Edmonton's site attracted
aboriginal peoples for thousands
of years before the arrival of
white settlers, thanks to the
abundance of local
quartzite
, used to make sharp-edged stone
weapons and tools.
Fur
traders arrived in the
eighteenth century, attracted by
river and forest habitats that
provided some of Canada's
richest fur-producing territory.
Better still, the area lay at
the meeting point of the
territory patrolled by the
Blackfoot to the south and the
Cree, Dene and Assiniboine to
the north. Normally these
aboriginal peoples would have
been implacable enemies, but
around Edmonton's future site
they were able to coexist when
trading with intermediaries like
the North West Company, which
built built Fort Augustus on
Edmonton's present site in 1795.
The fort was joined later the
same year by
Fort Edmonton
, a redoubtable log stockade
built by William Tomison for the
Hudson's Bay Company (and named
in fine sycophantic fashion
after an estate owned by Sir
James Winter Lake, the Hudson's
Bay Company's deputy governor).
Though the area soon became a
major trading district, settlers
arrived in force only after
1870, when the HBC sold its
governing right to the Dominion
of Canada. The decline of the
fur trade in around 1880 made
little impact, as the settlement
continued to operate as a
staging point for travellers
heading north. Worldwide demand
for grain also attracted
settlers to the region, now able
to produce crops despite the
poor climate thanks to advances
in agricultural technology.
Crucially, though, the first
trans-Canada railway was pushed
through Calgary at Edmonton's
expense, and when a spur was
built by the Edmonton Railway
Company in 1891 it finished
south of the town at Strathcona,
where a new settlement
developed. The city only became
firmly established with the
Yukon gold rush of 1897, and
only then through a scam of
tragic duplicity. Prompted by
the city's outfitters,
newspapers lured prospectors
with the promise of an "All
Canadian Route" to the gold
fields that avoided Alaska and
the dreaded Chilkoot Trail
. In the event, this turned out
to be a largely phantom trail
across 3000km of intense
wilderness. Hundreds of men
perished as they pushed north;
many of those who survived, or
who never set off, ended up
settling in Edmonton. World War
II saw the city's role
reinforced by its strategic
position relative to Alaska,
while its postwar growth was
guaranteed by the Leduc oil
strike in 1947. By 1956 some
3000 wells were in production
within 100km of the city. If
Edmonton has achieved any fame
since, it has been in the field
of sports , as the home
of Wayne Gretzky, the greatest
player in ice-hockey history.
Oil money continues to bankroll
all sorts of civic improvements,
though never quite manages to
disguise the city's rather
rough-and-ready pioneer roots.
