Fort Victoria, near present-day

Smoky Lake, Alberta Smoky Lake is a town in Central Alberta, Canada. It is located northeast of Edmonton at the junction of Highway 28 and Highway 855. It lies between the North Saskatchewan River, Smoky Creek, and White Earth Creek, in a mainly agricultural area ...

, was established by the

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 ...

1864 Events January * January 13 – American songwriter Stephen Foster ("Oh! Susanna", "Old Folks at Home") dies aged 37 in New York City, leaving a scrap of paper reading "Dear friends and gentle hearts". His parlor song "Beautiful Dream ...

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 ...

as a

trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory in European and colonial contexts, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically a trading post allows people from one geogr ...

with the local

Cree The Cree, or nehinaw (, ), are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people, numbering more than 350,000 in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada, First Nations. They live prim ...

First Nations. The site had previously been used starting in 1862 as a Methodist Missionary site, on the location of an aboriginal meeting place. It was named Victoria Settlement, after Queen Victoria. Today, it is a historical museum known as Victoria Settlement. The nearby rural residences make up Pakan, Alberta. Metis Crossing Cultural Heritage Gathering Centre is nearby.

Location and setting

Fort Victoria (Victoria Settlement) is located on the north bank of the

, 100 kilometres downstream from Edmonton House. It was located along Victoria Trail/

Carlton Trail The Carlton Trail was the primary land transportation route in the Canadian Northwest for most of the 19th century, connecting Fort Carlton to Edmonton along a line of intermediate places. It was part of a trail network that stretched from the ...

between Edmonton and Fort Pitt and served as a stopping house on the overland route between the two as well as a waystation for travellers moving up or down the river. The fur trading post at Victoria was minor compared to Edmonton but it gradually attracted a small agricultural settlement, as occurred near other Hudson's Bay Company posts in those pioneer days.

History

Established by colonists as a missionary site in 1862-63, Victoria was the home for the McDougall missionary family. This site was chosen because of its popularity as a Cree settlement lways 10 to 100 tents present - per Mcdougalland hunting area Land in the area was used according to the customary French riverlot system, and a mixed community of First Nations, Métis, and Europeans developed. For several miles on each side of the present-day museum the riverlot system is still in use, the official survey reflecting the fact that farms and land usage predated the Dominion Land Survey of the 1880s. (The DLS in most cases carved up large, square tracts as per ''

Dominion Lands Act The ''Dominion Lands Act'' () was an 1872 Canadian law that aimed to encourage the settlement of the Canadian Prairies and to help prevent the area being claimed by the United States. The Act was closely based on the U.S. '' Homestead Act of 186 ...

''). Fort Victoria was an example of a community that shifted from subsistence on wildlife—specifically bison—and trade in furs to agriculture (crops and livestock). In 1864

George Flett George Flett (10 February 1817 – 28 October 1897) was a Presbyterian missionary in what is now Manitoba, Canada. Flett was of Orkney and Cree descent. As a young man he farmed on the White Horse Plains, led a gold exploration party to Edmo ...

was given the job of opening a Hudson's Bay Company trading post at Fort Victoria. Flett was of Orkney and

descent. Flett and John Norris led the first brigade of Red River ox-carts from Winnipeg to Edmonton, taking three and a half months on the journey. They passed through Victoria Settlement As clerk in charge of the post until 1866, Flett was responsible for arranging for construction of the buildings and for opening up trade with the local Indians. Flett quickly obtained a supply of good-quality furs, which Flett and his assistants took by horse and dog train to

Fort Edmonton Fort Edmonton (also named Edmonton House) was the name of a series of Trading post, trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) from 1795 to 1914, all of which were located on the north banks of the North Saskatchewan River in what is now ce ...

for shipment downriver to Hudsons Bay. The oldest building in Alberta still on its original foundations is the clerk's quarters at Fort Victoria, which dates from

1865 Events January * January 4 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at 10-12 Broad near Wall Street, in New York City. * January 13 – American Civil War: Second Battle of Fort Fisher – Unio ...

.''Historical Walking and Driving Tours: Victoria Trail''. Alberta Community Development: Alberta Recreation and Parks, 2003. P. 13. Accessed 21 October 2021 at https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/119929f7-9429-418d-8b88-24acb1ffc9b9/resource/fdd4bdd7-4ec0-40d0-a39e-1730392e2c41/download/tour-kalyna-victoria-trail.pdf The fort closed in 1883 but was re-opened in 1887. It operated until 1897-98. Later the site of the Fort became a hub for the early settlement of East-

Central Alberta Central Alberta is a region located in the Canadian province of Alberta. Central Alberta is the most densely populated rural area in the province. Agriculture and energy are important to the area's economy. Geography Central Alberta is bordered ...

. It came to be called the Victoria Settlement and later, Pakan, after the Cree chief Pakannuk. Chief Pakan's name was sometimes given as "Peccan or Seenum". Still later, the settlement served as a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

mission to

Ukrainian Canadian Ukrainian Canadians are Canadian citizens of Ukrainian descent or Ukrainian-born people who immigrated to Canada. In the late 19th century, the first Ukrainian immigrants arrived in the east coast of Canada. They were primarily farmers and l ...

settlers in the region. The post was also a vital stop on the trail from Winnipeg to Edmonton. The section of the trail currently within the eastern part of the city of Edmonton is a now a paved road called Victoria Trail in honour of the fort and of this route's historic past as an indigenous trail and trade route. The Fort lies within the larger Victoria District, as well as the

Kalyna Country The Kalyna Country ecomuseum is a heritage and eco-tourism district in East Central Alberta, Canada, named after the highbush cranberry plant, pronounced (Ka-lyn-na) in the Ukrainian language. The Ukrainian folklore states: "Without Kalyna, ther ...

ecomuseum. It has been 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 ...

, a

provincial historic site of Alberta Provincial historic sites of Alberta are museums and historic sites run by the Government of Alberta. Only sites owned by the provincial government and run as a functioning historic site or museum are known as Provincial Historic Sites. Buil ...

, as well as municipally designated by

Smoky Lake County Smoky Lake County is a municipal district in north-eastern Alberta, Canada. Located in Census Division No. 12, its municipal office is located in the Town of Smoky Lake. Geography Communities and localities The following urban munici ...

Victoria Park Cemetery

The Victoria Park Cemetery was established circa 1896 by the Methodist church and is located on a hill overlooking the river. It is the second of six cemeteries established in the settlement. It contains approximately 100 recognizable graves from both Native and Settler communities, likely including victims of an 1870 smallpox epidemic. It was restored and rededicated in 1999.

Victoria District National Historic Site of Canada

Fort Victoria and the Victoria Park Cemetery is situated within the larger geographic space of the Victoria District, which itself is currently one of twenty-three national historic sites in Alberta; only three, including the Victoria District, are north of

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

. Of these sites, the Victoria District is the only rural national historic site in

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

Affiliations

The Museum at Fort Victoria is affiliated with: CMA,

CHIN The chin is the forward pointed part of the anterior mandible (List_of_human_anatomical_regions#Regions, mental region) below the lower lip. A fully developed human skull has a chin of between 0.7 cm and 1.1 cm. Evolution The presence of a we ...

, and

Virtual Museum of Canada Digital Museums Canada (DMC; , ''MNC'') is a funding program in Canada "dedicated to online projects by the museum and heritage community," helping organizations to build digital capacity. Administered by the Canadian Museum of History (CMH) wi ...

References

External links

* Alberta Culture and Community
Victoria Settlement
{{Authority control Victoria Settlement Christian missions in North America History of Methodism Hudson's Bay Company forts Cree Ukrainian Canadian religion 1865 establishments in the British Empire Residential buildings completed in 1865 Smoky Lake County Presbyterianism in Canada History of Presbyterianism Rupert's Land Cultural landscapes Victoria Park Cemetery