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History
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Edmonton's site attracted aboriginal peoples for thousands of years before the arrival of white settlers, thanks to the abundance of local
quartzite
, used to make sharp-edged stone weapons and tools.
Fur traders
arrived in the eighteenth century, attracted by river and forest habitats that provided some of Canada's richest fur-producing territory. Better still, the area lay at the meeting point of the territory patrolled by the Blackfoot to the south and the Cree, Dene and Assiniboine to the north. Normally these aboriginal peoples would have been implacable enemies, but around Edmonton's future site they were able to coexist when trading with intermediaries like the North West Company, which built built Fort Augustus on Edmonton's present site in 1795. The fort was joined later the same year by
Fort Edmonton
, a redoubtable log stockade built by William Tomison for the Hudson's Bay Company (and named in fine sycophantic fashion after an estate owned by Sir James Winter Lake, the Hudson's Bay Company's deputy governor).
Though the area soon became a major trading district,
settlers
arrived in force only after 1870, when the HBC sold its governing right to the Dominion of Canada. The decline of the fur trade in around 1880 made little impact, as the settlement continued to operate as a staging point for travellers heading north. Worldwide demand for grain also attracted settlers to the region, now able to produce crops despite the poor climate thanks to advances in agricultural technology. Crucially, though, the first trans-Canada railway was pushed through Calgary at Edmonton's expense, and when a spur was built by the Edmonton Railway Company in 1891 it finished south of the town at Strathcona, where a new settlement developed. The city only became firmly established with the Yukon gold rush of 1897, and only then through a scam of tragic duplicity. Prompted by the city's outfitters, newspapers lured prospectors with the promise of an "All Canadian Route" to the gold fields that avoided Alaska and the dreaded Chilkoot Trail
. In the event, this turned out to be a largely phantom trail across 3000km of intense wilderness. Hundreds of men perished as they pushed north; many of those who survived, or who never set off, ended up settling in Edmonton. World War II saw the city's role reinforced by its strategic position relative to Alaska, while its postwar growth was guaranteed by the
Leduc oil strike
in 1947. By 1956 some 3000 wells were in production within 100km of the city. If Edmonton has achieved any fame since, it has been in the field of
sports
, as the home of Wayne Gretzky, the greatest player in ice-hockey history. Oil money continues to bankroll all sorts of civic improvements, though never quite manages to disguise the city's rather rough-and-ready pioneer roots. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Canada,
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