The Beaver Hills Country - A History of Land and Life (Au Press) ppt

The Beaver hills CounTry 73851 lim1-10_cb 7/30/09 10:47 AM K 1 73851 lim1-10_cb 7/30/09 10:47 AM K 2 The Beaver hills CounTry A History of Land and Life Graham A. MacDonald 73851 lim1-10_cb 7/30/09 10:47 AM K 3 © 2009 Graham A. MacDonald Published by AU Press, Athabasca University 1200, 10011 – 109 Street Edmonton, AB T5J 3S8 Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication MacDonald, Graham A. (Graham Alexander), 1944– The Beaver Hills country: a history of land and life/Graham A. MacDonald. Includes index. Also available in electronic format (978-1-897425-38-1) ISBN 978-1-897425-37-4 1. Strathcona (Alta.: County) – History. 2. Strathcona (Alta.: County) – Biography. I. Title. FC3695.B43M33 2009 971.23'3 C2009-901824-1 Cover design by Valentino Gerard Book design by Infoscan Collette, Québec Back cover photo: LAC. C-030279 Front and back cover skies: Photos.com Printed and bound in Canada by Marquis Book Printing This publication is licensed under a Creative Commons License, see www.creativecommons.org. The text may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that credit is given to the original author. Please contact AU Press, Athabasca University at aupress@athabascau.ca for permission beyond the usage outlined in the Creative Commons license. This book was funded in part by the Alberta Historical Resources Foundation. 73851 lim1-10_cb 7/30/09 10:47 AM KCMY 4 ConTenTs Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Introduction On the Name “Beaver Hills”. . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter One The Character of the Beaver Hills . . . . . . . . 9 Chapter Two Ancient Ways Between Two Rivers . . . . . . . 23 Chapter Three Traders, Horses, and Bison, 1730–1870 . . . . 33 Chapter Four Visions of the Promised Land, 1870–1905. . . 59 Chapter Five Conservation, Communities and Egalitarianism, 1905–1930. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Chapter Six Hard Times and Good Times, 1930–1950. . . 137 Chapter Seven Postwar Urbanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 Image Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 73851 lim1-10_cb 7/30/09 10:47 AM K 5 73851 lim1-10_cb 7/30/09 10:47 AM K 6 aCknowledgmenTs T his book developed out of an earlier enquiry into the history of the bison conservation story at Elk Island National Park undertaken for Parks Canada. The broader natural, social and economic history of the Beaver Hills seemed to invite scrutiny. The post-1880 years are the richest in a documentary sense, but there is great time depth to the hills and an effort has been made to outline the shifting character of the hills since glacial times. I must first thank for unrecorded discussions and assistance the many colleagues who encouraged this line of enquiry. Thanks are also owing to many individuals who shared stories and to organizations which shared information and photography. To all those known and anonymous editors and contributors who laboured to produce the many large and profusely illustrated local histories pertaining to central Alberta, I owe a great debt. Special thanks to Don Wetherell and Don Purich for their reading of earlier versions of the manuscript. At AU Press, I am grateful to Walter Hildebrandt, Erna Dominey and Carol Woo for their encouragement and dis- ciplined interest in seeing the manuscript through to publication. 73851 lim1-10_cb 7/30/09 10:47 AM K 7 viii Beaver Hills Country: A History of Land and Life 73851 lim1-10_cb 7/30/09 10:47 AM KCYM 8 Introduction ix 73851 lim1-10_cb 7/30/09 10:47 AM KCYM 9 x Beaver Hills Country: A History of Land and Life 73851 lim1-10_cb 7/30/09 10:47 AM KCMY 10 [...]... against the Blackfoot Confederacy, appears, then, to be recent in origin.17 73851 00 1-2 54_cb 7/30/09 10:48 AM K 18 Y M C 18 Beaver Hills Country: A History of Land and Life Bison in Parkland, Elk Island National Park The interplay of grassland and aspen trees made the hills a good winter retreat for bison Fire, both natural and induced, was another factor that assisted the ancients of the parkland and plains... an area of resort amongst several of the major tribes, especially the Cree and Sarcee.4 For the Cree the hills were known as the a- misk-wa-chi, which captures the notion of a place rich in beaver Among the Stoney they were called the chaba hei To the Blackfoot they were the kaghghik-stak-etomo Beaver Hills Lake was called by the Blackfoot the “Kakghikstakiskway – the place where the beaver cut the. .. 1 Beaver Hills Country: A History of Land and Life Aerial view of the Beaver Hills, Elk Island National Park vicinity drove the bison into a pound, which operated rather like both a trap and a corral.8 At its far western limit the parkland belt curves through Edmonton and Wetaskiwin, then moves south along the foothills towards Calgary and on to the American border, the tree roots benefiting from the. .. qualities have made the uplands an important place of resort for many generations of Native peoples 73851 00 1-2 54_cb 7/30/09 10:48 AM K 2 Y M C  Beaver Hills Country: A History of Land and Life Aspen Parkland Belt, 1915 The Aspen Parkland in Western Canada, shown in mottled pattern, runs in a northwest direction from the Red River Valley of Manitoba, across Saskatchewan and into central Alberta... particularly in the Beaver Hills. 10 For this reason, the unique qualities of the hills have been described as follows: “Elk Island and the Beaver Hills are elevated above the Aspen Parkland that surrounds the hills and are considered to be “part of the Boreal Mixedwood Forest.”11 That is, the hills seem to partake somewhat more of the northern forest than southern plains The significance of this particular... veteran of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Isaac Cowie At the request of the eminent 73851 00 1-2 54_cb 7/30/09 10:48 AM K 6  Beaver Hills Country: A History of Land and Life scholar, Franz Boas, he saw to the collecting and safekeeping of a substantial amount of Cree artifacts drawn mainly from the Bear Hills area of the Battle River Valley, near Wetaskiwin.9 Some 35 years after Tyrrell’s observations, Alex... 10:48 AM K 12 1 Beaver Hills Country: A History of Land and Life Elk Island Golf Course At the golf course near Lake Astotin, players get a view of the nature of moraine topography In the nine millennia since, belts of primary vegetation slowly developed across western North America On a grand scale this involved the gradual configuration of boreal forest to the north and grasslands to the south These... Rockies and the great ice sheet which covered the plains and Canadian Shield, having advanced from the northeast At the glacial maximum, some 21,000 years ago, only the odd elevation on the prairies, such as the Cypress Hills, poked heads above the great 73851 00 1-2 54_cb 7/30/09 10:48 AM K 10 C Y 10 Beaver Hills Country: A History of Land and Life ice sheet Such unglaciated aspects, or “nunataks,” were... no hills had been before, there was now deposited a confused and jumbled base.2 Glacial Lake Edmonton As the ice of the last glaciation receded, large temporary lakes were formed at the edge, such as Glacial Lakes Peace and Edmonton The latter had an important influence on the final arrangement of soils and lakes in the Beaver Hills 73851 00 1-2 54_cb 7/30/09 10:48 AM K 11 Y M C The Character of the Beaver. .. Maple and Burr Oak appear in the eastern portions of the range south of the Qu’Appelle River A variety of other species are found, some associated with the Boreal Forest to the north and others with more southerly climes that favour deciduous growth Thus, in the Beaver Hills one can find the Paper Birch, White and Black Spruce and Tamarack This Aspen Parkland belt is one of the distinctive Canadian . AB T5J 3S8 Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication MacDonald, Graham A. (Graham Alexander), 1944– The Beaver Hills country: a history of. of land and life/ Graham A. MacDonald. Includes index. Also available in electronic format (97 8-1 -8 9742 5-3 8-1 ) ISBN 97 8-1 -8 9742 5-3 7-4 1. Strathcona (Alta.: