Paint Creek House and Fort Vermilion (not to be confused with the

Fort Vermilion Fort Vermilion is a Hamlet (place), hamlet on the Peace River in northern Alberta, Canada, within Mackenzie County. Established in 1788, Fort Vermilion shares the title of oldest European settlement in Alberta with Fort Chipewyan. Fort Vermilio ...

in Mackenzie County, Alberta) were a pair of fur-trading posts on the

North Saskatchewan River The North Saskatchewan River is a glacier-fed river that flows from the Canadian Rockies continental divide east to central Saskatchewan, where it joins with the South Saskatchewan River to make up the Saskatchewan River. Its water flows eventual ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada, approximately west of the

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

border. Paint Creek House belonged to the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...

(HBC) and Fort Vermilion to the

North West Company The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great weal ...

(NWC). For background see

Saskatchewan River fur trade Saskatchewan River fur trade The Saskatchewan River was one of the two main axes of Canadian expansion west of Lake Winnipeg. The other and more important one was northwest to the Athabasca Country. For background see Canadian canoe routes (ear ...

Usage

In use from 1802 to 1816, both forts were on the north bank of the river across from Lea Park, which is at the mouth of the Vermilion River. They were inside a common stockade for protection, with Paint Creek House on the east and Fort Vermilion on the west. The location on the north bank also provided some protection from the

Plains Indians Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have historically lived on the Interior Plains (the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies) of N ...

to the south. Fort Vermilion was also known as Lower Fort des Prairies.

History

The 1802 foundation date is not certain. In 1808, Alexander Henry 'The Younger' was in charge for the NWC and Henry Hallet for the HBC. Alexander Henry's journals indicated the post had 106 people (30 servants and their families). In September 1809, Henry returned from

Fort William, Ontario Fort William was a city in Ontario, Canada, located on the Kaministiquia River, at its entrance to Lake Superior. It amalgamated with Port Arthur and the townships of Neebing and McIntyre to form the city of Thunder Bay in January 1970. Since th ...

, and found some 300 tents of

Blackfoot The Blackfoot Confederacy, ''Niitsitapi'' or ''Siksikaitsitapi'' (ᖹᐟᒧᐧᒣᑯ, meaning "the people" or " Blackfoot-speaking real people"), is a historic collective name for linguistically related groups that make up the Blackfoot or Bla ...

waiting for his trade goods. While trading he kept a swivel gun pointed at their camp to ensure good behavior. In 1810, both companies decided to move upriver to Fort Edmonton #3 at the northernmost point on the river; Fort Edmonton #2 was moved downstream at the same time, while the NWC post of Fort Augustus was paired with Edmonton and moved with it. The move started that spring but the old forts remained open. When

Gabriel Franchère Gabriel Franchère ( 3 November 1786 –12 April 1863) was a French Canadian author and explorer of the Pacific Northwest. Franchère was born in Montreal to Gabriel Franchère (4 March 1752 - 16 May 1832) and Marie-Félicité Morin (20 August 176 ...

arrived in 1814, he found some 90 people there but few provisions to buy. Both posts were closed permanently in May 1816. Around 1980, there were a few cellar holes in a clearing at the end of a dirt road east of the

Alberta Highway 897 Alberta Provincial Highway No. 897 is a highway in the province of Alberta, Canada. It runs south-north in two sections, from Highway 14 north of Edgerton to Highway 55 south of Cold Lake, then from Kingsway at the west CFB Cold Lake limits to ...

bridge. The archeological site was designated a provincial historic resource in 1976. Saturday, 14 January 2017

References

*Elizabeth Browne Losey, ''Let Them Be Remembered: The Story of the Fur Trade Forts'', 1999, page 416-420
''Parks Canada - Paint Creek House''
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