TAIL CREEK
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TAIL CREEK |
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NAME: Tail Creek COUNTY: N/A ROADS: 4WD GRID: 2 CLIMATE: Mild summer,cold winter BEST TIME TO VISIT: Summer |
COMMENTS:
Central Alberta REMAINS: The memorial.. |
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In its heyday, from about 1870 to 1878, Tail Creek had a population estimated
at between 1500 and 2000. Most of its residents were housed in some 400
log cabins with grass and dirt roofs. Tail Creek was the staging area
for half-breed hunters from as far north as Lac La Biche, from Lac Ste.Anne,
and from their settlements along the North Saskatchewan River. Tail Creek’s
reason for being was to provide food, hides for harnesses and saddles,
tents, clothing and moccasins for the hunters and their families, and
fresh and frozen meat and hides for the Hudson Bay Company’s post
at Fort Edmonton. When the source of all this—the buffalo—vanished
by the 1889s, the settlement was gradually abandoned. Prairie fires in
1898 wiped out all the cabins but one, which was taken to Stettler and
preserved as a memorial to a vanished phase of history. H.B. Chenoweth |
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