Fort de l'Isle

Fort de l'Isle, on an island in the North Saskatchewan River in eastern Alberta, preserves the remains of three rival fur-trade posts occupied from 1799 until before 1808. Traders from the XY Company, Hudson’s Bay Company, and North West Company established posts here after moving from other bases upstream. The site is closely linked to a violent 1802 dispute in an Indigenous camp, when Joseph-Maurice Lamothe shot James King over contested furs. Because courts lacked clear authority in the West, the case exposed a legal gap and helped spur the Canada Jurisdiction Act of 1803. Though the forts were soon abandoned, the site remains a rare trace of early Saskatchewan River trade and rivalry.

Alberta · Canada