Edmonton

Boomtown. Perhaps no other term suits Edmonton so well. Although no stranger to hardship, over the course of 200-some years, the city has ridden high on the crest of several economic waves.


A community within walls: an unassuming name
In 1795, the Hudson’s Bay Company built a walled fort on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River. The company perceived the need for, and the value of, a trading post in the rugged prairie of central Alberta, a territory until then mainly inhabited by the Cree. The 20-foot-high walls offered protection from the conflicts that erupted between the Cree and their rivals, the Blackfoot, when they came to trade at the fort. In exchange for rich pelts of otter, muskrat, beaver, mink and fox, these native Canadians obtained European-manufactured goods such as metal cooking utensils, guns, and gunpowder, that would alter their lives dramatically.

Stories abound about how Fort Edmonton acquired its name. It was most likely named in honor of Sir James Winter Lake, the deputy governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company at the time. Lake hailed from Edmonton, in Middlesex, England. One can speculate that the original Edmonton was at one time Edmond’s Town—named, in the British tradition, after a townsman, in this case named Edmond.