Calgary and Edmonton Trail

The Calgary and Edmonton Trail was a land transport route between Fort Edmonton and Fort Calgary in the Northwest Territories.

Prior to European contact, there was already a route through the area that local Indigenous peoples used to travel from the Shortgrass Prairies in the south to the Aspen Parkland in the north and back. After a fur trade post was established at Fort Edmonton, these trails became part of the massive fur-trading transportation network that European companies used to export furs from the interior to the coasts and on to Europe. The northern portion of trail to Fort Edmonton was traveled by David Thompson in 1800.^[1] The more modern trail was blazed by John McDougall in 1873 as far as Morley and extended to Calgary two years later. Development of the trail allowed mail service between Calgary and Edmonton in July 1883.^[2]