Fort Walsh Townsite (1875-1883)
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FORT WALSH TOWNSITE (1875-1883): EARLY SETTLEMENT IN THE CYPRESS HILLS A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts In the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By Kimberly Aaron Wutzke © Copyright Kimberly Aaron Wutzke, August 2009. All rights reserved. Permission to Use In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Postgraduate degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done. It is understood that any copying, publication, or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis. Requests for permission to copy or to make other use of material in this thesis in whole or part should be addressed to: Head of the Department of Archaeology University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5B1 i Abstract The town of Fort Walsh was established in 1875 next to the North-West Mounted Police post of the same name in the Cypress Hills of southwestern Saskatchewan. Although it may appear to have been an isolated town built during the burgeoning years of the Canadian west, it became a thriving centre of activity with many businesses and people of various backgrounds attracted to this locale. Both the town and the post were abandoned in 1883. Fort Walsh became a National Historic Site in 1968 and in the decades following, many areas were archaeologically recorded and excavated within the town. This thesis analyzed the artifacts of ten of these operations to identify the possible contributors of the material culture. This was accomplished by identifying the types of social (households) and economic (businesses) units that were present in the town from the historical records. A representational artifact assemblage was constructed for each unit and compared to the locales that had been excavated in the town. Analysis of the data led me to conclude that the operations best represented four family households, two Métis family households, three male-only households and one possible male-only household or restaurant. The archaeological and historical information from the town was also combined to reconstruct the layout and settlement pattern of the town. Overall, the town of Fort Walsh was found to lack organization and did not follow any type of pattern which was in contrast to the typical structured pioneer settlements of that time as was seen at the contemporaneous town of Fort Macleod. Many factors may have contributed to the settlement pattern seen at Fort Walsh including topography and access to resources. I argue within this thesis that perhaps it was the large Métis population at Fort Walsh that influenced the layout of the town since there were similarities between the settlement pattern of Fort Walsh and Métis hivernant villages in the Cypress Hills. ii Acknowledgements This thesis could not have been completed without the help of a number of individuals and organizations. First and foremost I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Margaret Kennedy, for suggesting the research of the Fort Walsh townsite and for all of her knowledge and advice regarding the subject and her guidance throughout my entire undergraduate and graduate experience at the University of Saskatchewan. I would also like to thank the members of my advisory committee, Dr. Ernest Walker and Dr. David Meyer for all of their additional support and insights. I owe a great deal of thanks to Jennifer Hamilton and the rest of the staff at the Parks Canada office in Winnipeg for granting me permission to move the artifacts from the Fort Walsh townsite collection to the University of Saskatchewan for further study. They also allowed me access to their reference collections and all written materials they had pertaining to Fort Walsh for which I am grateful. I would also like to thank the staff at the Fort Walsh National Historic Site for allowing me to walk around the site and the Visitor Reception Centre before it was officially open for the summer season. Financial support was provided from a number of different sources. Thanks to the Department of Archaeology, the Saskatchewan Archaeological Association (SAS), the Department of History’s Messer Award for Research in Canadian History and the Saskatchewan Heritage Foundation (SHF) for their generous funding. I would like to extend my gratitude to all of my fellow graduate students for making it a very memorable graduate school experience! A big thank you goes out to my fellow historic archaeology grad students Denise, Kris, Karmen and Tam for their support, knowledge and their willingness to be sounding boards. Thank you to Cara for all of the hours she dedicated in helping me with faunal identification and for making me learn about the bones instead of merely telling me what each bone was. Thank you to Denise for the loan of her digital camera to take artifact pictures which proved to be extremely useful when I no longer had the actual artifacts to look at. I also would like to thank Debbie Croteau for all of her help and support throughout the last couple of years. Finally I would like to thank all the members of my family. Thank you to my parents for their never-ending support and for allowing me to pursue my own convoluted path knowing that I had their love and encouragement for anything I chose to do. iii Thanks also to my sisters, brother and niece for all the good times and for letting me escape school life when I came back home. And lastly, a very special thank you to Riel. This thesis would not have been completed without your encouragement, your complete understanding of the thesis writing process having gone through it yourself, your super map and chart making abilities and your willingness to give up evenings and weekends during the last couple of months in order for me to write. I will always be thankful for your love and support. iv Table of Contents Permission to Use...............................................................................................................i Abstract .............................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgements......................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ..............................................................................................................v List of Tables ................................................................................................................ viii List of Figures ..................................................................................................................ix Abbreviations ...................................................................................................................xi Chapter 1 Introduction........................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Introduction....................................................................................................1 1.2 Research Objectives.......................................................................................4 1.3 Chapter Overview..........................................................................................5 Chapter 2 The Natural and Human History of the Cypress Hills......................................... 7 2.1 Cypress Hills Regional Environment ............................................................7 2.2 People in the Cypress Hills Before 1875.....................................................10 2.2.1 Native Groups...............................................................................10 2.2.2 Fur Traders ...................................................................................14 2.2.3 Exploration Expeditions ...............................................................16 2.2.4 Metis Settlements .........................................................................17 2.2.5 Whiskey Traders...........................................................................19 2.2.6 Cypress Hills Massacre ................................................................22 2.3 Creation of the North-West Mounted Police ...............................................23 2.4 Establishment of Fort Walsh........................................................................26 2.5 Post Abandonment Land-Use ......................................................................30 Chapter 3 The Town of Fort Walsh .................................................................................... 33 3.1 The People of Fort Walsh ............................................................................35 3.1.1 1881 Census Data.........................................................................37 3.1.2 Life at Fort Walsh.........................................................................43 3.2 The Economy