Pine Island Fort and Manchester House were trading posts on Pine Island, a small narrow island 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 event ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in 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 the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

, Canada, from 1786 to 1793. Pine Island Fort was a post of the North West Company while Manchester House was a post of 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 di ...

. Pine Island is on a south-flowing part of the North Saskatchewan River, about 50 km east of

Lloydminster Lloydminster is a city in Canada which has the unusual geographic distinction of straddling the provincial border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. The city is incorporated by both provinces as a single city with a single municipal administrati ...

. It is just north of the mouth of Big Gully Creek and 18 km northeast of the town of

Maidstone Maidstone is the largest town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies 32 miles (51 km) east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, linking it wi ...

. The island is about 1.4 km long and 0.3 km wide. In 1786 five independent groups established themselves on the island. First was

Donald McKay Donald McKay (September 4, 1810 – September 20, 1880) was a Canadian-born American designer and builder of sailing ships, famed for his record-setting clippers. Early life He was born in Jordan Falls, Shelburne County, on Nova Scotia's ...

, an independent trader. He was followed by Peter Pangman of Gregory, McLeod and Co., Robert Longmoor representing

William Tomison William Tomison was a Scottish fur trader who helped found and build a number of trading posts for the Hudson Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur tradin ...

of the Hudson's Bay Company, William Holmes of the North West Company and an independent Frenchman named Champagne. In the next season Donald McKay joined the HBC; Gregory, McLeod joined the NWC; and Champagne left the area. This left the HBC's Manchester House at the upper end of the island and the NWC's Pine Island Fort at the lower end. Here in 1788 the HBC built the first

York boat The York boat was a type of inland boat used by the Hudson's Bay Company to carry furs and trade goods along inland waterways in Rupert's Land, the watershed stretching from Hudson Bay to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains. It was named af ...

used on the Saskatchewan. David Thompson broke his leg here in 1788. In 1792 Isaac Batt, a moderately well-known trader, went south with a group of Indians to hunt on the prairie and was murdered by them. In 1793 a large group of

Gros Ventres The Gros Ventre ( , ; meaning "big belly"), also known as the Aaniiih, A'aninin, Haaninin, Atsina, and White Clay, are a historically Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe located in north central Montana. Today the Gros Ventre people are ...

entered the NWC post pretending to trade. When it became apparent that they intended to plunder the fort, a bold clerk took arms and drove them off. (The Gros Ventres and Mandans, who were at war with the Cree and the

Plains In geography, a plain is a flat expanse of land that generally does not change much in elevation, and is primarily treeless. Plains occur as lowlands along valleys or at the base of mountains, as coastal plains, and as plateaus or uplands. In ...

tribes, thought that the traders were selling guns to the Cree.) In the same year Manchester House was plundered, and the traders escaped with only the clothes on their backs. In 1794

Duncan McGillivray Duncan McGillivray (April 9, 1808), born in Inverness-shire, Scotland, was an explorer and fur trader in the Western Canada. In the mid 1790s, he served as the North West Company's clerk at Fort George in what is now Alberta, and he later acco ...

of the NWC reported the houses in ruins. The island is not easily accessible, but in 1991 a memorial stone and plaque were erected on the river bank. As of September 2014, the plaque is still in place on top of high hill overlooking Pine Island. Morton mentions an unnamed NWC post occupied by

Edward Umfreville Edward Umfreville (c. 1755 – fl. 1771–1789) came to Canada in 1771 to work as a writer for the Hudson's Bay Company. He came to York Factory and almost immediately was transferred to Fort Severn. There, he and Andrew Graham designed a compreh ...

directly north of Maidstone and a house belonging to

a hundred yards away.

References

* Elizabeth Browne Losey, ''Let Them Be Remembered: The Story of the Fur Trade Forts'', 1999. * Arthur Morton, ''A History of the Canadian West to 1870–71'' (London: Thomas Nelson, 1939).

External links

Pine Island Trading Post Protected Area
at Canada's Historic Places
Photograph of the historical marker
{{coord, 53, 13, 19, N, 109, 3, 38, W, dim:2000_region:CA-SK, display=title Pedlars (fur trade) Hudson's Bay Company trading posts North West Company forts Forts in Saskatchewan North Saskatchewan River Islands of Saskatchewan

See also

References

External links