Fort Reliance is the site of a

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

fort located on the east arm of

Great Slave Lake Great Slave Lake is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada (after Great Bear Lake), List of lakes by depth, the deepest lake in North America at , and the List of lakes by area, tenth-largest lake in the world by area. It ...

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

, Canada.

History

Fort Reliance was originally built in 1833 by

George Back Admiral Sir George Back (6 November 1796 – 23 June 1878) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer of the Canadian Arctic, naturalist and artist. He was born in Stockport. Career As a boy, he went to sea as a volunteer in the frigate ...

during the Arctic Land Expedition to the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, ...

via the Back River. The expedition, partly scientific and partly searching for the missing John Ross, used Fort Reliance as a winter camp.Old Fort Reliance
Back's fort was made up of a main house with several smaller ones that were constructed from logs. The houses had stone and clay chimneys for heating. The outline of the logs along with the chimneys and some storage pits still exist. In 1855, the

Chief Factor A factor is a type of trader who receives and sells goods on commission, called factorage. A factor is a mercantile fiduciary transacting business that operates in their own name and does not disclose their principal. A factor differs from a co ...

James Anderson, for whom the Anderson River is named, rebuilt the fort. It was intended to be used as winter quarters while searching for the lost expedition of

John Franklin Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812, he led two expeditions into the Northern Canada, Canadia ...

, but it was again abandoned after one season. It was not a

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

outpost although the site was later used by

trappers Animal trapping, or simply trapping or ginning, is the use of a device to remotely catch and often kill an animal. Animals may be trapped for a variety of purposes, including for meat, fur/feathers, sport hunting, pest control, and wildlife man ...

in the

Thelon River The Thelon River (', "on the other side") stretches across northern Canada. Its source is Whitefish Lake in the Northwest Territories, and it flows east to Baker Lake in Nunavut. The Thelon ultimately drains into Hudson Bay at Chesterfield I ...

area. In 1897, a

log cabin A log cabin is a small log house, especially a minimally finished or less architecturally sophisticated structure. Log cabins have an ancient history in Europe, and in America are often associated with first-generation home building by settl ...

, using one of the chimneys, was built by an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

trapper, Buffalo Jones. Fort Reliance was designated a National Historic Site in 1953. It is described by

Parks Canada Parks Canada ()Parks Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program; the legal title is Parks Canada Agency (). is the agency of the Government of Canada which manages the country's 37 National Parks, three National Marine Co ...

as the "oldest continuously operating Hudson's Bay Company post, 1833". Together with the

Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre The Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre (PWNHC) (''Centre du patrimoine septentrional Prince-de-Galles'' in French) is the Government of the Northwest Territories' museum and archives. Located in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada, th ...

, Parks Canada is working to preserve and protect the site, which has resulted in the chimneys being rehabilitated. In 2010, the same property was designated “Old Fort Reliance Territorial Historic Site." The site lies within Thaidene Nene National Park Reserve. If that proposed national park is ever realized, Fort Reliance National Historic Site would also join the national park system as a separate unit.

Climate

Demographics

In the

2021 Census of Population The 2021 Canadian census was a detailed enumeration of the Canadian population with a reference date of May 11, 2021. It follows the 2016 Canadian census, which recorded a population of 35,151,728. The overall response rate was 98%, which is sli ...

conducted by

Statistics Canada Statistics Canada (StatCan; ), formed in 1971, is the agency of the Government of Canada commissioned with producing statistics to help better understand Canada, its population, resources, economy, society, and culture. It is headquartered in ...

, Reliance had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, no change from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.

References

External links

Narrative of the Arctic land expedition to the mouth of the Great Fish River, and along the shores of the Arctic Ocean in the years 1833, 1834, and 1835
complete text of the book by George Back at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

. {{Coord, 62, 42, 45, N, 109, 09, 53, W, display=title, type:city_scale:10000_region:CA-NT_source:GNS-enwiki, name=Fort Reliance, Northwest Territories Forts in the Northwest Territories Heritage sites in the Northwest Territories Hudson's Bay Company forts Ghost towns in the Northwest Territories National Historic Sites in the Northwest Territories 1833 establishments in Canada