Fort Edmonton


Fort Edmonton was the name of a series of trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company from 1795 to 1914, all of which were located on the north banks of the North Saskatchewan River in what is now central Alberta, Canada. It was one of the last points on the Carlton Trail, the main overland route for Metis freighters between the Red River Colony and the points west and was an important stop on the York Factory Express route between London, via Hudson Bay, and Fort Vancouver in the Columbia District. It also was a connection to the Great Northland, as it was situated relatively close to the Athabasca River whose waters flow into the Mackenzie River and the Arctic Ocean. Located on the farthest north of the major rivers flowing to the Hudson Bay and the HBC's shipping posts there, Edmonton was for a time the southernmost of the HBC's forts.
From 1795 to 1830 it was located in four successive locations. Prior to 1821 each location was paired with a Fort Augustus of the North West Company. Sometimes other fur companies also built forts nearby as well.
The fifth and final Fort Edmonton, 1830–1914, was the one that evolved into present-day Edmonton.
Fort Edmonton was also called Fort-des-Prairies, by French-Canadians trappers and coureurs des bois, and amiskwaskahegan or "Beaver Hills House" in Cree, the most spoken Indigenous language in the region during the 19th century.
In the late 18th century, the HBC, established in 1670, was in fierce competition with the NWC for the trade of animal furs in Rupert's Land.
As one company established a fur trading post, the other would counter by building its post in close proximity or even farther upstream. Expansion up the Saskatchewan River was heated in the 1790s.

First Fort Edmonton (1795–1802)

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In the summer of 1795, the North West Company constructed Fort Augustus where the Sturgeon River meets the North Saskatchewan River, just north of the present-day city of Fort Saskatchewan, approximately northeast of the final Fort Edmonton. A few months later, Hudson's Bay began to construct Edmonton House close by, taking advantage of the same two rivers; in a possible revelation of the competitive nature of the companies, Fort Augustus and Edmonton House's distance was described as being a "musket-shot" apart, yet the proximity also offered mutual security to the European traders of both companies in a land where they were all intruders.
Edmonton House, and the subsequent forts, was named by John Peter Pruden, clerk to the HBC's George Sutherland. The Fort was named after Edmonton, Middlesex, England, birthplace of both Pruden and HBC Deputy Governor Sir James Winter Lake.
In addition to the NWC-HBC rivalry, two or three competing fur-trading posts were also built nearby. Grants Company, independent fur buyer Francois Beaubien and the new North West Company reportedly built forts near Fort Edmonton/Fort Augustus located at Fort Saskatchewan and Rossdale.

Second Fort Edmonton (1802–1810)

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In 1802, due to several years of low fur returns and increasingly scarce firewood, Fort Edmonton and Fort Augustus were moved upstream, to what is now the Rossdale area of downtown Edmonton. This area had been a gathering place for aboriginals in the region for thousands of years, in part due to its location along the old North Trail, AKA the Wolf's Track.
It is possible the HBC officials on the ground might have adopted a new name for the new fort. But an 1800 directive from HBC main offices in London had instructed them to stop switching names.
The first woman of European descent known to live in this region was the French-Canadian Marie-Anne Lagimodière, who was also noteworthy as the grandmother of Louis Riel. She had accompanied her fur trader husband, Jean-Baptiste Lagimodière, into the west shortly after their marriage in Trois-Rivières, Lower Canada, and was known to take part in hunting expeditions. The couple lived in Fort Augustus from 1807 to 1811.
John Rowand, the Chief Factor at Fort Edmonton from 1823 to 1854, first worked at Fort Augustus from 1804 to 1806; he was stationed there again from 1808 onward.
Evidence of this Fort Edmonton was found in 2012, when crews were excavating under a demolished machine shop at the Rossdale Power Plant.

Third Fort Edmonton (1810–1812)

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Both Fort Augustus and Fort Edmonton moved to the mouth of White Earth Creek, 100 km northeast of modern Edmonton at the northernmost point of the North Saskatchewan near present-day Smoky Lake, Alberta. The fort was also known as Fort White Earth, or Terre Blanche. This is located in Township 58-16-W4.
While the Hudson's Bay Company and North West Company still operated separate posts, in direct competition with each other, the two posts were built inside a shared palisade.
This post was only in operation for two years because Cree trappers were selling their furs at other posts to avoid violent confrontations with the Blackfoot, yet the generally more southerly Blackfoot refused to travel so far off of their normal circles and consequently took their trade south to American furtrading posts.
After its abandonment in 1812, the forts fell into ruin and little remains of them. There is no official signage on the site. Perhaps a local name for a creek that enters the Saskatchewan on the south side of the river opposite the site commemorates the old forts - its name is Fort Creek.

Fourth Fort Edmonton (1812–1830)

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Fort Edmonton and Fort Augustus moved back to the second site at the Rossdale flats, it having proven to be a site more amenable for Natives to visit. This was the start of recorded permanent human occupancy in the present city of Edmonton.
A crew of workers was sent from Fort Edmonton at White Earth to begin construction of a new post at the Rossdale location on October 6, 1812. Post Factor James Bird marked out the layout of the new post on October 10. James Bird's son William Bird was born at Fort Edmonton and later played a role in the naming of today's Mill Creek.
In the years immediately succeeding that move, the two furtrading companies, the HBC and the NWC, had a strong and violent rivalry, peaking with the Battle of Seven Oaks at Winnipeg.
Violence broke out at Edmonton in 1826 when fort staff fought off an attempt by several Nakoda to steal some of the fort's horses. Six Nakoda were killed and five Bay men wounded in a brisk exchange of gunfire and arrow-flight. Already by that time, horses were being kept at Horse Hill in what is now northeast Edmonton.
The Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company merged in 1821. After the amalgamation, the companies used the Hudson's Bay Company name. The name Fort Augustus was dropped, and John Rowand, the former NWC factor, became chief trader of the HBC's Fort Edmonton. Fort Edmonton became the headquarters for the Saskatchewan District of Rupert's Land, which stretched from the Canadian Rocky Mountains in the west to Fort Carlton in the east; from the 49th parallel in the south to Lesser Slave Lake in the north. In 1823, Rowand was promoted to chief factor. Rowand managed Saskatchewan District from Fort Edmonton until his death in 1854.

Fifth Fort Edmonton (1830–1915)

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Due to floods in the late 1820s, a new fort was built on the terrace above the riverflats in 1830. This fifth and final fort stood for 85 years, though its use as a fur trading post was phased out starting in 1891. During its final years, the Fort co-existed with the Alberta Legislature Building. The Legislative Building opened in 1913 on a terrace just north of the fort on the site of "Rowand's Folly", the large house built for Chief Factor John Rowand.

Rowand's administration

At this time, a long-serving member of the HBC, John Edward Harriott, became the chief trader under Rowand. The two gained family ties when Harriott married one of Rowand's daughters. On a couple of occasions when Rowand joined HBC Inland Governor George Simpson for travel abroad, Harriott acted as chief factor.
Rowand's administration from the 1830s onward coincided with a great change in the Saskatchewan District. For the first time, missionaries, artists, and curious travellers came to Edmonton to visit, sometimes for extended periods. This frustrated Rowand to some degree. Prior to this time, the only Europeans to come that far into the west were men on some sort of company business.
With Rowand making Edmonton his home, the fort became an important centre in the west. It was a necessity for any traveller going any further west of Edmonton to go through there for provisions first. Rowand constructed a three-storey house in the heart of the fort for the exclusive use of him and his family, denoting his station to his subordinates, visitors and trade partners alike. This was nicknamed "Rowand's Folly."

Influx of missionaries

Two Catholic missionaries, Francois-Norbert Blanchet and Modeste Demers, were the first to visit Fort Edmonton in 1838. Starting in 1840, the Fort housed the Wesleyan missionary Robert Rundle as a company chaplain. Rundle's tenure lasted until 1848, and his ministry and missionary work was met with competition of a sort by Jean-Baptiste Thibault, a Catholic priest who, like Rundle, was attempting to evangelize natives in the area. A chapel was erected inside the fort in 1843, which the Reverend Rundle boasted could host " hundred Indians"; the structure also had two small rooms for Rundle's private use. Meanwhile, Rowand complained that the presence of ministers in his fort was a distraction for the natives, and was ostensibly impeding the fur trade business. On a personal level, however, Rowand had taken a liking to Rundle, and entrusted the minister with teaching his children.
Father Pierre-Jean De Smet spent the winter of 1845-46 at Fort Edmonton having traveled and explored from Oregon Country to meet the natives of the Rocky Mountains.
In 1852, the Oblate missionary Albert Lacombe first visited Fort Edmonton. With Rundle having trouble controlling the department in 1848, Lacombe easily took up residence in the former Methodist chapel. Lacombe took pity on the fur trade labourers, opining that, "during the summer months, was as hard as that of the African slave.". He found little sympathy for the workers from John Rowand or the HBC clerks. The following year, Lacombe moved to Lac St. Anne, but had a new Catholic chapel constructed in the fort in 1857 ; this chapel lasted nearly twenty years before being moved outside of the fort.
A Methodist follow-up to Robert Rundle, Reverend Thomas Woolsey, was dispatched to Edmonton in 1852. His arrival in the fort coincided with Lacombe's residency in the former Methodist chapel, a discovery which distressed Woolsey. Conflicts and private frustrations with Catholic missionaries, and failures to convert Catholics to Protestantism, marked Woolsey's twelve-year residence at the fort.
In 1854, the mission St. Joachim was officially founded in turn at Fort-des-Praires.