Fort Edmonton was the name of a series of trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) from 1795 to 1914, all of which were located on the north banks of the North Saskatchewan River in what is now central Alberta, Canada. It was one of the last points on the Carlton Trail, the main overland route for Metis freighters between the Red River Colony and the points west and was an important stop on the York Factory Express route between London, via Hudson Bay, and Fort Vancouver in the Columbia District. It also was a connection to the Great Northland, as it was situated relatively close to the Athabasca River whose waters flow into the Mackenzie River and the Arctic Ocean. Located on the farthest north of the major rivers flowing to the Hudson Bay and the HBC's shipping posts there, Edmonton was for a time the southernmost of the HBC's forts.
Fort Edmonton, 1870.
This watercolor with a scale diagram of the Fort was drawn by Vavasour in 1846.
Artist Paul Kane's romanticized painting of the fifth fort (1849, from 1846 sketch), displaying Rowand's house rising high above the palisade.
A charcoal sketch of Fort Edmonton circa. 1867.
The North Saskatchewan River is a glacier-fed river that flows from the Canadian Rockies continental divide east to central Saskatchewan, where it joins with the South Saskatchewan River to make up the Saskatchewan River. Its water flows eventually into the Hudson Bay.
North Saskatchewan River near Abraham Lake
The North Saskatchewan in Edmonton circa 1913. Steamboats in the foreground, construction of the High Level Bridge in the background, and mid-river piers for future Walterdale Bridge between.
The North Saskatchewan River flowing past the West River's Edge park in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta
29 June 1915 cover of the Edmonton Daily Bulletin