Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
The real question that is on everyone's mind (but that you're all afraid to ask) is:
Could a determined whale make its way to Edmonton via the North Saskatchewan River?
Admit it!
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Obviously it's nothing like Montreal and there are no whales in the North Saskatchewan (though there are huge sturgeon). That doesn't mean the river wasn't, in the past, an important transportation link. From wikipedia:
"With the westward expansion of the fur trade spearheaded by the North West Company and followed by the Hudson's Bay Company, the river became an important transportation route for fur trade brigades' York boats, to which it was especially well suited as it follows an eastern trend toward Hudsons Bay, the entry point for the HBC into Canada. Many fur trade posts were constructed on the river, including Fort Edmonton (1795) and Rocky Mountain House, the uppermost post reached by canoe navigation. The river's importance continued after the amalgamation of the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company. The river was plied by a number of steamboats right up to WWI, although for everyday freight the growing web of railway lines in the western prairies eventually replaced them. The river was used commercially for many years - to carry flatboats of settlers goods and construction materials downstream from Edmonton, to float thousands of logs in the annual log drive downstream to Edmonton prior to WWI, as a source of ice blocks for home owners' iceboxes."
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