Fort de l'Isle is a site in Alberta, Canada, containing the remains of three trading posts that existed from 1799 to some time before 1808. The island the North Saskatchewan River on which the posts were located is about 47 miles west of the Saskatchewan border and about 7 miles north of Myrnam. [1] The west end of the island can be seen from the Alberta Highway 881 bridge.
Alberta is a western province of Canada. With an estimated population of 4,067,175 as of 2016 census, it is Canada's fourth most populous province and the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces. Its area is about 660,000 square kilometres (250,000 sq mi). Alberta and its neighbour Saskatchewan were districts of the Northwest Territories until they were established as provinces on September 1, 1905. The premier has been Rachel Notley since May 2015.
The North Saskatchewan River is a glacier-fed river that flows from the Canadian Rockies continental divide east to central Saskatchewan, where it joins with another major river to make up the Saskatchewan River. Its water flows eventually into the Hudson Bay.
Alberta Provincial Highway No. 881, commonly referred to as Highway 881, is a highway split into two sections in northeast Alberta, Canada. Each section is over 200 kilometres (120 mi) in length; the southern portion runs from Highway 13 in Hardisty to Highway 55 northwest of Bonnyville, while the northern section stretches from Highway 55 in Lac La Biche to the south side of Fort McMurray, serving as an important alternate route to Highway 63. A 72-kilometre (45 mi) section of Highway 55 joins the two sections. Lac La Biche County is lobbying the Government of Alberta to renumber the section of Highway 881 between Lac La Biche and Fort McMurray to Highway 36.
A Mr. de Rochblave of the XY Company may have been the first to arrive. [2] In 1800 both the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company decided to abandon their posts at Buckingham House/Fort George and move 20 miles upstream. Henry Hallett of the HBC had built the main buildings of Island House by that fall but could not build the stockade until spring, when it was possible to float logs downriver. François Decoigne from Fort Augustus upstream built Fort de l'Isle, between the other two, for the NWC. John McDonald of Garth ran the NWC post for the first two years.
The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada. With great wealth at stake, tensions between the companies increased to the point where several minor armed skirmishes broke out, and the two companies were forced by the British government to merge.
The Hudson's Bay Company is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada, the United States, and parts of Europe including Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany. The company's namesake business division is Hudson's Bay, commonly referred to as The Bay. Other divisions include Galeria Kaufhof, Home Outfitters, Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue. HBC's head office is currently located in Brampton, Ontario. The company is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol "HBC".
In 1802 James King of the NWC and Joseph-Maurice Lamothe of the XY Company both left for an Indian camp about five days away to pick up furs that were owed to their respective companies. King tried to take furs that Lamothe claimed belonged to the XY Company, words were exchanged, and Lamothe shot King. From the time of Médard des Groseilliers it had been unclear whether Canadian jurisdiction extended beyond the Saint Lawrence basin. A Montreal grand jury brought a true bill against Lamothe, and he went to Montreal to stand trial but changed his mind and disappeared into the West to be beyond the reach of the law. This led to the passage of the Canada Jurisdiction Act of 1803, which provided that offenses committed in the West would be dealt with in the same way as those in Upper and Lower Canada. [1] It also allowed the Governor of Lower Canada to appoint justices of the peace in the West, something that would cause trouble later.
Médard Chouart des Groseilliers (1618–1696) was a French explorer and fur trader in Canada. He is often paired with his brother-in-law Pierre-Esprit Radisson, who was about 20 years younger. The pair worked together in fur trading and exploration. Their decision to enter British service led to the foundation of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. This company established trading posts and extensive relations with the First Nations in western Canada. It was highly influential in making the region amenable to British colonization. Radisson, with Groseiliers, also mapped many of the Great Lakes and trading routes used by settlers in the early 19th century.
Both posts were abandoned in favor of Fort Edmonton upstream or Paint Creek House/Fort Vermilion downstream. [1] In 1808 David Thompson passed by and implied in his journal that the forts were gone. A marker was erected in 1960. The surviving visible remains consist of cellar depressions and piles of chimney rock. The island can be reached only by boat or by snowshoes in winter; a fairly powerful outboard is needed because of the current.
Fort Edmonton was the name of a series of trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company from 1795 to 1891, all of which were located in central Alberta, Canada. From 1795 to 1821 it was paired with the North West Company's Fort Augustus. It was the end point of the Carlton Trail, the main overland route for Metis freighters between the Red River Colony and the west and an important stop on the York Factory Express route between London, via Hudson Bay, and Fort Vancouver in the Columbia District.
Paint Creek House and Fort Vermilion were a pair of fur-trading posts on the North Saskatchewan River in Alberta, Canada, approximately 13 km (8.1 mi) west of the Saskatchewan border. Paint Creek House belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and Fort Vermilion to the North West Company (NWC). For background see Saskatchewan River fur trade.
David Thompson was a British-Canadian fur trader, surveyor, and map-maker, known to some native peoples as Koo-Koo-Sint or "the Stargazer." Over Thompson's career, he travelled some 90,000 kilometres (56,000 mi) across North America, mapping 4.9 million square kilometres of North America along the way. For this historic feat, Thompson has been described as the "greatest land geographer who ever lived."
