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History of Fort McMurray
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Aboriginal
Peoples
The Chipewyan and Beaver people are indigenous
to the Athabasca region and by the 1870s the Cree, Metis and
Euro-Canadians also made their homes here. In 1899 the Federal
Government proposed Treaty 8, an agreement where the Aboriginal
peoples relinquished their traditional trapping rights in
exchange for land reserves and $5 treaty money per status member
of the tribe. Both the Cree and Chipewyan tribes signed.
Arrival
of the Fur Traders
A fur trader by the name of Peter Pond is
credited as the first white man to travel through this region in
1778 in search of furs. Pond became one of the founding partners
of the Northwest Trading Company, which eventually merged with
the Hudson's Bay Company. Today you can find a shopping center
and a street in Fort McMurray that bear his name.
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| In 1870, Henry "John"
Moberly was dispatched by the Hudson's Bay Company to open a
trading post here. He named the post Fort McMurray after William
McMurray, the chief factor for the Hudson's Bay company in the
region. While the fur trade dwindled, Fort McMurray remained the
most significant transportation terminus to the Arctic. |
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Transportation
Before 1921 Fort McMurray was accessible only
by river, travelling on scows - uncomfortable, wide, flat-bottom
boats. The trip from Athabasca down river to Fort McMurray was
an adventurous and extremely dangerous one as scows and later
paddle steamers, had to traverse the Grand Rapids. River
transportation was the main route for goods and passengers into
the North until 1968, when the MacKenzie Highway and Great Slave
Railway became the preferred routing.
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| Rail reached Lynton in 1919 and
pushed through to "Old Waterways" (now called Draper)
in 1921, eventually moving the entire community of Waterways
further north to its present location in 1925. The rail service
between Lac La Biche and Waterways, appropriately nicknamed the
"Muskeg Flyer", was largely built across muskeg, a
dangerous surface subject to frequent derailments. Canadian
National Railway assumed control of the line in 1980, and by
1986, full passenger service on the 'Muskeg Flayer' ceased to
continue. Mixed passenger and freight service came to a halt
when Canadian National closed the line in 1989. |
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| The
history of Fort McMurray is a tribute to the rogues, fortune
hunters, idealists and adventurers who helped to open up the
Canadian North; a celebration of those rugged souls who carved
out a life for themselves in surroundings that were as
inhospitable as they were beautiful. For more information visit
the Historical Society website at: www.fortmcmurrayhistory.com |
| AT
A GLANCE |
| Location: |
435 Km northeast of
Edmonton on Highway 63 |
| Population: |
42,871 |
| Average
Temperature: |
January -19.8C
July +16.6C |
| Annual
Rainfall: |
33.5 cm |
| Annual
Snowfall: |
172.0 cm |
| Hours
of Sunshine/Year |
2108.9 |
| Elevation: |
370 m |
| Industries: |
Oil sands, natural
gas and pipeline sectors, forestry, tourism,
retail |
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