Old North Trail - from Mexico to the Barren Lands by way of Whiskey Gap and Edmonton
- Tom Monto
- Jan 5
- 8 min read
Updated: Apr 13
it is fairly well known that the present site of Edmonton was on the route of the ancient Wolf's Track that took travellers from Mexico right up to the Barren Lands to the north. It was also known by the name, the Old North Trail or Great North Trail.
Edmonton was established as a good place to cross the North Saskatchewan River perhaps from time immemorial, due to a shallow ford near today's High Level Bridge. And the Rossdale flats was a gathering place and camping ground from time immemorial as well, according to archaeological and oral evidence.
Perhaps the Wolf's Track dates back to the time 11,000 years ago to 6000 years ago when the Ice Age peaked and left. A corridor opened in line with Edmonton, running alongside the Rockies, still encased in ice and snow, and the edge of the large icefield in the interior of the continent to the east and north. Animals and people likely moved up and down through this corridor earlier than in other northern parts of the continent. Nature abhors a vacuum, as we learned from the movie Jurassic Park, And that was the case back then - plants, predators and prey moving into newly de-iced locales - and humans as well.
The most recent glacial advance in North America reached its maximum extent 25,000 - 18,000 years ago, while the beginning or peak of the warming is considered to be 11,700 years ago, or about 9700 BCE. But deglaciation continued noticeably in some places as recently as 6000 years ago -- and is continuing today.
The route of the old North Trail is discussed in Dan Cushman's book The Great North Trail.
Trails in central Alberta predate the founding of the first Fort Edmonton and the NWC's Fort Augusts at the site of today's Fort Saskatchewan in 1795, and the founding of NWC's Rocky Mountain House and HBC's Acton House at Rocky Mountain House.
David Thompson used RMH as his base when he crossed the Rockies to be first person to cross the continent north of Mexico around 1806. In 1807 he crossed the Rockeis through Howse Pass.
Thompson recorded in his journals that he often went east from RMH and then turned to come north to Edmonton on the North Trail, which used a ford over the Red Deer River near today's City of Red Deer.
At that time a north-south trail followed the foothills and went through RMH. It is now known as Cowboy Trail.
Rocky Mountain House was also on a trail that came west from Buffalo Lake. (https://www.paulpettypiece.com/historic_trails.htm)
By the 1860s, the site where Tail Creek joined the Red Deer River held one of the largest settlements in western Canada. About 2000 wintered there. The shores of Buffalo Lake nearby also held a large settlement of buffalo hunters.
This trail likely followed the route of Highway 11, while other trails used in the early fur trade followed the route of Highway 12.
Ed Barnett was one of the first settlers in Lacombe. The settlement of Tail Creek is located along the old Buffalo Lake-to-RMH trail.
Calgary was founded in 1874, and that helped increase the use of the section of the North Trail coming north from Calgary. The subequent Calgary-Edmonton Trail was likely built on the old North Trail.
After the CPR was built to Calgary in 1883, traffic up and down the Calgary-Edmonton Trail increased substantially. A stopping house was put into operation about each 32 kms. along the route, where after a day or several hours of travel, the freightwagons, Red River carts and stagecoach could stop and travellers could find a meal or accommodation. The stagecoach used to take four days to make the trip from Edmonton to Calgary. Than after a three days' rest, turn around and make the trip the other direction.
The Calgary-Edmonton Trail crossed the Red Deer River at a ford about 6 kilometres upstream from the City of Red Deer.
In 1885 when troops came north to rescue the young settlement of Edmonton from a feared Cree attack, part of the force built Fort Normandeu along the route. This historic site stands today.
By that time a small settlement of Red Deer Crossing was built at the ford.
(The trail became much less busy after the C&E Railway was completed in 1891.)
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But before the railway came to Alberta and much before the first automobile, the old North Trail was a major thoroughfare for those travelling on foot, horseback or using travois or Red River cart or wagon.
The North Trail was an intertwined group of trails that came north across today's Canada-U.S border with one route being through Whiskey Gap.
Cushman says at Calgary it forked with one trail coming north from Calgary to what is today's Edmonton.
A west branch followed the edge of the foothills (likely what is called Cowboy Traill today).
At Edmonton it forked again with the west branch conecting to and crossing Athabasca River at today's Fort Assiniboine and then edging northwest to the Yukon.
The east fork went northeast from Rossdale, to where, at the old location of the Halfway Hotel (where 18th Street and Fort Road meet, north of 167 Avenue), it turned to go north, eventually following the Athabasca River, and then at about Ft. McMurray branching NW to the Barren Lands, past today's Wood Buffalo Park.
It is possible that the 1800-era fur trading posts at Rossdale were sited there due to that being a prominent location due to the old North Trail/Wolf's Track crossing the N. Sask. River at a ford at Rossdale. Many of the early fur trading posts were at confluences of two rivers, but Rossdale has no such thing.
But what it did have was the age-old North Trail.
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more info
Indigenous peoples roamed Alberta for thousands of years, or even tens of thousands of years. The rim of the river valley and its ravines and hilltops in Edmonton are known to have been well-used as campgrounds and look-out points during this time.
Rabbit Hill, today's Mary Lobay Park, Mount Pleasant Cemetery and Huntington Heights (near Whitemud Drive west of Calgary Trail) are known to be sites of human activity for millennia.
As well, the "Old North Trail" of the Blackfoot goes through present-day Edmonton, as it goes from Mexico to the Barren Lands up north. (Part of it survives is preserved as the Great Western Trail through the U.S.)
At about Edmonton, the Trail branched, with one branch going through present-day site of Ft. Assiniboine and toward western Arctic lands; the other branch going NE then breaking north to descend the Athabasca River.
Some conjecture that the Trail's crossing of the North Saskatchewan River at the site is the reason for the siting of fur-trade posts in Rossdale.
Cushman, The Great North Trail, p. 11, endpaper map
Peter Stark, "The Old North Trail" https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/the-old-north-trail-49911446/</ref>
Wiki: "Great Western Trail " (section of the Old North Trail through U.S.)
see also Joachim Fromhold, Alberta History The Old North Trail.
in five volumes: Prehistoric to 1750; 1750-1822; 1820-1850; 1850-1870 (in two parts) (available at significant prices from Thriftbooks:
see also
Walter McClintock. The Old North Trail or Life Legends and Religion of the Blackfeet Indians., published in 1910 [page 434-437]
excerpted online in "Old North Trail" https://crownofthecontinent.net/entries/old-north-trail/39fe73e1-f2d9-436e-a6d5-d1a66a802a62
and see Coutu From Castles to Forts
Coutu From Castles to Forts
"[M]inimal archaeological investigation on the lower Rossdale hs revealed evidence that this site near a major river crossing of the Wolf's Track was a significant gathering place of Plains tribes that dates back 7000 years." (p. 64.)
"river fords wereoften signficant crossroads of trade, and Father Lacombe noted that St. Paul des Crises (Brosseau) was referred to as "Kamabeskutewegak, the place where the prairie meets the river".
it seems likely the river ford below the High Level Bridge was associated with perhaps the most significant ancient trail in all of North America - Wolf's Track.
quotes from McClintock's book the Old North Ttail , p. 434-435)
Coutu remarked that if the oral tradition is true, "the old North Ttail origins are deep in the antiquity of North America, perhaps even associated with the grat migration from Asia.
In 1800 David Thompson referred to this trail as Wolf's Track and travelled the right fork of this trail [past Edmonton?] to Red Deer River before turning westward towards Rocky Mountain House. (Dempsey 1959, p. 16
1842 Jean Baptiste Thibault travelled [a branch of the Old North Trail west to the mountains] to visit the camp of Louis Piche and referred to it as the "Wolfer's Trail" (Drouin, p. 10)
Frank Coe noted that Wolf's Track passed by Lake Wabamum approx.. 70 kms west of Edmonton, south of Lac St. Anne (Coe, p. 15)
... Edmonton, a major river crossing along North Sask. River appears to be a significant [point] that connected the Wolf's Track [south of the river] to the North. (Coutu, p. 71)
[Travellers went from Edmotnton by land to Athabasca Landing then north along or on the Athabasca River to the Barren Lands.]
Coutu: "As a consequence, the river ford at Edmonton may represent an important gathering place along this ancient trail northward." (Coutu, p. 71)
J.B. Tyrrell surmised that in 1751 Chevalier De Niverville and his party (explorers and fur traders out of New France) ascended the Saskathewan River valley past Edmonton and at Drayton Valley saw the Rocky Mountains and realized no western sea was close and turned back to set up their wintering fort (Fort La Jonquiere), likely at Edmonton's Rossdale. (Coutu, p. 71)
W.J. Eccles put the 1751-1752 fort, Fort La Jonquiere, at the site of Rocky Mountain House. (Coutu, p. 71-72)
at that time some other group of French traders were reportedly operating on an island west of Red Deer. (De Niverville, as per Coutu, p. 72)
In 1781, Joseph Frobisher of the NW Company recorded information provided by earlier traders who had earlier set up a trading post perhaps at Rocky Mountain House. (Coutu, p. 72
Meris freeman est. a post at Pehonan in 1867 with perhaps a small satellite post at Rossdale.
Coutu provides list of other freeman, or "free Canadians" who were perhaps trading in Alberta pre-1790s. (p. 73)
The Boucher family were in western Canada and in the fur trade in the 1700s. Marguerite Boucher, daughter of Louis Boucher, married Jean Baptiste Riel, who had come west in 1798.
in 1821 they moved from the North-West country to the Red River settlement.
In 1844, their son Louis Riel Sr. married Julie, the daughter of Jean Lagimodiere and Marie Gaboury.
and their son, Louis Riel, was the leader of the two Riel rebellions, hanged in 1885.
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Freighters from Montana and southern Alberta increasingly used the crude 'road' between Calgary and Edmonton and it became known as the Calgary-Edmonton Trail.
The trail crossed the Red Deer River at a natural and relatively safe ford about six kilometres upstream from the current city of Red Deer where Fort Normandeau is located.
In 1882 and 1883, several settlers set up at the ford, mostly on the south side of the river in a community known as Red Deer Crossing as well as along the river both up and down stream.
Ed Barnett was the first settler in the Lacombe area and between the Red Deer River and Fort Edmonton. A trail linking Rocky Mountain House with Buffalo Lake went through Lacombe
see also
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