History
The section of the North Saskatchewan river that falls within the Banff National Park boundaries has been designated a Canadian Heritage River in 1989, for its importance in the development of western Canada.
The river bridges the plains–parkland divide for much of its course, acting as a natural boundary between Blackfoot and Cree First Nations people for thousands of years. With the westward expansion of the fur trade under the North West Company, the river became a natural transportation route for fur trade brigades. A number of fur trade posts were constructed on the river, including Fort Edmonton and Rocky Mountain House, the uppermost post reached by canoe navigation. After the amalgamation of the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, the North Saskatchewan was a main travel route for York boats. Finally, before the arrival of the railway in western Canada, the river was plied by a number of steamboats.
Read more about this topic: North Saskatchewan River
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The history of medicine is the history of the unusual.”
—Robert M. Fresco, and Jack Arnold. Prof. Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll)
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)