'Fur was still king': A look back at Confederation-era Edmonton
'Daily life at the time would be anywhere from exciting and dangerous to incredibly boring and tedious.'
At the time of Confederation — when beaver pelts were the currency of the day — Indigenous trappers would travel from the far reaches of the northern wilderness to trade their wares in Edmonton.
Fort Edmonton, a wooden structure on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River, was an essential trading post for the regional fur trade.
As Canada celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, Edmonton historian Gerard Ens is taking a look back at what the city would have looked like at the time of Confederation.
The historic landmark would have gone largely unnoticed for the people both inside and outside the camp. Political concerns were overshadowed by a desire to profit from the region's burgeoning fur trade.
"Edmonton was probably not much different in 1867 than it had been 40 years previously, and probably nobody much cared much about Confederation at the time," said Ens, a professor in the department of History & Classics at the University of Alberta, said in an interview with CBC Edmonton's Radio Active.
"Fur was still king and would be for another 10 years."
'A fairly imposing structure'
Competition for the animal hides was cutthroat.
The Fort was initially founded in the fall of 1795, around present day Fort Saskatchewan.
It was established by William Tomison of the Hudson's Bay Company in an attempt to outdistance competition and tap new sources of pelts. It was built within a musket shot of another rival trading post, Fort Augustus.
These were, at the time, the uppermost posts on the North Saskatchewan River. But by 1801, trappers had depleted the area's resources so much that both Fort Augustus and Fort Edmonton were moved upriver to the present site of Edmonton.
The Fort — which served as headquarters for the Hudson's Bay Company's North American fur trade operations in the vast Saskatchewan District of Rupert's Land — was isolated.
With the exception of a few encampments along the riverbank, there was little development outside of the fort. The Edmonton area was still largely untouched by settlers, Ens said.
"It would be a fairly imposing structure there and the most imposing structure where Edmonton now sits," Ens said.
"You would have Métis and various Native groups camping in various locales, but you would have almost no European settlers outside the post."
The fur trade really is the starting point of the metropolitan, the city growth of Edmonton.- Gerard Ens, Edmonton historian
While surviving outside the Fort could be harrowing, life inside inside the encampment was mundane, Ens said.
No more than 200 men lived inside the Fort. They would spend their days cutting timber throughout the winter, hunting on the plains, and working on boat-building for the fur trade.
"Daily life at the time would anywhere from exciting and dangerous to incredibly boring and tedious," he said.
Fort Edmonton was a meeting point for rival Blackfoot and Cree tribes up until the 1870s, a sort of "no man's land" when it came to claiming territory and doing trade, Ens said.
"The ... dangerous part came in when various Native groups came into trade," he said.
"If there was just one group coming in, it was pretty safe … but if there was other tribes around, then there would inevitably be a dust up and people would be killed."
Settlers moved downtown
It wouldn't be long before fur would no longer be king, and Edmonton would begin to shed its trading post status.
As more American trading posts established south of the border, Ens said. Edmonton lost much of its monopoly on the fur trade and new industries such as coal mining, timber and agriculture slowly took hold.
Within years of Confederation, the first settlements outside the Fort — rustic log cabins inhabited by pioneer farmers — would crop up along the river bank.
"After Confederation, then you start getting more settlement," Ens said.
"Many of the servants that had been released from Hudson Bay company service immediately begin speculating in land, buying and squatting on river lots in order to get the most advantageous properties in what would be today downtown Edmonton.
"The fur trade really is the starting point of the metropolitan, the city growth of Edmonton."
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With files from Ken Dawson