The Beaver Hills Country: A History of Land and Life

Abstract

Representations of these gentle hills have appeared in European cartography since the mid-eighteenth century. On a map prepared in 1760 under the sponsorship of Moses Norton, Chief Factor for the Hudson's Bay Company at Churchill Fort, what is clearly the North Saskatchewan River is identified as the Beaver River. The map shows "Beaver Mount" from which there is a trail route described as "Ye track to Henday's tent." The chart was, Norton claimed, "Laid Down on Ind'n Inform'n" gathered no doubt with the assistance of Attickasish, "that trusty leader" who had conducted Anthony Henday in his Journey inland to the Earchithinues country in 1754-55. 2 The identification of "Beaver Mount" is probably an early intimation of the Rocky Mountains, the presumed source of the Saskatchewan River. On Norton's map, however, only the presence of a river flowing from this western quarter was known, for "ye river Kish-stock-ewen" is misconceived and appears on his chart as the river flowing east in to Baker Lake, far to the Aspen Parkland Belt, 1915 The Aspen Parkland in Western Canada, shown in mottled pattern, runs in a northwest direction from the Red River Valley of Manitoba, across Saskatchewan and into central Alberta where it then follows a line south along the edge of the foothills. Moses Norton's Draught of the Northern Parts of Hudson's Bay (1760) This Hudson's Bay Company map was compiled on the basis of reports from other traders and guides. Redrawn in this version by Richard Ruggles, it identifies, very imperfectly, some of the main features of Western Canada and the Rocky Mountain barrier in the vicinity of the source of the Saskatchewan River.Beaver Hills Country: A History of Land and Life scholar, Franz Boas, he saw to the collecting and safekeeping of a substantial amount of Cree artifacts drawn mainly from the Bear Hills area of the Battle River Valley, near Wetaskiwin. 9Some 35 years after Tyrrell's observations, Alex McCauley, the Mayor of Tofield, gave an address in which he recalled the hills in earlier times:The large lake at our door was called Beaverhills Lake and the country for over twenty miles west of this lake was called the Beaver Hills, owing to the large number of beaver being found here. Amisk Creek, a few miles east of Town was given its name for the same reason, "Amisk" being the Cree word for Isaac Cowie (1848-1917) This veteran Hudson's Bay Company trader had a literary bent and an interest in Native cultures. He made a collection of Cree artifacts and material culture items from central Alberta for the American anthropologist, Franz Boas. The materials are now in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. ChapTer oneThe Character of the Beaver Hills A s a place name, the Beaver Hills has a long history both in common parlance and through the mapmaker's art. Despite long standing popular use of the name Beaver Hills, a cooler and more scientific designation for them also exists: the Cooking Lake Moraine. In this designation the inherent glacial origin of the hills is acknowledged. The k...

Agronomic non‐native species are overrepresented across habitat types in central Canada

“…In Alberta, the Central Parkland is the traditional home of the Métis and several indigenous peoples, including the Assiniboine, Cree and Niitsitapi (Blackfoot people) and part of Treaty 6 territory (Kerr, 1975;MacDonald, 2009). Traditional land use in the Northern Great Plains includes burning, hunting and plant gathering practices.…”