Fort Espérance was a

North West Company The North West Company was a Fur trade in Canada, Canadian fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in the regions that later became Western Canada a ...

trading post near

Rocanville, Saskatchewan Rocanville is a town in Saskatchewan, Canada, and home to the largest oil can in the world. It is home of the Nutrien Rocanville mine. Rocanville is also home of the Symons Oiler factory which produced over 1 million oil cans during the Seco ...

from 1787 until 1819. It was moved three times and was called Fort John from 1814 to 1816. There was a competing

XY Company The XY Company, also known as the New North West Company, was a joint-stock fur trading enterprise based in Montreal that conducted business chiefly in the Canadian Northwest between 1798 and 1804.Qu'Appelle River The Qu'Appelle River is a river in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba that flows east from Lake Diefenbaker in south-western Saskatchewan to join the Assiniboine River in Manitoba, just s ...

about 20 km from that river's junction with the Assiniboine River and about 7 km west of the Manitoba border. It was on the prairie in buffalo country and was mainly used as a source of

pemmican Pemmican () (also pemican in older sources) is a mixture of tallow, dried meat, and sometimes dried berries. A calorie-rich food, it can be used as a key component in prepared meals or eaten raw. Historically, it was an important part of indigeno ...

which was sent down the river to Fort

Bas de la Rivière Bas may refer to: People * Bas (name), a given name and a surname * Bas (rapper) (born 1987) Chemistry * Boron arsenide (BAs), a chemical compound * Barium sulfide (BaS), a chemical compound Other uses * ''bas'' (French for "low"), as in ...

at the mouth of the Winnipeg River. *(1787–1810) In 1787 Robert Grant of the North West Company established Fort Esperance on the south bank of the Qu'Appelle about one half mile below the mouth of Big Cut Arm Creek. It was about 150 feet square and the site was subject to flooding. Relations with the plains Indians were poor. According to a hearsay report in the journal of

Alexander Henry the younger Alexander Henry 'The Younger' (c. 1765 – 22 May 1814), was an early Canadian fur trader, explorer and diarist. From 1799 until his premature death in 1814 he kept an extensive diary which is the most complete record ever printed of the daily ...

as of July 1810 it was destroyed and abandoned. *(1810–1814) A second fort was built on one of the Qu'Appelle lakes which operated for four years. During one of these years a brigade going downriver was ambushed and many of the men killed or wounded. *(1814–1816) In 1814 it was moved to the north bank of the river two miles west of Big Cut Arm Creek and was renamed Fort John. It was 100 yards away from a Hudson's Bay post (called Fort Qu'Appelle and not to be confused with

Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan Fort Qu'Appelle () is a town in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Saskatchewan located in the Qu'Appelle River valley north-east of Regina, Saskatchewan, Regina, between Echo Lake (Saskatchewan), Echo and Mission L ...

built in 1855) that had been established the previous year. Fort John was inside a well-built stockade of 200 by 160 feet was the NWC's headquarters for the Assiniboine region. In the autumn of 1815, when the HBC men arrived for the winter's trade they found that their post had been burnt by the NWC. A week later the NWC men arrived. They made threats against the HBC men, but chose to do nothing. The following spring, when the HBC men took their furs downriver, the NWC attacked, took the men prisoner and burned the fort. The NWC men joined Cuthbert Grant and continued downriver and captured Brandon House. This operation culminated in the

Battle of Seven Oaks The Battle of Seven Oaks—also known as the Seven Oaks Massacre and the Seven Oaks Incident—was a violent confrontation of the Pemmican War between the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and the North West Company (NWC) which occurred on 19 June 18 ...

in June 1816. The HBC responded by building a new post called Beaver Creek House on the Assiniboine River one and a half miles above the mouth of Beaver Creek. *(1816–1819) In the same year (1816) the NWC moved its fort to a hill on the south bank of the river 300 yards west of the original site. The post was closed in 1819 and in 1821 whatever was left was taken over by the HBC's Beaver Creek House. The Fort Esperance National Historic Site located nearby () was designated a

National Historic Site of Canada National Historic Sites of Canada () are places that have been designated by the federal Minister of the Environment on the advice of the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (HSMBC), as being of national historic significance. Parks C ...

in 1944. The XY post was a mile down river on the south bank. The location of the Qu'Appelle lake site is unknown. One source suggests Round Lake 35 km west.

References

*Elizabeth Browne Losey,"Let Them be Remembered:The Story of the Fur Trade Forts, 1999, pages 124–128 *Parks Canada (Fort Esperance

External links

Great Canadian Rivers

*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fort Esperance North West Company forts Esperance Hudson's Bay Company forts History of the Northwest Territories Parks in Saskatchewan National Historic Sites in Saskatchewan Rocanville No. 151, Saskatchewan Forts or trading posts on the National Historic Sites of Canada register Division No. 5, Saskatchewan 1787 establishments in North America 1819 disestablishments in North America