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Fort Victoria, Alberta

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Fort Victoria, near present-day Smoky Lake, Alberta, was established by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1864 on the North Saskatchewan River as a trading post with the local Cree First Nations.[1] The site had previously been used starting in 1862 as a Methodist Missionary site, on the location of an aboriginal meeting place. It was named Victoria Settlement, after Queen Victoria.[2][3][4]

Fort Victoria
Fort Victoria, Alberta is located in Alberta
Fort Victoria, Alberta
Location in Alberta
LocationSmoky Lake, Alberta, Canada
Coordinates54°00′14″N 112°23′53″W / 54.00384°N 112.39810°W / 54.00384; -112.39810
TypeNational Historic Site, Cultural landscape
WebsiteVictoria Settlement
Official nameVictoria District National Historic Site of Canada
Designated17 October 2001 (2001-10-17)

Today, it is a historical museum known as Victoria Settlement. The nearby rural residences make up Pakan, Alberta. Metis Crossing Cultural Heritage Gathering Centre is nearby.[5]

Location and setting

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Fort Victoria (Victoria Settlement) is located on the north bank of the North Saskatchewan River, 100 kilometres downstream from Edmonton House. It was located along Victoria Trail/Carlton Trail between Edmonton and Fort Pitt and served as a stopping house on the overland route between the two as well as a waystation for travellers moving up or down the river.[6] The fur trading post at Victoria was minor compared to Edmonton but it gradually attracted a small agricultural settlement, as occurred near other Hudson's Bay Company posts in those pioneer days.

History

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Established by colonists as a missionary site in 1862-63, Victoria was the home for the McDougall missionary family. This site was chosen because of its popularity as a Cree settlement [always 10 to 100 tents present - per Mcdougall] and hunting area[7]

Land in the area was used according to the customary French riverlot system, and a mixed community of First Nations, Métis, and Europeans developed. For several miles on each side of the present-day museum the riverlot system is still in use, the official survey reflecting the fact that farms and land usage predated the Dominion Land Survey of the 1880s. (The DLS in most cases carved up large, square tracts as per Dominion Lands Act).[8][9]

Fort Victoria was an example of a community that shifted from subsistence on wildlife—specifically bison—and trade in furs to agriculture (crops and livestock).[10]

In 1864 George Flett was given the job of opening a Hudson's Bay Company trading post at Fort Victoria.[11] Flett was of Orkney and Cree descent.[11] Flett and John Norris led the first brigade of Red River ox-carts from Winnipeg to Edmonton, taking three and a half months on the journey. They passed through Victoria Settlement[12] As clerk in charge of the post until 1866, Flett was responsible for arranging for construction of the buildings and for opening up trade with the local Indians. Flett quickly obtained a supply of good-quality furs, which Flett and his assistants took by horse and dog train to Fort Edmonton for shipment downriver to Hudsons Bay.[11] The oldest building in Alberta still on its original foundations is the clerk's quarters at Fort Victoria, which dates from 1865.[13]

The fort closed in 1883 but was re-opened in 1887. It operated until 1897-98.[14]

Later the site of the Fort became a hub for the early settlement of East-Central Alberta. It came to be called the Victoria Settlement and later, Pakan, after the Cree chief Pakannuk.[15] Chief Pakan's name was sometimes given as "Peccan or Seenum".[16]

Still later, the settlement served as a Methodist mission to Ukrainian Canadian settlers in the region.[13]

The post was also a vital stop on the trail from Winnipeg to Edmonton. The section of the trail currently within the eastern part of the city of Edmonton is a now a paved road called Victoria Trail in honour of the fort and of this route's historic past as an indigenous trail and trade route.[17]

The Fort lies within the larger Victoria District, as well as the Kalyna Country ecomuseum. It has been designated a national historic site of Canada,[2] a provincial historic site of Alberta,[1] as well as municipally designated by Smoky Lake County.[18]

Victoria Park Cemetery

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Plaque at Victoria Cemetery, near Smoky Lake, Alberta.

The Victoria Park Cemetery was established circa 1896 by the Methodist church and is located on a hill overlooking the river. It is the second of six cemeteries established in the settlement. It contains approximately 100 recognizable graves from both Native and Settler communities, likely including victims of an 1870 smallpox epidemic.[19] It was restored and rededicated in 1999.[17]

Victoria District National Historic Site of Canada

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Fort Victoria and the Victoria Park Cemetery is situated within the larger geographic space of the Victoria District, which itself is currently one of twenty-three national historic sites in Alberta; only three, including the Victoria District, are north of Edmonton. Of these sites, the Victoria District is the only rural national historic site in Alberta.[2][20][21]

See also

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Affiliations

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The Museum at Fort Victoria is affiliated with: CMA, CHIN, and Virtual Museum of Canada.

References

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  1. ^ a b "Alberta Register of Historic Places". hermis.alberta.ca. Archived from the original on 2021-10-21. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  2. ^ a b c "Victoria District National Historic Site of Canada". www.pc.gc.ca. Archived from the original on 2021-02-27. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
  3. ^ Losey, Timothy C.; Prager, Gabriella (1975). "A Consideration of the Effects of the Demise of Bison on the Subsistence Economy of Fort Victoria: A Late 19Th Century Hudson's Bay Company Post". Bulletin (Canadian Archaeological Association) (7): 162–182. ISSN 0315-761X. JSTOR 41242402. Archived from the original on 2021-10-21. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  4. ^ Sutherland, Paul. "Fort Pitt to Edmonton: the other route." Alberta History 60, no. 4 (2012): 17+. Gale Academic OneFile (accessed October 21, 2021). https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A307917996/AONE?u=nysl_oweb&sid=googleScholar&xid=f1dcaf22.
  5. ^ "Métis Crossing Cultural Heritage Gathering Centre in Smoky Lake, AB". Metis Crossing. Archived from the original on 2023-01-09. Retrieved 2023-01-09.
  6. ^ Pyszczyk, Heinz (1978). The Fort Victoria Faunal Analysis: Considerations of Subsistence Change of the Fur Trade Era in North Central Alberta (Master's thesis). University of Manitoba. p. 1. hdl:1993/14332. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
  7. ^ Ironside, R.G.; Tomasky, E. (1976). "Agriculture and River Settlement in Western Canada: The Case of Pakan (Victoria), Alberta". Prairie Forum. 1 (1): 3–18. hdl:10294/128. Retrieved 16 January 2024.
  8. ^ Jared (2021-08-06). "Métis Crossing and the historic Victoria Trail". RETROactive. Archived from the original on 2021-10-21. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  9. ^ Ironside, R.G.; Tomasky, E. (1976). "Agriculture and River Settlement in Western Canada: The Case of Pakan (Victoria), Alberta". Prairie Forum. 1 (1): 3–18. hdl:10294/128. Retrieved 16 January 2024.
  10. ^ Pyszczyk, Heinz (1978). The Fort Victoria Faunal Analysis: Considerations of Subsistence Change of the Fur Trade Era in North Central Alberta (Master's thesis). University of Manitoba. p. 6. hdl:1993/14332. Retrieved 2024-01-18.
  11. ^ a b c Block, Alvina (Spring–Summer 1999). "George Flett, Presbyterian Missionary to the Ojibwa at Okanase". Manitoba History. 37. Winnipeg. Archived from the original on 2018-09-23. Retrieved 2011-10-22.
  12. ^ Goyette, Linda; Roemmich, Carolina Jakeway (2005). Edmonton in Our Own Words. University of Alberta. p. 58. ISBN 0-88864-449-3.
  13. ^ a b Historical Walking and Driving Tours: Victoria Trail. Alberta Community Development: Alberta Recreation and Parks, 2003. P. 13. Accessed 21 October 2021 at https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/119929f7-9429-418d-8b88-24acb1ffc9b9/resource/fdd4bdd7-4ec0-40d0-a39e-1730392e2c41/download/tour-kalyna-victoria-trail.pdf Archived 2021-10-21 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ Victoria Post historic site plaque [1] Archived 2023-07-27 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ Historical Walking and Driving Tours: Victoria Trail. Alberta Community Development: Alberta Recreation and Parks, 2003. P. 7. Accessed 21 October 2021 at https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/119929f7-9429-418d-8b88-24acb1ffc9b9/resource/fdd4bdd7-4ec0-40d0-a39e-1730392e2c41/download/tour-kalyna-victoria-trail.pdf Archived 2021-10-21 at the Wayback Machine
  16. ^ Edmonton Bulletin, Feb. 9, 1884
  17. ^ a b "Victoria Trail". Kalyna Country. 12 August 2016. Archived from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  18. ^ "Victoria Settlement". Smoky Lake. Archived from the original on 2021-10-21. Retrieved 2021-10-21.
  19. ^ Historical Walking and Driving Tours: Victoria Trail. Alberta Community Development: Alberta Recreation and Parks, 2003. P. 26. Accessed 21 October 2021 at https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/119929f7-9429-418d-8b88-24acb1ffc9b9/resource/fdd4bdd7-4ec0-40d0-a39e-1730392e2c41/download/tour-kalyna-victoria-trail.pdf Archived 2021-10-21 at the Wayback Machine
  20. ^ "Victoria Settlement Provincial Historic Site". victoriasettlement.ca. May 20, 2023.
  21. ^ "Smoky Lake County Victoria District Area Structure Plan" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-11-15. Retrieved 2019-05-07.
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