The Carlton Trail was the primary land transportation route connecting the various parts of the Canadian Northwest for most of the 19th Century. Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page It stretched from the Red River Colony up to what is today Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan via Fort Ellice. The Red River Colony (or Selkirk Settlement) was a colonization project set up by Thomas Douglas 5th Earl of Selkirk in 1811 on 300000 km² of land granted Fort Qu'Appelle is a town located in the Qu'Appelle Valley in southern Saskatchewan, Canada Fort Ellice, a Hudson's Bay Company post was built near the junction of the Assiniboine and Qu'Appelle rivers in 1831 From here the trail ran north and crossed the South Saskatchewan River near Batoche, Saskatchewan until it reached Fort Carlton on the North Saskatchewan River. The South Saskatchewan River (French rivière Saskatchewan Sud) is a major river in Canada that flows through the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan Batoche Saskatchewan was the site of the historic Battle of Batoche during the Northwest Rebellion of 1885 Fort Carlton was a Hudson's Bay Company fur trade post from 1810 until 1885. The North Saskatchewan River is a Glacier -fed River flowing east from the Canadian Rockies to central Saskatchewan. After this point the trail ran due west along the river to Fort Edmonton at what is now Edmonton, Alberta. Fort Edmonton (also named Edmonton House was the name of a series of trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company from 1795 to 1891 all of which were located in central Edmonton (ˈɛdmɨntɨn is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta. The distance in total the trail travelled between Fort Garry (Winnipeg) to Upper Fort des Prairies (Edmonton) was approximately 900 miles (1,500 kilometers). Many smaller trails jutted off from the main trail, such as the Fort a la Corne Trail in the Saskatchewan Valley. Fort de la Corne was built in 1753 by Louis de la Corne Chevalier de la Corne at the same time that the second Fort Paskoya was built The name of a geographic area in Saskatchewan, Canada encompassing generally a triangle from North Battleford, to Saskatoon, north to the Saskatchewan

Connecting the west, the trail was of great import during the 19th century as a highway for the inhabitants. Different sections of the trail were known by many different names in different eras, including The Company, Saskatchewan, Fort Ellice Trail, Winnipeg Trail, Edmonton Trail, and Victoria Trail. It is said that if one were to travel the Carlton Trail by Red River Cart it would take about two months.

The main mode of transport along the trail was by Red River Cart. The Red River ox cart was a large two-wheeled Cart made entirely of natural materials and typically was drawn by Oxen. It was an integral route for Metis freighters, and Hudson's Bay Company employees as well as the earliest white settlers. With the coming of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the late 1880s, and the numerous branch lines that followed the trail assumed less and less importance. The Canadian Pacific Railway ( By the early 1900s many portions were fenced off, although local sections of the trail remained in use as late as the 1930s.

See Also

• Transportation in Saskatchewan
• Red River Cart
• Red River Trails

External links

• Carlton Trail
• MHS Transactions: The Red River Cart and Trails: The Fur Trade
• Fort Garry-Fort Edmonton Trail Commemorated as National Historic Site
• A Line Through the Wilderness

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