Tidbits of Alberta
 

I am starting this thread with the intent of regularly adding little historical and interesting forgotten tidbits about Alberta. I hope the thread entertains and also hope it intrigues others to share and learn more about Alberta's interesting history.

If anyone would like to add a tidbit or two please share them with us. I am sure there are many interesting footnotes of our past waiting to be revealed.

Hope you enjoy.......

I'll start with some tidbits on hunting in Alberta 102 years ago.


Alberta 1914 game laws-
1 deer, 1 moose, 1 caribou, 2 sheep, 2 goats per season per hunter.
10 grouse,partridge,ptarmigan, prairie chickens per day. 100 per season.
5 hungarian partridge per day, 25 per season.

A hunting licence was 2.50 and was only required for the southern half of the province. You didn't need a licence in northern Alberta.
(*North of the 54 latitude was northern Alberta. 54 is north of hwy 16 a few miles and sort of runs parallel to hwy.16.)

A resident could also buy a 10 dollar game dealers licence to be able to sell the meat of big game and birds.

A 5 dollar licence was required if you planned to sell your elk, moose, caribou or sheep heads and they had to be stamped by the minister of agriculture. Deer, goats and antelope were 2 dollars.

From 1906 to 1913

There was no open season on buffalo, or the females of elk, moose, deer, antelope, sheep or the young of all big game.

The first guiding licences in Alberta were issued in 1924.

Pigeon lake.

1914 - the law was that anyone net fishing at pigeon lake had to live within 2 miles of the lake.

1939 a new strain of whitefish was stocked in the lake that grew to bigger sizes. To 4 lbs. Prior to that the whitefish were smaller to 2 lbs.

-As late as 1948 oldtimers still got their water from the lake to drink. They claimed it made the best coffee.

In the early 1890's one pigeon lake resident oldtimer recalled he could go out hunting from his front step and in three hours come home with a moose or bear.

1913- game wardens were given the authority to search without warrants under certain circumstances.

The Edmonton Calgary trail was named in 1872. From 1883 to about 1893 the stage coach ran.

The stage coach ride from Fort Edmonton To Fort Calgary took a few days and cost 25 dollars each way. (a man's wages then were 2 dollars a day)

The last paddlewheeler on the North Saskatchewan river was destroyed in 1915. It's hull can still be seen stuck in the river bottom just upstream of the low level bridge in Edmonton on the south side of the river.

How the mysterious name came to be...Wizard Lake.

Wizard lake was called 'Mitewew saka hikan' by first Nations in the area (Samson Cree. )

'Midewew' means Sorcerer or Wizard. 'Saka hikan' means lake. *As far as I can tell.

It was the location for a Mitewewan. A shaking tent ceremony by a medicine man or Shaman of the second level of adeptness of the Mitewewin society, held a really long time ago. (maybe as much as 200 years ago)

Their was another FN reference to 'Miteoo' for Wizard lake that translated to english meant vomiting. And in an obscure past footnote Wizard was known to early explorers as Vomiting lake.

When I was a kid the lake was called Conjuring lake more than Wizard lake. Some of the local settlers right around 1900 were superstitious and did not like the name 'Conjuring' so 'Wizard' was adapted. The creek running out of the lake to the river is still called conjuring creek.

In the mid 1800's Hudsons Bay men would go to the mouth of the Sturgeon river by Ft. Sask and they mostly caught big mountain trout, we know as bull trout, which averaged 8 to 12 lbs. And they caught several in a day.

When David Thompson was at Lac St. Anne the old woman that served him 5 large whitefish was upset that he only ate 3. David weighed one particular whitefish the HB men had caught in a net at Lac St. Anne. It weighed 18 lbs.

The local real old timers always said that the Alberta frontier died the day the first bridges were made. And the wilderness was lost to the plow.

Awsome Thread RB.

Grey Lynx (bip) also had posted some neat historical stuff about the area north of ft sask long the North Sask river.

This is super interesting stuff Red Bullets. Please keep it going, very neat to read and know.

The pinniated grouse was in Alberta by the thousands until settlers hunting and breaking ground made them extinct by the 1950's.

Back about 220 years ago and before then....

The coulee just east of Nisku, where Saunders lake is, further to the south is Ord lake, then further south is Coal lake , then is Dried meat lake.
All in the same coulee valley. The interesting thing was back then the valley was one long lake called Archithinue lake by very early explorers. Archithinue was in reference to the Cree indians in the area. David Thompson knew the lake as Archithinue lake.

What was noted that water came out of both ends of the lake but both flows eventually connect to the north saskatchewan river.

The north end of the valley is where what is now known as blackmud creek flows north and merges with whitemud creek, eventually entering the river in Edmonton.

The south end of Archithinue lake eventually flowed into the Battle river which eventually flows in to the north sakatchewan river in Saskatchewan.

The water was coming out both ends of the 'long' lake and eventually flowing to the same place is interesting.

Another interesting thing was if a person follows Alberta's coulee system it has been said by old time plainsmen that you could follow the Archithinue coulee south and following connecting coulees a person could ride all the way to the head waters of the Missouri river stateside which flows into the Mississippi river.

A funny footnote...

John Rowand, who was a very influential chief factor at fort Edmonton in the early to mid 1800's had a motto.

"So you're sick heh? If you're not dead in three days get back to work!!!"

Just south of Wabamun lake on the North Saskatchewan river is a natural area called Burtonsville. There for all people to enjoy.

Back in the mid 1800's it was called Goose Encampment. This is where many Metis and HB men went to hunt geese in the fall. It was a very important annual hunting camp.

http://www.rcmpveteransvancouver.com...ryan-reg-2152/

A great read about Ted Bryan, the APP, and the Cardiff mine strike (where they planned to assassinate him when he served as the commissioner of the APP

Some of the info I post may have been mentioned on other threads before but I think I will include some on this thread.

Between 1896 and 1897 there were 4 gold dredges on the north saskatchewan river between Fort Saskatchewan and Big Island by Devon. And about 30 other full time gold sluicers. The gold take reported for those two seasons was 7500 ounces or 514 pounds. There was probably some gold that wasn't accounted for.

sidenote: John Walter ran a very prosperous lumber mill, coal mine, boat building venture and ferry operation where the Kinsmen field house now is in Edmonton. He moved there in 1875. His house is now a historical tour, free, on weekends.

Anyways, John Walter's wife only dealt in gold dust. She always paid with gold dust for whatever she needed. So she was attaining gold dust from free miners or she was running a sluice long before the dredges of the late 1890's.

Spirit quests spots along the base of Thunder Mountain
 

Fantastic thread!

After reading one of the Blackfoot creation stories of Na'api
(Apologies if I misspelled) I set out to explore the base of Thunder Mountain.

The story tells that the creator 'the Old Man' transformed himself into a lodge pole pine and rooted himself along the steep banks of the river so he could use the river as his eyes to survey the entire domaine he created. The Gap area supposedly has significant importance to some native groups.
When you pass through The Gap, you can't help but feel that there's something about that area.....

After I scaled the scree slopes to get to the mountain base proper, I found several small cave like structures carved into the Rock.
Aparently these may still be old spirit quest places that the natives used.

Very neat to see.

Oldest town in Alberta, Fort Vermilion, 200 year aniversery was in 1988, still remember the day, Brian Mulroney came to visit the town. It was a big event for the small town. Lots of fur trade history here.

Thank you very much for posting. Ted Bryan lived an amazing life. He saw Alberta before it was Alberta. Before fences and real roads. Ted was the stuff John Wayne wished he could be.

I'm amazed he was a Texas Ranger and didn't become a Rocky Mountain Ranger that rode and patrolled along our foothills from the US border to Cochrane area and beyond in the late 1880's.

(* When I was a kid I found a Rocky Mountain Ranger badge on the west end of Wizard lake in an old fallen down log cabin in the bush. I didn't realize it's importance and sold it back then for 10 dollars to an antique collector.)

Awesome thread and posts Red Bullets!

Great to read this.

Next time I'm riding-by I'll have to look for this. Is this in between the Low Level and James MacDonald bridge or upstream of both? Is it is easy to spot?

As was, I imagine, the first angry complaint of guides getting too large an allotment of licenses. ;)

Interesting stuff. Keep it up.

Grey Lynx was around for a lot of this stuff i think. he's gone from AO now. I sure miss him.:)

Good thread Red!!

Very interesting. I do believe there are places in Alberta that have very powerful feelings attached to them.


There is a place on the west side of Kananaskis lake, high up on the slopes where there are very old petroglyphs on a cliff face, that are too high too reach by a person. Supposedly a very deep presence there.

If the badge was one of these, then you probably got a good price. Not the same group.

Thread of the year potential?
Keep it up RB