Drive an Historic Alberta Highway Item Type text; Article Authors Irving, Barry D. Citation Irving, B. D. (1994). Drive an Historic Alberta Highway. Rangelands, 16(2), 55-58. Publisher Society for Range Management Journal Rangelands Rights Copyright © Society for Range Management. Download date 05/10/2021 19:59:49 Item License http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ Version Final published version Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/638995 RANGELANDS 16(2), April 1994 Drive an Historic Alberta Highway Barry D. Irving Dearest, I have tried to give yousome idea of my life in this uniquecorner of the Great Lone Land. I hope 1 have not tired you. I expect in return a full account of your new life, which is so very different from mine, though no happier. My life may seem rough and bare, but there is somethingto compen- sate onefor every hardship and trial. You must come andsee me, though,for it is thespirit of theWest that charms one, andI can't conveyit to you, try as I may. It is a shy wild spirit and will not leave its native mountainsand rolling prairies and, though / try to getit into my letters, / can't. / must warnyou that if it once charmsyou, itbecomes an obsessionand one I grows very lonely away from it. No Westerner who has feltits fascinationever is really contentagain in I the conventionalEast.—(lnderwick 1884) This is an excerpt from a letter written in the period around 1884by arancher's wife. The Inderwickranch was located inthe southern Albertafoothills. This shortquota- tion captures the essence of early settlement life in Alberta, hardships with compensation. The purposeof this paperis toprovide perspective and insight into the settlement history of the region south of Edmonton, Alberta,Canada. To facilitate the discussion the reader will drive an historic highway that will take them from Lethbridge, west to Fort Macleod, and then north through Calgary and finally to Edmonton (Fig. 1). The geographicdistance is about 600 km, while the his- toricdistance is immense.This papershould notbe construed in any way as being a complete history of the drive between Lethbridgeand Edmonton, but simply as high- Fig. 1. Historicalpoints betweenLethbridge andEdmonton. lights of a bright and colorful past. tions aroundthe Fort. Healy wenton to say bad men were Lethbridgeisa thriving prairie centerwitha fascinating simply not allowed in the region by the Fort Whoopup history. Located just south of Lethbridgewas one of the traders; there was no need for governmentintervention original sites of prairie commerce, FortWhoopup. Origi- because thetraders were taking careof any bad men that nally Fort Hamilton,the name evolved to Fort Whoopup, came to the Fort Whoopup region (Hamilton 1971). Of after the dominanttrade good, whiskey, was well estab- course, thetraders were only successful in taking careof lished. Fort Whoopupwas established in 1869 by "free bad men themselves because they were worse than the Americantraders" by the name of John Healyand Alfred men they were dispatching.Fort Whoopup was operated Hamilton. it soon became the trading center for all of by bad men, and was the origin of a great deal of human southern Alberta.Fort Whoopupwas a placefor bad men, suffering.An excellentreplica of Fort Whoopup has been although that's not the story John Healy told Reverend reconstructed in Lethbridge's indian BattlePark. John McDougall, who visited the Fort in 1874. Healy Lessthan 45 minutes west of Lethbridgeis the town of assured McDougall there were not bad men in Fort Fort Macleod. Fort Macieod was the first North West Whoopup. Therewere a few bad men that had cometothe Mounted Police (NWMP) fort in western Canada. The region, but they had been "stretchedout" in variousloca- NWMP was catapultedinto existence in 1874.As early as 1870 reportsof the whiskeytrade being the ruination of Author s atechnologist, Department of Plant Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, CanadaT6G 2P5. the plains Indians moved the Canadian government to considertheestablishmentofawesternpoliceforce. The 56 RANGELANDS 16(2), April 1994 Canadian Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, was in the region. Thus a fledgling beef industry, at first known as "Old Tomorrow" because he always stalled slaughteranimals and eventually breeding stock, deve- important decisions, and at the time was stalling the loped in southern Alberta. establishment of a western police force. The federal The foothills of the Rockiesin south-western Alberta government was still stalling when a group of white were attractiveto those interested in ranchingbecause of wolfers (menwho lived by collecting bounties on wolves) the rich native grass (that cured on the stem for winter slaughtereda bandof AssiniboineIndians in the Cypress feed), reliablerainfall, and a winter phenomenon known Hills (southeastern Alberta) in 1873. The public outcry as a "chinook". Chinooks are a warm Pacific wind that and the obvious lawlessness of the western frontier blowsoverthe mountainsin winter and stripsthe foothills resulted in the formation of the NWMP. In 1874, 300 of snow cover, enablingyear roundgrazing. NWMP headed west from Manitoba. The force was split The notion of winteringcattle without supplement was into three divisions,one of which made its way to south- firsttested in 1877 by aformer trader, Fred Kanouse, who ern Alberta.The southernforce enlistedthe services of a turned 21 cows onto the range at Fort Macleod and col- local guide by the name of Jerry Potts. lected 21 cowsand 21 calvesthefollowingspring. Priorto Jerry Potts, whose motherwas a member of the Black- 1881 cattle numbered about 9,000 head on the Alberta foot Confederacyand father a Scottish-Americantrader, ranges (Kelly 1913). The total herdwas dividedamongst was a godsend to the tired and travel-weary NWMP numerous stockmen, some of whomwere former traders troupe. Pottshad lived all his lifeon the plains andwas an and NWMP. Improving beef markets, the signing of expert navigator and hunter. His escapades before and Treaty 7 (which gave land ownership to the federal after his enlistment as a NWMP scout are legendary and governmentand confinedthe indigenous people to reser- his contribution to the success of the early force great vations), and favorable results from experiences of earlier (Dempsey 1966). His first job as a scout for the NWMP ranchingentrepreneurs led to speculation that ranching was to lead them to Fort Whoopup, which he said was in southern Alberta could be big business. unnecessary because the traders had fled when they Largescale ranchingbegan in 1881, when the Govern- learned of the large police force coming to southern ment ofCanada passed an Order-in-Councilthat allowed Alberta.However, the commanding officersinsisted, and one individual or ranch companyto lease 100,000 acres Potts led them to Fort Whoopup, which the force found for one cent per acre per year. The Cochrane Ranch, deserted. In the summer of 1874, the NWMP accomp- located nearpresent day Cochrane, west of Calgary, was lished its first missionand closed the doors of one of the the first "big lease". It was followed closely by the most notoriouswhiskey trading forts in western Canada. NorthwestCattle Company (BarU). The Cochrane Ranch Potts'next duty was to find the force a siteon which to was the first of the big ranches, while the Bar U was build a permanentfort. An island in the middle of the arguablythe most successful. Other ranchers of the era Oldman River was the chosen location. The fort was were the Walrond, Quorn, the 76, the Circle, Maunsell named after the first NWMP commander, Col. James F. Brothers, and Cyprus Hills Cattle Company (Jameson Macleod. From its new home the NWMP systematically 1987). There were others of course, but they are too eliminatedthe whiskeytrade from southernAlberta. The numerous to mentionhere. force won the respect of the indigenouspeople through Two consistenciesamong all the big lease ranches level headed commanders who administered equal jus- appeared. First was the belief that putting up winter feed tice to all, regardless of skin color, with the help of Jerry was not required in the chinook country and secondwas Potts. This trust is perhapsbest illustratedby the mutual the interferencefrom eastern stockholdersthat western respect (somecall it friendship)that developed between ranch managers were subjected to. These two factors Sitting Bull and Major James Morrow Walsh during the spelled disaster for the early Cochrane Ranch. The years the Sioux spent on Canadian soil after defeating secondherd of Cochrane Ranch cattle (numberingabout Custer in the Battle of the Little Big Horn (MacEwan 5,000 head) brought to Alberta in 1882 from Montana 1973).The trust between theNWMP and the Plains Indian were caught in an early fall snow storm about 60 miles tribes was tested many times, butthe result was alwaysa south ofthe Cochrane Ranch lease. Againstlocal wisdom peaceful and negotiated solution. The conduct of the (which would have wintered the cattle where they were) NWMP is a point of pride in the history of southern the herders followed the eastern directors' orders and Alberta. drove the herd on to the Cochrane lease. The cattle The hIstorical trek from Fort Macleod to Calgary is arrivedon Cochrane Ranch lease exhaustedand in poor highlighted by the beginnings of Alberta's ranchinghis- condition, and were met with a severe winter and no tory. Ranchingwas southern Alberta's first agricultural winter feed. The cattle tried to drift to the snow free industry. The NWMP brought a sizable herd of cattle to ranges east of the Cochrane lease but were hazed back Alberta in 1874. The establishment of NWMP posts in (again under orders from the eastern directors). The southern Alberta provided a market, and a small cattle losses tallied in 1883 were about 3,000 head (Jameson industry beganto develop. Decliningbison herds andthe 1987,MacEwan 1975). Lackof winter feed would eventu- need to feed the "newest" Canadian citizens (i.e., the ally affect all the big lease ranches, especiallyduring the indigenous peoples)served to increasethe demand for beef winter of 1886—87, when chinook winds did not free the RANGELANDS 16(2), April 1994 57 ranges from snow.