Fort Walsh National Historic Site

Trip Date: July 2018

If you haven't realized it by now I tend to enjoy exploring old frontier forts that are scattered across western Canada. I've had the pleasure of visiting Fort Whoop-Up in Lethbridge, Fort Normandeau near Red Deer, and Fort Calgary in its namesake city. I also had the privileged of visiting a North West Mounted Police Post in Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park and Last Mountain House near Regina. Fort Walsh has been on my bucket list for awhile now, but up until our recent trip to the Cypress Hills I hadn't been able to visit.

I felt like an old timey rum runner entering the province via this back road

After a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast Cooper and I hit the road, which turned out to be a bit of an adventure on its own. The drive is roughly 50km from Elkwater to Fort Walsh, but the Battle Creek Road gets progressively worse the further east you go. It took me about an hour to travel that distance, but I wasn't even remotely upset as those backwoods roads are definitely more fun than any highway. 

One of the landmarks along the drive is this memorial for Constable Marmaduke Grayburn. Although this is not the exact spot of his murder there was a NWMP outpost located here that was named Grayburn Detachment in his honour. The memorial plaque reads,

"Constable Marmaduke Grayburn NWMP, was shot and killed by unknown persons in the Cypress Hills Nov. 17, 1879. He was the first mounted policeman killed by violence since the force was organized in 1873. Star Child a Blood Indian was accused of the murder but was acquitted in 1881."

RIP Constable Grayburn

Another historic site along the road is this abandoned log cabin. Through the power of social media and some sleuthing online I was able to uncover some details about its history. According to the Canadian Nature Photographer and the Historic Reesor Ranch it's called the Symons Noble Cabin because it was lived in by Robert Symons in 1939 and then he sold it to Albert and Sylvia Noble just three years later and they built the addition. According to local historian Fay Beirebach the Coleman Family actually lived in the cabin prior to Symons moving in, but no-one is quite sure who built it. Symons was a writer, painter, game warden, and rancher living in the area. He often carried a pencil and scrap of paper to sketch the landscape. He published several books about the Cypress Hills area. The Nobles lived here for ten years while raising a family and working a nearby sawmill.

The Symons Noble Cabin

The entire Cypress Hills area is rich with history. Archaeological evidence confirms human habitation as far back as 8,500 years, which were entirely pre-contact First Nation groups. In the mid-1600's early European traders and explorers began to arrive in the region, bringing whiskey, firearms, and diseases, all of which wreaked havoc on the local First Nation people. The introduction of guns made hunting bison much easier and before long bison were being slaughtered for their pelts to trade for whiskey, instead of for food, shelter, and tools. Although whiskey trading had been outlawed in the United States (please see my post about Fort Whoop-Up for additional information) this practice was still prevalent in the highly lawless Canadian west. In the mid-to-late 1800's at least four major Metis camps with about 300 families had been erected in the Cypress Hills area. Like the plains First Nation, the Metis were nomadic people following the bison herds, but they also incorporated some European language and traditions into their distinct culture. In 1859 the Palliser Expedition passed through the region on their westward journey to document western Canada. Of the area Captain John Palliser wrote, "these hills are the perfect oasis in the desert we have travelled."

This sculpture is one of the first things you see after exiting the Visitor's Centre and Museum. The plaque reads, "In 1873 the Government of Sir John A. MacDonald created the North West Mounted Police to assert Canadian sovereignty and enforce Canadian Law in the newly acquired North-West Territories. Within a decade this had been done and the orderly settlement of the Canadian prairies begun. In the process the force achieved an international reputation for even-handed justice and devotion to duty."

The famous Parks Canada red chairs have a gorgeous view of the Cypress Hills and Fort Walsh below. Read more about the Red Chairs right here.

Cooper seemed to like the chairs!

Looking down at Fort Walsh from the surrounding hillside

This was the civilian cemetery from the town of Fort Walsh. A few of the graves have been identified and several are associated with the McKay family who operated a small trading post and farm near the fort.

In 1889 the Hudson's Bay Company transferred Rupert's Land to the Canadian Government, but it would still be a number of years before law and order could be brought to the western territory. In the early 1870's the entire region was a tinderbox. Ungoverned trading posts and whiskey forts, dispirited First Nation groups, and wolf hunters all contributed to this volatile scene. On June 1, 1873 everything came to a head when a trader discovered his horse had been stolen. He immediately, but falsely, accused a group of Nakoda that were camped nearby. After recruiting several wolf hunters from Montana who had been drinking heavily, they attacked the camp. By the end of the day some twenty Nakoda men, women, and children were dead and the Cypress Hills Massacre was born. As a direct result of this tragedy the newly formed North West Mounted Police (now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police) headed west to bring order to Canada's newest territory once and for all.

Peeking through he entrance to Fort Walsh

A panoramic shot from inside the walls of the fort

An inside look at the Armourer's Workshop

The workshop was also home to the big gun!

Looking inside the Non-Commissioned Officer's Barracks

Cooper was a lucky little guy to get to wear a NWMP hat

The NWMP force, with some 275 men, set out from Fort Dufferin in Manitoba in July 1874. They first established Fort Macleod by the end of the year and then Fort Walsh in 1875. Fort Walsh quickly became the largest and most heavily armed fort in the NWMP's possession. In a mere seven years the NWMP abolished the whiskey trade and brought law and order to western Canada.

Outside the fort's walls was a First Nations Camp

These are Metis Trade Cabins and they represent trading posts from the 1870's. These cabins are near the location where Metis settler, Edward McCay, established his post in the spring of 1872.

The items inside the cabins are typical goods a trader may have had available during the early 1870's

The man who established Fort Walsh, Major James Morrow Walsh, was a true leader who commanded respect for the NWMP. An informative sign inside the fort's museum reads, 

"Major James Morrow Walsh was a courageous leader. His superiors respected him, his men admired him, and the newspapers loved him. As Walsh rose in rank, his superiors were not always pleased with his sometimes impulsive decisions and unconventional methods. However, Walsh used his influence and reputation to enforce Canadian law and keep peace in the west. 

In 1877, Walsh's scout recognized stolen horses in the possession of White Dog, a Nakoda man visiting Tatanka Iyotanka's Lakota camp. Walsh instructed one of his sergeants to place White Dog under arrest. The Mounties seized the horses but chose to release White Dog when he argued the horses were found, not stolen. The situation escalated again when White Dog threatened Walsh. However, when challenged by Walsh, White Dog backed down. To those looking on it proved that the Canadian law and the NWMP should be respected and obeyed."

Cooper also got to try on a NWMP red coat and hold this replica gun

By 1880 the NWMP had over five hundred men scattered at forts hundreds of kilometres apart. They were responsible for an incredibly large piece of land. Fort Walsh's immediate jurisdiction included some 52,000 square-kilometres of present-day southwest Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta. Fort Walsh was the NWMP headquarters from 1878 to 1882 and was strategically placed close to the US border.

Inside the NWMP cemetery. Originally this was just for officers, but later civilians were allowed to be buried here as well. These seven graves that are chained off are of the earliest NWMP officers who passed away at Fort Walsh as a result of violence, accident, or illness.

Fort Walsh closed in 1883 after its importance decreased at the end of the Lakota Crisis. Fewer men were needed with a more secure border in place and Regina, which sat on the new transcontinental railroad line, became the capital of the North-West Territories and the new NWMP headquarters. Ranching became the main economic activity in the Cypress Hills region and two men, David Wood and Wellington Anderson, developed a ranch where Fort Walsh had been.

This stone marker is located within the NWMP cemetery and indicates the fort as a National Historic Site of Canada

The plaque on the above monument reads, 

"In 1875 a detachment of North-West Mounted Police under Superintendent J. M. Walsh built a post here which served from 1878 to 1882 as the headquarters of the force. The men stationed here played a key role in implementing Canada's Indian policy and in supervising the Sioux who had fled to Canada with Sitting Bull after the battle of the Little Big Horn. Following the return of the Sioux to the United States and the settlement of the Canadian Indians on reserves, the fort's importance declined and in 1883 it was abandoned. From 1943 to 1968 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police used the site as a remount station."

I had a great time exploring Fort Walsh and learning how this piece of Canadian history connects with other forts and outposts I have visited in the past. The staff were fantastic and they're all dressed in period costume, which adds a sense of realism and authenticity in picturing what life was like back in the 1870's. If you're ever in the area make sure you stop and discover this important piece of our heritage.