Fort Edmonton Park

Fort Edmonton Park 

Located on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River

The Fort - Fur Trading Era  1795 to 1870

Rowand House - A home within the fort built for the Chief Factor of the Hudson Bay Company's Saskatchewan District.  (Hence the term factory in later years).

A plaque on the Clerk's Quarters Building

One of the four towers at the corners of the enclosure

Clerk's Quarters

Entrance and an antique truck that we saw people driving :-)

Notice the grassy roof on what I think is the Ice House

The Watchtower

Clay Bake Oven

Wood Pile for fuelling everything!  Note pointed spikes on log fence to keep out the bears...guess that's the main reason they had to make it a fort because of the wild animals.

Brilliant three-holer outhouse :-)

It seems this might be the Horse Stable with some sheep in the foreground.

Off on our horse-drawn carriage ride....really two lovely and well-trained and behaved work horses...don't know their names, but they reminded me of our team from when I was a kid... [Peach and Jean]...and the carriage was really a wagon with benches...but we felt pretty special no matter how you look at it.

She was the gentlest of drivers with the softest voice and had those horses responding effortlessly to her requests.  She was phenomenal to watch!

Settlement Era 1871 to 1891

1885 Street 

Jasper House Hotel

McDougall's General Store

Secord Complex and Ross Brothers' Hardware

James McDonald's Carpentry Shop and Bellrose School

Municipal Era - 1892 - 1914

1905 Street

Anglican Church of St. Michael & All Angels

Rutherford House and Firkins House next door (supposedly haunted)

The Firkins House was built by a dentist from the U.S.A.  It was the first in the area to have stucco on the exterior.  The interpreter was telling us about who haunted the house.  A little girl had been pushed downstairs by the dentist's daughter for the second time.  She hit her head on a radiator....Once the tour was over the interpretor told us he had only made that story up for a laugh...It was kind of creepy at the time, though because it was just getting dusk and we were right across the street from "Tent City"...wish I had a picture, but it was a place where people were living for up to two years waiting for a decent home to be built.  The tents had to be built on a platform to avoid the damp and cold and stop a condition where a foot never dried out called Trenchfoot.

Original street lights.

One of the largest buildings on the street - the Masonic Hall.

Around the next corner was 1920 Street which was the Metropolitan Era from 1914 to 1929  (Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures here, because we became mesmerized watching a coyote playing around a big garbage bin!)

Fort Courtyard

Gunpowder Display

Family close by.

Kids playing.

Ear plugs?

The court yard soon filled with gunpowder smoke!

Lead pellets....buck shot?

Left a hole by the looks of it...

Next people got to practice building a fire by striking two flint rocks together and making sparks fly.

As you can imagine, this is only a sample of what is actually at the park.  If you would like to read more about this subject, go to the following link,

http://www.fortedmontonpark.ca

Later we were served a scrumptious meal in the Clerk's Quarters and bussed back to our hotel.  Thank you to our Alberta hosts for the wonderful experience!