University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Spring 1983 Far Corner Of The Strange Empire Central Alberta On The Eve Of Homestead Settlement William C. Wonders University of Alberta Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Wonders, William C., "Far Corner Of The Strange Empire Central Alberta On The Eve Of Homestead Settlement" (1983). Great Plains Quarterly. 1709. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1709 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. FAR CORNER OF THE STRANGE EMPIRE CENTRAL ALBERTA ON THE EVE OF HOMESTEAD SETTLEMENT WILLIAM C. WONDERS In the latter part of the nineteenth century, variously known as the metts, half-breeds, or what is now central Alberta was a region in country-born who played such an important transition. For centuries the area had been role in it. Though they were soon submerged inhabited by native Indian peoples, but with by the flood of incoming settlers, for a few the advance of homestead settlement, it became decades in the late nineteenth century the a marginal part of what J ost;ph Howard has metis made a distinctive but short-lived impact called the "strange empire," a portion of the on the northern Great Plains. The focus here is northern Great Plains that was marked by on this transitional period between fur trade unrest at the end of one era and the beginning and homestead settlement in central Alberta, of another.1 The changes that affected the Red an area that is also transitional in its geographic River Valley and later the Saskatchewan Valley character. had significant local repercussions in this far corner of the "empire," the valley of the upper SURFACE FEATURES Battle River immediately south and east of Edmonton. Central Alberta is part of the high, western The fur trade provided the initial and domi­ sector of the North American Great Plains (Fig. nant economic base for the European presence 1). In the west it grades almost imperceptibly in the Canadian Northwest. It also contributed into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. to the appearance of the mixed-blood people Much of the area constitutes a level-to-undu­ lating surface at an elevation of about 2,500 feet, traversed from west to east by deeply William C. Wonders is University Professor of entrenched, major river valleys. Widely sepa­ Geography at the University of Alberta. A past president of the Canadian Association of Geog­ rated erosion remnants rise above the general raphers, he is especially interested in the his­ surface about 600 feet to form the Hand Hills, torical geography of western Canada. His articles Wintering Hills, and Neutral Hills to the south­ have appeared in such journals as Annals of the east. In the west and southwest, resistant sand­ Association of American Geographers and stone bedrock results in a 200-foot scarp mark­ Scottish Geographical Magazine. ing the edge of rolling-to-hilly highlands. 92 FAR CORNER OF THE STRANGE EMPIRE 93 Continental glaciation shaped the present nineteenth century. Most of the area falls surface features (Fig. 2), mantling the area within the North Saskatchewan River basin, with till. In places the ground moraine is almost draining northeastward to Hudson Bay. featureleSl>, in others gently rumpled into slight irregularities. Hummocky moraine gives rise to CLIMATE AND VEGETATION a more hilly landscape (generally from 20 to 50 feet relief, though locally up to 150 feet), Central Alberta is transitional between the as in the western highland region and in the dry plains to the southeast and the humid Buffalo Lake-Beaverhills moraine, which lies in country to the west and north. Its continental a generally north-south axis southeast of Ed­ climate is marked by long, cold winters and monton. short, cool-to-warm summers. Precipitation Melting ice-sheet water left areas of lacus­ decreases eastward and southeastward, with trine sediments and also carved the great spill­ corresponding differences in the natural vege­ way valleys (locally one-half to one mile in tation. width and 150 to 200 feet deep) in a northwest­ Broadly speaking, there is a natural vegeta­ southeast direction across the area. The major tion sequence in Alberta from short grass in spillway valley southeast of Edmonton is occu­ the southeast, through prairie and parkland, pied by the Battle River, which joins the North to the continuous coniferous forests of the Saskatchewan River at Battleford. north and west. These constitute part of the Lakes are common. The largest and deepest broad areas of similar vegetation patterns that of these, in the western and northern sectors, occur across the southern parts of the modern­ supported important fish populations in the day Prairie Provinces . • Lac L. Biche' River o 50 100 km I I I After Metis Land Rights in Alberta FIG. 1. The northern Great Plains in the late nineteenth century. 94 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1983 o Wavy~ LateU Forestburg. ~ Spillway valley Sand, dunes Outwash After Stalker, Bayrock and Hughes,et.a!. FIG. 2. Central Alberta surficial materials. The area lies mainly within the parkland of aboriginal tribes. Woodland culture peoples zone, with its characteristic original mixture of occupied the northern sectors; plains culture tall grass and interspersed groves of aspen peoples occupied the south. The generally poplar. In the western and northern sectors at westward and southward eddy of the Indian the time of our study, however, tree cover was tribes in the Canadian Great Plains has been continuous and included paper birch, white well established.2 The two dominant and rival spruce, jack pine, and lodgepole pine, as well as Indian groups, the Blackfoot and a part of the aspen, while in the southeast the short grass Cree, had moved out onto the plains initially prevailed, with few if any trees. from woodland regions to the east and rapidly adapted to the new environment. THE NATIVE TRANSITION As recently as about 1730 the Piegan tribe of the Blackfoot Nation was located near the Central Alberta was a transitional area also Eagle Hills south of the junction of the Battle with regard to the major settlement patterns River with the North Saskatchewan, with the FAR CORNER OF THE STRANGE EMPIRE 95 Blood and Blackfoot tribes probably on their through the wooded Beaver Hills if they wished north and east. During the remainder of the to avoid confrontation with their enemy. The eighteenth century the Blackfoot Indians, "Battle River" (derived from the Cree name) after acquiring firearms and horses, thrust was aptly named for this unstable, transitional southwest, pushing the Snake (Northern Sho­ zone between the two dominant aboriginal shoni), Flathead, and Kootenay tribes from peoples.6 the Canadian Great Plains, while the former The North Saskatchewan River had provided Blackfoot territory in turn was taken over by the fur trade with its most important axis of the Crees and their allies the Assiniboines westward penetration and the setting for many (Stoneys). Explorer David Thompson reported of its most important trading posts, with Fort that the Blackfoot Nation held the territory Edmonton (Edmonton House) paramount. from the Rocky Mountains three hundred Large quantities of the more valuable furs, miles eastward and from the Missouri to the timber for boat building, and moose, elk, and North Saskatchewan River: the Piegans in the whitefish from the northern and western for­ south, the Bloods along the Red Deer River, ested areas were all available locally. On the and the Blackfoot tribes from the North Sas­ south and east the enormous herds of plains katchewan to the upper Battle River. 3 buffalo provided the large quantities of meat The westward expansion of the Crees and and pemmican that were essential to those Stoneys up the North Saskatchewan drove a engaged in the trade. Edmonton became a wedge between the Beaver Indians to the north major supply point for pemmican. and another group, related to southern tribes, The buffalo normally sought shelter from who favored the Beaver Hills between the the winter storms of the open plains in the North Saskatchewan and the Battle Rivers. parkland and the woodland fringe around Ed­ This tribe, later known as the Sarcee, allied monton. The artist Paul Kane commented on itself with the Blackfoot. the "thousands" of buffalo that ranged close One segment of the dominantly woodland­ to the fort, noting that several were shot within culture Crees adapted so well to the life of the a few hundred yards of it, and in mid-December plains people that they became identified as he found a herd of perhaps ten thousand along Plains Cree. As they spent increasing periods the river only ten miles from Edmonton. The of time there, they tended to push the Black­ post itself consumed huge quantities of buffalo foot Indians farther south from the North meat. The naturalist Dr. James Hector reported Saskatchewan. Governor Sir George Simpson of that 526 pounds of fresh meat were consumed the Hudson's Bay Gompany, however, still by the 109 inhabitants on a daily basis in Feb­ considered the North Saskatchewan River at ruary 1858.7 Edmonton to mark the northern boundary of In 1847 Kane was impressed with the num­ the Blackfoot territory in 1841. 4 bers and variety of Indians trading at Edmon­ Twenty years later John Palliser noted the ton: "Seven of the most important and war-like Plains Crees in possession of the Beaver Hills, tribes on the continent are in constant commu­ and the Neutral Hills as lying on the boundary nication with the fort, which is situated in the between Cree and Blackfoot territory.