The Forks National Historic Site

     Extensive archaeological investigations prove that Aboriginal groups were active at The Forks site thousands of years ago. Between 1989 and 1994, a series of archaeological digs were carried out at The Forks that proved camps of Aboriginal bison hunters flourished here. Unearthed was a 6,000-year-old hearth, yielding catfish bones and stone tool flakes, as well as numerous later campsites. These recovered materials provided a rich record of Aboriginal occupations up to the time of the fur trade when Nakoda (Assiniboine), Cree and Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) and Dakota visited the site.

 

        HERITAGE VALUE

     The Forks was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1974 because strategically located at the juncture of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, this spot has witnessed many of the key events of western Canadian history. The heritage value of The Forks lies in the millennia of human activity to which its cultural landscape bears witness. Its heritage value is embodied in its geographical location, the evidence of past activity and the commemoration of past activity it contains, and its strategic impact on the surrounding development.

People have used The Forks as a meeting place, fishing camp, trading place and settlement for at least six thousand years. Both the Red and the Assiniboine rivers have historically been major transportation corridors in western Canada. Over time, the rivers have meandered and their courses have shifted. The site commemorated as “The Forks” has accommodated significant use during two historical periods – 7600 until 3000 years ago (5600 BC-1000 BC), and 1500 years ago to the present (500 AD -2000 AD). As the traditional transition area between the prairies and the woodlands, it has been a meeting and trading point for a wide range of First Nations cultural groups including Algonquin peoples from central and southern Manitoba, northwestern Ontario and Minnesota, and possibly parts of North Dakota.

During the 18th century, it provided an intermittent seasonal camp for Assiniboine, Ojibwa (Saulteaux), Cree and Dakota (Sioux) peoples. The first European settlement in western Canada (La Vérendrye’s Fort Rouge,1736-1740s) was also located nearby. In the 19th and 20th centuries it was a staging point for western expansion and settlement: the site of fur trade Fort Gibraltar I (1810-1816) and Fort Gibraltar II (1817-1821), Fort Garry I (1817-1852), a Hudson’s Bay reserve (1836- 1907) and the yards of a major railway (1888-1988). Selective archaeological investigations conducted at The Forks in 1984, 1987 and 1988 recovered 190,800 artifacts (both moveable and in-situ) including those representing pre-contact, fur trade and railway eras.