Explore Regina: the city through a tourism lens

It could be argued that the way we look at the prairie landscape in today’s world of motorized transportation has erased from our collective memory some of the perceptions early pioneers developed of the land they came to inhabit.

To recapture some of this lost heritage, Regina heritage tourism consultant Claude-Jean Harel asked his fellow members of the Regina Archaeological Society (RAS) to join him on a survey of the old Moose Jaw to Red Deer River Trail, near Besant Campground along Highway # 1, late this summer.

“I had spent a fair bit of time carrying out an inventory of archaeological resources in this part of the Missouri Coteau region, with the intent to develop authentic rural and agritourism products, but this trail held mysteries I felt my colleagues could help me solve,” Harel says.

The trail originally led to Chesterfield House, which was built in 1801 by the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Peter Fidler and located at the confluence of the Red Deer and the South Saskatchewan. Used by fur traders and Metis hunters, the trail was the main transportation route west of Moose Jaw until the arrival of the railway in 1882. It likely was the throughway used by the first ranchers in the Missouri Coteau as early as 1875, and played a role in the establishment of the area’s first farms later on.

Besant Campground has long been an oasis where children bathe and parents rest in the summer. Sandy Creek, a spring-fed stream, provides ever-precious water in this landscape dominated by sand and brush, and which is highly susceptible to erosion. A commemorative plaque attests to the historic significance of the trail where it crosses the campground.

Bill Long is an avocational archaeologist, who has been a member of the RAS since 1965.

“Originally, the trail would have been created by Metis coming west and hunting buffalo. After that, it would have been used by the traders, and then to haul freight across the land, in that order.”

Kit Krozser is a professional archaeologist, who has been a member of the RAS for 15 years.

“The cart ruts are apparently farther apart than modern car tires. When you are looking for a trail, you might want to look for that. Tracking the course of the trail provides a better idea of some of the terrain features pioneers would have had to overcome, like having to cross a creek. They would have been worried about getting the wheels stuck. Driving cross-country is different than having a nice paved road to drive on, with no garage to fix wagons if they broke down,” says Krozsier.

“The trails tell us about how rugged the people must have been, the hardships they had to face to get here in the first place, and how they got supplies from one place to another. It is good to be reminded of that every now and then.”

Dr. Chris Foley teaches archaeology the University of Saskatchewan. “Trails emphasize the need that all people have for communication and exchange among groups,” Foley says. “These trails are networks not only for exchange of commodities: they are also channels for the exchange of ideas and experiences. I think these trail networks are fundamental aspects of land use and community building. They are a part of what we are.

“This is not an easy land to move over, without the benefit of the Churchill River up north or even the North and South Saskatchewan Rivers, or the Souris,” Foley says. “When you move into this kind of terrain and have overland trails, you are dealing with a very different type of communication. Much more effort is involved.”

John Palliser also came to this conclusion when he ventured this way during his 1857-58 expedition. Tree ring analysis of past climates suggests Palliser came during the driest period of the last 300 years.

“The location of the trail in relation to the creek suggests a certain sophistication with respect to the knowledge of the land,” Foley notes. “We are inclined to tie scientific knowledge to formal education, controlled experiences and experimentation. Judging by just the part of the trail we walked over, these ancient travelers show an awareness of where you establish trails: not too far up slope to expose yourself, not too far down slope to risk being flooded by abundant rain where the creek or a river’s water rises, but close enough to it so you had water for your own use; water for your animals; water that would attract game that you could hunt and that would provide you with provisions for the duration of your travel.”

They were very knowledgeable about the land, knowledge accumulated and passed over hundreds and thousands of years from first peoples to settlers, and now to us.

As the fieldwalking activities unfolded in the heat over this rugged terrain, RAS surveyors and the few brave souls from the Saskatchewan Archaeological Society who had joined them for the occasion were reminded of what life must have been like for early settlers in the region.

RAS President Jack Trusty speaks for them. “We mapped the trail out for about a mile, a bit more. I think we have come to the place where they have probably crossed the creek, because we have come to the bullrushes. It is fascinating to explore and venture to establish where the wagons went. We just got a little taste of what it must have been like long ago. It was well worth it.”

For more information, contact:

Claude-Jean Harel
Great Excursions Co.
(306) 569-1571
www.greatexcursions.com