Alberta History Thread

[Xelebes]

Just thought I would get this thread started. As it stands right now, this thread is devoted to the historical miscellany that you come across or are curious about. I'm having a bit of fun looking into the history, especially from the settlement patterns to the various stories that still continue from the fur trading days: the Cree-Blackfoot War, the Northwest Rebellion, and so forth.

So come, sit down and share. What are you curious about?

[DizzyEdge]

What I find fascinating, is cities like Calgary, Lethbridge, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, and in SK, Regina, Saskatoon, were all founded or settled at a similar time (all 1874-1882), but there's parts of Alberta which were explored and had trading posts established at least 100 years before that, with the Edmonton area first explored by Europeans in the 1750s, and the first Ft Edmonton established in 1795.

[Coldrsx]

Thank the river and furs for that.

[GoTrans]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

What I find fascinating, is cities like Calgary, Lethbridge, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, and in SK, Regina, Saskatoon, were all founded or settled at a similar time (all 1874-1882), but there's parts of Alberta which were explored and had trading posts established at least 100 years before that, with the Edmonton area first explored by Europeans in the 1750s, and the first Ft Edmonton established in 1795.

Do the initials CPR mean anything? The CPR was the main impetus for many of the cities in southern AB,SK, and MB.

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Thank the river and furs for that.

And the conflict between the Blackfoot and the Cree. The Cree pushed the Gros Ventre, Assinaboine and the Blackfoot south and west when they were the first ones to take up the fur trade. Since the Cree were first, they had access to guns, knives, and other tools useful for expansion. The Blackfoot saw this and never let the Hudson Bay Company open up forts nor let the Cree south of Battle River. Even today, you'll hear Cree continue to badmouth the Blackfoot. Anyways, there was no settlement south of there.

The Cree-Blackfoot War reached a crescendo in the 1870s when the Long Depression was in full swing. The price of furs were plummeting and the Blackfoot saw an opportunity to push back the Cree. I can't remember when the Blackfoot laid a short siege to Fort Edmonton, but I have to assume it was early on in that decade. By the end of decade, the peacepipe was smoked in Wetaskiwin and settlement could proceed south of the Battle River.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

What I find fascinating, is cities like Calgary, Lethbridge, Red Deer, Medicine Hat, and in SK, Regina, Saskatoon, were all founded or settled at a similar time (all 1874-1882), but there's parts of Alberta which were explored and had trading posts established at least 100 years before that, with the Edmonton area first explored by Europeans in the 1750s, and the first Ft Edmonton established in 1795.

Whoa there cowboy.

The first known European to explore Saskatchewan was in the 1690s and the first permanent settlement was at Cumberland House around 1774. While the cities were decided on much later there was stuff going on the province. To me, it is interesting that Ft. Edmonton became Edmonton while Saskatchewan had a slightly different path.

As GoTrans said, a lot of those settlements you mentioned were situated and founded due to the construction of the railway. There was even debate about where Regina would be situated. Battleford, Qu'Appelle, Fort Qu'Appelle were all better locations, but we can thank Mr. Dewdney and land speculation for that screw-up. Yes, it was a mistake.

Now back to Alberta history, because I'm interested in that too.

[DizzyEdge]

Originally Posted by GoTrans

Do the initials CPR mean anything? The CPR was the main impetus for many of the cities in southern AB,SK, and MB.

I just said it was fascinating to think of how much older some of the settlements are, I wasn't questioning why.

[Canadian Mind]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Now back to Alberta history, because I'm interested in that too.

I don't think you can look at Alberta's history without including Saskatchewan.

What I don't understand is why the corridor around the 16 is so densely populated compared to around highway 1. Once you are south of Consort on Hwy 41 in Special area 4 there is nothing but Oyen and one other hamlet who's name escapes me before you hit Medicine Hat.

[Harrison]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

I don't think you can look at Alberta's history without including Saskatchewan.

What I don't understand is why the corridor around the 16 is so densely populated compared to around highway 1. Once you are south of Consort on Hwy 41 in Special area 4 there is nothing but Oyen and one other hamlet who's name escapes me before you hit Medicine Hat.

Probably has to do with the fertility of the soil. Highway 1 goes right through the Palliser Triangle IIRC, which is drier than the area surrounding the Yellowhead.

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by Harrison

Probably has to do with the fertility of the soil. Highway 1 goes right through the Palliser Triangle IIRC, which is drier than the area surrounding the Yellowhead.

Drier and sandier. The badlands to the north (Drumheller, Paintearth) are also poor soils but farmers have made it a go. The poor soil is one of the reasons Alberta was much poorer than Saskatchewan prior to the Great Depression and has been one of the causes of the more radical agrarian reform movements that have spawned in Alberta (CCF/NDP, Social Credit, UFA.)

[Canadian Mind]

I just looked up the Palliser Triangle, found it kind of interesting. It pretty much starts just south of Wainwright, which explains why the base training area goes from forested in the north and east to dry and dunes in the southwest. Highway 13 runs pretty much along the northern brown soil boundary, and the southern brown soil boundary seems to run along highway 12.

Are there more detailed climate/soil maps available?

[GregP]

I'm not a historian or an archaeologist, but I've done a good deal of reading on the subject. There are plenty of claims regarding the "first settlement" or the "first white man" in Alberta, but they tend to vary in accuracy and in veracity.

Before 1763, France had claims on what is now Alberta, and considered it a fur-trading frontier against the English Hudson's Bay Company. There are a few sketchy references about French fur-trading forts which had been established, and may or may not be in what is now Alberta. It's likely that after the Treaty of Paris in 1763, where France lost it's possessions in what is now Canada, the operational fur-trading records were either lost or destroyed, not wanting such information to fall into the hands of the English.

There are a few references to the remains of forts being found by later explorers and settlers, but few of them have been identified either then or since, as to who established them, or what they were called.

I think it likely that several early forays were made on the prairies by white men, that were either not recorded, or were lost to history. Unfortunately, there seems to be an attitude that in the absence of conclusive evidence, non-existence must be assumed. I disagree; I think all evidence is evidence until it can be properly weighed; and either verified or ruled-out. It all makes for a very interesting story nonetheless.

[GregP]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

I just looked up the Palliser Triangle, found it kind of interesting. It pretty much starts just south of Wainwright, which explains why the base training area goes from forested in the north and east to dry and dunes in the southwest. Highway 13 runs pretty much along the northern brown soil boundary, and the southern brown soil boundary seems to run along highway 12.

Are there more detailed climate/soil maps available?

Here's a book which explains nearly everything about it: http://www.amazon.ca/The-Palliser-Ex.../dp/1895618525

[GregP]

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

I just said it was fascinating to think of how much older some of the settlements are, I wasn't questioning why.

The CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) provided an excellent report describing Western Canada to the Canadian Parliament in 1879. It makes fascinating reading: http://eco.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.09730/2?r=0&s=1

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

I don't think you can look at Alberta's history without including Saskatchewan.

What I don't understand is why the corridor around the 16 is so densely populated compared to around highway 1. Once you are south of Consort on Hwy 41 in Special area 4 there is nothing but Oyen and one other hamlet who's name escapes me before you hit Medicine Hat.

Fur trading route would be my guess. The fur traders followed the tree-line to the north which explains Cumberland House in Saskatchewan.

[GregP]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

Drier and sandier. The badlands to the north (Drumheller, Paintearth) are also poor soils but farmers have made it a go. The poor soil is one of the reasons Alberta was much poorer than Saskatchewan prior to the Great Depression and has been one of the causes of the more radical agrarian reform movements that have spawned in Alberta (CCF/NDP, Social Credit, UFA.)

One of my deceased uncles from Saskatchewan once made that assumption about Alberta; that the soil gets poorer, the farther west of the Sask border you go. That is true, but then it gets much better about halfway into Alberta. By the time you are near the QE2 highway, Class 1 soils are common.

[Xelebes]

Originally Posted by GregP

One of my deceased uncles from Saskatchewan once made that assumption about Alberta; that the soil gets poorer, the farther west of the Sask border you go. That is true, but then it gets much better about halfway into Alberta. By the time you are near the QE2 highway, Class 1 soils are common.

Yes, the Queuey Corridor is very fertile. However, the settlement was a bit later than the Palliser settlements, largely due to the claims sweeping east to west and from south to north (in the case of American settlers.)

[Xelebes]

The Camsell Hospital in Edmonton has a rather dark history. For the last couple decades, it was considered by many to be haunted. It was an Indian Hospital, servicing the reserves and such. One tragic story from there and the secrets it continues to hold.

CBC News

Then one day doctors touring northern indigenous communities to screen for tuberculosis turned up in Cambridge Bay with their portable X-ray machines.

Those who tested positive were sent south for treatment at sanatoria such as the Camsell, set up as an Indian Hospital between 1946 and 1967 largely for TB patients from Alberta, B.C, Saskatchewan, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

[Louisa] Baril says [Joseph] Elulik, who was in his mid-40s, was healthy, but doctors offered to treat his feet, likely with prosthetics. He waited until Baril, then 17 and pregnant, gave birth to his first grandson, before boarding a plane in May 1960.

Time dragged on without word. A year later a patient who had roomed with Baril's father returned to the community and told her about the last night Elulik was alive.

"He was calling me all night. Calling me and calling me," Baril says. "But finally he stopped breathing — he stopped calling me."

There is a renovation of the hospital with hopes to turn it into condos and it is taking a real long time. Gene Dub was on it for a long time but I think the asbestos problem and the fire drained the money to work on the project. Don't really know what is happening there.

[Canadian Mind]

Originally Posted by Xelebes

Yes, the Queuey Corridor is very fertile. However, the settlement was a bit later than the Palliser settlements, largely due to the claims sweeping east to west and from south to north (in the case of American settlers.)

You see that a lot when you look at the histories of towns. I've only lived in Carstairs and Wainwright. But Wainwright & areas history goes back almost 50 years before Carstairs does (and Carstairs is a smaller town). That said they were incorporated around the same time period (early 1900s).