Fort Edmonton Park - Gun Show - Live Shooting
Channel: The Relaxing Channel
Date: 22/07/2023

Fort Edmonton Park is nestled on 158 acres of wooded parkland along Edmonton's River Valley and began as a Canada Centennial reconstruction project in 1967.

1846 Fort
A Fort Built on Fashion
In the early to mid 1800s, every respectable European gentleman sported a shiny felt top hat. These hats were not just the height of fashion, but were adorned as a status symbol. And fortunately for Edmonton, they were made from beaver pelts.

The demand for this material prompted the Hudson’s Bay Company to establish the Edmonton House, a trading post between for European goods to the local Indigenous peoples in exchange for valuable beaver pelts. By 1846, Fort Edmonton was the most significant trading post west of the Red River Settlement at Fort Garry. The population of Edmonton House varied according to the season, though approximately 110 men, women, and children typically took up residence.

1885 Street
A Place of Faith in the Future
In 1885, Edmonton was a hardscrabble place, dusty or muddy depending on the season, and in economic and social terms, quiet as the grave. And yet, there were signs that this wasn’t just any small town, and there was still a feeling that this place was destined to be the star of the new Canadian Northwest.

Despite being passed over by the Canadian Pacific Railway as a destination and suffering through economic hard times, the settlement had a lot going for it. It had three flourishing hotels, one of them the only brick building west of Winnipeg; a jewellery store, several blacksmiths, a drugstore as big as you would see in Montreal, and a hardware store with plaster walls.

In 1885, it didn’t hurt to be a bit of a dreamer and, so, people here dreamed big. The rest, as they say, is history.

1905 Street
Thrilling Ups and Downs
From 1891 to 1914, Edmonton grew from an isolated hamlet of a few hundred to a modern city of more than 72,000. What started as a backwater farm-town in the shadow of a Hudson’s Bay Fort suddenly became a bustling centre with paved streets, motorcars, electric lights, trains and streetcars. With the arrival of the Calgary and Edmonton Railway, people began pouring into Edmonton after 1900. Immigrants transformed Edmonton’s homey, placid skyline into a jumbled scrum of brick office blocks, homes large and small, solid churches, schools and factories.

In the face of such growth, there was great optimism and city boosters had visions of creating a Paris of the plains. Unfortunately, it all came crashing down in 1913 during the economic recession and the Great War in 1914.