Alberta History: Difference between revisions

In 1871, just one year after accepting responsibility for Rupert’s Land from the Hudson Bay Company, the federal government put in place the pieces for its National Policy: the security of a national police force; a railway traversing the country from sea to sea, and settlement of the prairies. Two decades passed before the third plank in this policy was to have any effect on Alberta.  

In 1882, the prairies were divided into four districts: immediately west of the province of Manitoba were the Districts of Saskatchewan and Assiniboia dividing the southern two-thirds of present day Saskatchewan. The District of Alberta occupied the same part of the present day province. Covering the northern portion of both provinces was the District of Athabasca. The entire area made up the Northwest Territories with its administrative centre, or capital, in Regina. <br>  

In 1881 it is estimated that only about one thousand white men considered Alberta home. However, the land was ready for settlement. The Dominion Land Survey, begun in 1871 in Manitoba and continued west through Saskatchewan, was well underway in Alberta. As early as 1873, the special land grants provided to the Hudson Bay Company as part of their deal with the government of Canada, were surveyed around posts in Edmonton, Lac La Nonne, Victoria, Rocky Mountain House, Assiniboine and over half a dozen others, amounting to some 3,000 acres.  

Four years later, the 14th base line was surveyed near Edmonton and, in 1878, surveyors ran the points of the 4th meridian. By 1881 work was started, surveying the townships in and around the Edmonton and Fort Macleod areas.  

When the initial township survey was adopted by the government, the settlements of St. Boniface (Red River Settlement), Qu’Appelle and Prince Albert in Saskatchewan, and Fort Edmonton in Alberta; communities already settled in the French Canadian river lot style—narrow lots extending back one to two miles along one or both sides of a river, were designated to retain their River Lot surveys. Métis settlements at Batoche in Saskatchewan and St. Albert and Lamoureaux in Alberta were ignored. So, in 1885, when the dissatisfaction of the Saskatchewan Métis manifested itself in the Riel Rebellion, an army of soldiers was sent to deal with the rebels. Their victory solidified the prairies as the domain of the English-speaking white man.

The North West Mounted Police was firmly entrenched, maintaining her majesty’s law and order among Indian and whites alike. The Canadian Pacific Railway pushed past Calgary by 1883. An unfinished segment around Lake Superior was finished in 1885, thereby establishing the final link between Eastern Canada and the rich, fertile land to the west, some 75,000 square miles, which lay, marked with iron stakes, awaiting the settler’s plough.  

The exception was the most southern part of the District of Alberta where, in 1881, the government made crown lands available for grazing. Ranchers or cattle companies could lease up to 100,000 acres for one cent an acre and many Americans and British took advantage of the opportunity. These enterprises added another thousand people to Alberta’s population.<ref>Borgstede, Arlene. "Alberta - Finding Your Ancestors (National Institute)," ''National Institute for Genealogical Studies'' (2012), https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Alberta_-_Finding_Your_Ancestors_%28National_Institute%29.</ref>

About half of Alberta’s population is of British origin. Other nationalities include Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Scandinavian, Ukrainian, and Indian (18,000 American Indians reside on 90 reservations). Most migrations were from eastern Canada, Europe, and the United States in the early 1900s.

You will need some understanding of the historical events that affected your family and the records about them. Learning about wars, governments, laws, migrations, and religious trends may help you understand political boundaries, family movements, and settlement patterns. Records of these events, such as land and military documents, may mention your family.

*'''1792-1794 '''Peter Fidler explored and maps the Athabasca River and the north and south branches of the Saskatchewan River for the Hudson's Bay Company.  

For a list of published national, provincial, and local histories, go to FamilySearch.org. Click on FamilySearch Catalog. Do a "Place Search" for Alberta. Select from the list of titles to see descriptions of the records with the film or book call numbers. Use that information to obtain the records at a family history center or at the Family History Library.