The Calgary and Edmonton Trail was a land transport route between Fort Edmonton and Fort Calgary in the Northwest Territories.
Prior to European contact, there was already a route through the area that local Indigenous peoples used to travel between the Shortgrass Prairies in the south to the Aspen Parkland in the north. This was reportedly a link in the Great North Trail (AKA Old North Trail) that stretched from Mexico to the Barren Lands, a western equivalent to the Great Trail along the eastern seaboard.
After the fur trade post Fort Edmonton was established near the site of today's City of Edmonton, local Native trails became part of the massive fur-trading transportation network that European companies used to export furs from the interior to the coasts and on to Europe. David Thompson traveled the northern portion of trail to Fort Edmonton in 1800. John McDougall blazed a more modern trail running south of Edmonton as far as Morley in 1873. It was extended to Calgary two years later. Development of the trail allowed mail service between Calgary and Edmonton in July 1883.
Name and namesakes
Alberta Highway 2 is now the main route between Edmonton and Calgary. Most of it bears the name "Queen Elizabeth II Highway", but some sections are named in honour of the old trail, as are other roads running along the same axis.
Heading south from Edmonton, the trail was called "Calgary Trail". Calgary Trail now refers to the southbound portion of Highway 2 within the boundaries of the city of Edmonton.
Heading north from Calgary, the trail bore the name "Edmonton Trail". That name now refers to a north–south feeder road in Calgary approximately 1 km west of the current Highway 2 and approximately 0.25 km east of Centre Street North. A segment of the old trail through the city of Airdrie is also called Edmonton Trail.
See also
References
- Cushman. Great North Trail. p. 317.
- Placenames of Alberta. "The naming along the Calgary - Edmonton Trail". Retrieved 2009-12-24.
- Ward, Tom (1975). Cowtown : an album of early Calgary. Calgary: City of Calgary Electric System, McClelland and Stewart West. p. 222. ISBN 0-7712-1012-4.
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