partially reveals my choice of content for this post. My father and uncle worked on the CPR for many years. As did my cousin and I. We lasted one summer on the ‘extra gangs.’ I have seen way too many railroad spikes up close on certain sections of the CPR mainline. One summer was more than enough, thank you.
Our family owns a last spike of sorts. In recognition of my father’s contribution to the CPR. He received this galvanized spike from a friend of mine when he retired from the CPR in 1983. This one was repurposed for an equally great cause. Perhaps it could serve as our national emblem.
This galvanized spike sits in my kitchen drawer. As I get older it takes on more meaning than I ever would have imagined.
This modified version of the common spike reminds me of dad. And my uncle. However, whenever I open a refreshment with it, I reflect back to much tougher times working between the rails. That story is still being written.
……………………
A Few Blog Notes
I’ve been thinking of setting up a membership list for my website. I would divide my posts into those that are free to read and a ‘silver’ category, which only paid subscribers could access. Subscribers would be charged a fee of perhaps $20.00 CAN per year to access this category. It would contain all my short stories, novelettes, etc. My rationale is quite simple – to cover costs of running this website. I have no illusions about getting rich, but feel that paying to inform and entertain you just doesn’t seem right.
Lately more visitors from the rest of the world are checking my website. Those of you looking in from the USA (some of you whom I know), Ireland, Brazil, or any other country, let me know why you dropped into my site.
In the last few years the phrase ‘cultural appropriation‘ has popped up increasingly in just about every context imaginable. One definition of the phrase is: The unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society. Literature is no exception. Including mine. Many publishers are more cautious in what they publish. I think the two words I underlined in the definition are key. But they are widely interpreted. I’d like your opinions on the subject. Especially those of you who are of Indigenous background.
On the morning of April 2, 1885, Cree leader, Wandering Spirit and his men attacked the small settlement of Frog Lake, near today’s Saskatchewan-Alberta border. Eight people died and three were taken captive. Fear of further attacks by First Nations and Metis in the region triggered action by the NWMP (North West Mounted Police) and the Canadian Government.
A few traces of the potential uprising in Alberta still linger on the landscape. But you have to look real hard, and know where to look.
If you’re feeling a little house-bound, like most of us are these days, drive to Millet or Wetaskiwin, Alberta. Then continue on Hwy. 2A, until you reach Township Road 270. Turn east and shortly you will reach RR 241A. Turn north.
The Location of Fort Ethier marked by a yellow X. The blockhouse sits just south of Bigstone Creek.
Just before you cross Bigstone Creek, look to the right side of the road. There sitting beside the road is an old log blockhouse built along the former Calgary-Edmonton trail. It is the only remaining reminder of the 1885 North-West Rebellion in the region.
This is Fort Ethier, or what’s left of it, named after Captain Leander Joseph Ethier of the 65th Battalion Mount Royal Rifles. It was one of three such forts built in 1885 along the Edmonton-Calgary trail, in case trouble broke out. It never did.
Today not much remains of Fort Ethier. Except this wooden log blockhouse which has somehow still miraculously survived since it was constructed in June, 1885. There never was much to begin with. Military ditches were said to have been built around this structure, but they are no longer visible today.
The two storey squared log blockhouse still stands by what was the old Calgary-Edmonton Trail. I’ve looked out the loopholes for shooting on the second storey. The original ditches could also still be present, just filled in or cultivated over. Occasionally new logs are added as old ones rot away.Standing on the former Calgary-Edmonton Trail, looking south across Bigstone Creek towards Fort Ethier, barely discernible through the trees.
Other Military Forts Along the Calgary-Edmonton Trail
In 1885, the Canadian Government sent troops to Calgary to quell the potential uprising. Once the 65th Battalion Mount Royal Rifles, under Captain Leander Joseph Ethier, arrived in Calgary, they were joined by the Alberta Field Force under Major General Thomas Bland Strange. It was Strange’s job to keep peace in the North West Territories. Strange marched his men north along the Calgary-Edmonton Trail and established two more forts along the way: Fort Normandeau and Fort Ostell.
Image of the Calgary-Edmonton Trail showing key places along the way. Fort Normandeau was built near the current City of Red Deer. Fort Ostell lies just south of Panoka and the Battle River. (Image from the Forth Junction Project.)
Just how these somewhat comedic little forts were supposed to stop an uprising is hard to imagine when viewing them today.
Fort Normandeau
Fort Normandeau, erected in 1885 near Red Deer Crossing in preparation for a potential invasion. It consisted of a log building, surrounded by a palisade and two blockhouses perched on top of the walls for defense. The fort has been totally reconstructed.
Fort Ostell
A map of Fort Ostell, constructed in 1885, just south of Panoka, Alberta. Ditches and moats surrounded one building and a few tents for the men. The entire fort was surround by a ditch and an abitas (pointed posts placed in the ground facing out). (Map courtesy of Fort Ostell Museum).Example of an abitas and ditch behind it constructed by the Union Army at Petersburg, USA, 1865. (Photograph [PD-Expired])
Preparations at HBC Fort Victoria
These were the only three purely military establishments constructed in Alberta. They never saw action. Preparations for possible trouble were also undertaken at a few of Hudson’s Bay Company forts, after Cree insurgents plundered the HBC posts at Lac La Biche and Green Lake.
Image of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Victoria, c.1890s. The 1864 clerk’s quarters (still standing) on the right. The trading shop on the left. (An Ernest Brown photograph).Excavations at Fort Victoria in 1975. My colleague, Rod Vickers, and I mapping the southeast corner of the fort. Here we found a series of trenches and post pits, suggesting the corner may have undergone some major re-modifications to better fortify it. These activities might have been a response to prepare for future trouble at the fort. But, despite our best efforts, we never came up with a suitable explanation for these rather peculiar features. HBC inspector Kanis’s 1884 survey sketch of the fort definitely shows some sort of feature on the southeast corner. The sketch however, is too small to make out any details.
Preparations at Fort Edmonton
Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Edmonton, 1884. Because parts of the north walls had blown down that spring, due to dilapidation, the men began to dismantle the rest of the walls that summer. Only to realize in 1885, that they had to rebuilt them again to prepare for possible trouble. (Photograph, Saskatchewan Archives Board, A186, VIII.I)
The degree of preparedness at many forts is almost laughable, had the threat not been so real. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Edmonton was no exception. In his book, Fort de Prairies – The Story of Fort Edmonton, author Brock Silversides recounts a number of events in preparation for possible trouble.
There was plenty of superstition among the people as tensions increased. Strange events took place around the fort, and the occasional random shot was fired near it. Or at it. The fort arsenal consisted of too few, or obsolete, guns and ammunition that didn’t work.
A cry went out to Ottawa to send troops to protect the fort and the settlement. With the help of the NWMP, under the command of Captain A. H. Griesbach, the stockades were eventually rebuilt. Then the settlers from the surrounding area moved in and by summer General Strange’s battalion reached Edmonton.
The Fort Cannons That Never Fired
Fort Edmonton’s two, four pound cannons, set on wagon wheels, ready for action. “Two brass cannons, mounted on heavy, home-made wheels, which are slowly and surely dropping to ruin and decay, ominously hold a position on the bank of the river in front of the fort, and from the stamp upon them were manufactured by T. T. King, London, 1810.” (from J. Hewgill, 1893, school inspector, territories; photograph by Ernest Brown, Edmonton, 1884)
But perhaps some of the funniest incidents involved the fort’s two four pound brass cannons during this time of potential crisis. Although they were fired at New Years, as a salute when large parties of First Nations came to trade, or rare practice drills, they were never fired on an enemy in defense of the fort.
One thing becomes very clear when reading about a series of incidents involving the cannons – no one really knew what they were doing when either loading them or firing them. The following account in 1885 certainly supports this assertion.
“The only time I saw these guns in action was under the following circumstances: on the first of May, General Strange, G.O.C., the Alberta Field Force marched into Edmonton with elements of the 65th Carabineers from Montreal, and elements of the Winnipeg Light Infantry. It was proposed to fire a salute from the high ground in front of Fort Edmonton….The troops had marched down the road through the spring greenery and were crowding on board the ferry on the south side of the Saskatchewan River; the bottle-green of the 65th and the scarlet of the Light Infantry making quite a pretty picture….Muchiass was yelling instructions to everybody and doing everything himself. He became a bit confused as to which gun he had fired last. He proceeded to ram a charge of powder down a gun that was ready to fire and was engaged in the ramming process when the gunner on the that gun applied the hot-iron to the touch-hole. Muchiass had wit enough to jump aside and let go of the rammer. The gun with its double charge went off with a very satisfying bang, the rammer sailed through the air and fell among the troops…who probably felt that the salute was being slightly overdone.” (from W. A. Griesbach. 1946. I Remember. Ryerson Press, Toronto)
Had the enemy been watching this incident, the North-West Rebellion and events at Edmonton might have taken a different turn.
The original site of Fort Edmonton still occasionally hears the sounds of cannon fire. Howitzers going off during Canada Day celebrations at the Alberta Legislature Grounds.
