Key Number:	HS 28388
Site Name:	Pierre Gray's Original Trading Post Site
Other Names:
Site Type:	0417 - Mercantile/Commercial: Fur Trading Post

Location

ATS Legal Description:

			Twp	Rge	Mer
			57	4	6

Address:	21 miles E of Grande Cache
Number:	N/A
Street:	N/A
Avenue:	N/A
Other:
Town:
Near Town:	Grande Cache

Media

Type	Number	Date	View	Source

Architectural

Style:
Plan Shape:	Square
Storeys:	Storeys: 1
Foundation:	Basement/Foundation Wall Material: Wood
Superstructure:	Horizontal Log
Superstructure Cover:
Roof Structure:
Roof Cover:
Exterior Codes:
Exterior:	Contains a grave site with burial shelter. Type of construction: log chinked with white clay.
Interior:	N/A
Environment:	Located in Pierre Grey Provincial Park, Overlooking Pierre Grey's Lake # 3. Pierre Grey's Lakes Recreation Area (Alberta Forest Services), on the shore of Pierre Grey's Lake No 3, twenty miles east of the town of Grande Cache, beside Highway 40. Area - 40.00 acres / 16.188 hectres / 161,694 square metres.
Condition:	Two of the three log buildings are partially standing (6-8 logs high) but have deteriorated. The third consists of foundation and bottom logs only which are also decaying. The grave shelter and wooden cross are crumbling.
Alterations:	Barricades set around each building.

Historical

Construction:	Construction Date:
Construction Started Operated	1880/01/01 1890/01/01
Usage:	Usage Date:
Trading Post Trading Post Recreation area	1880/01/01 1890/01/01 1975/01/04
Owner:	Owner Date:
Pierre Gray's Trading Post Alberta Forest Service	1975/01/04

Architect:	N/A
Builder:	Pierre Gray
Craftsman:	N/A
History:	Pierre (also called Peter) Grey operated a fur trade post as a free trader in the 1870's. This is supported by an old photograph with the caption "Pierre Grey - ran small store at the Pierre Grey Lakes. Forestry has a campsite development there now. "May have been same person to operate posts on Chipewyan Lake and Lake Isle. Mentioned in Edmonton Bulletin. * * Peter Gray ran a trading post west end of Lake Isle, and an unofficial stopping house. The Grays were the first settlers in the area. * * There is a single grave site, however, occupant is unknown. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: One of the few heritage resources in a wilderness area that has only recently been opened up. The log building remains signifying the hunting/trapping economy of a region exploited largely by a migrant Indian group, the Iroquois from the 19th century mission villages of Quebec, who intermarried with local native groups during the final years of fur trade competition, (1800-1820). As a probable fur trade post operated in the 1890s by Pierre Grey, an Iroquois descendent, it has much regional significance in terms of free traders versus the Hudson's Bay Company, distinctive Iroquois trade practices, economic, religious and kinship ties with such centers as Lac Ste. Anne and Edmonton, and the transitional status of a particular trapper/trader melding tradition with modernity. ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: The structural remains suggest no outstanding merit in log construction technique. Corners are saddle notched and the buildings are small (c. 12 x 15 feet). Door openings are unusually low (c. 4 feet high). These features may constitute a regional style. Further research, including archaeological investigation is required since the roofs in all cases have collapsed under their sod loads. * * * PIERRE GREY POST The Pierre Grey site, consisting of structural remains of three log building and related depressions, and a nearby grave, is located at the northwest tip of Pierre Grey Lake No.3, twenty miles east of the town of Grande Cache (LSD 12, 7-57-4-W6). The site falls within the Alberta Forest Service's Pierre Grey Lakes Recreation Area. Recent trail improvements adjacent to the site could produce increased visitor impact. The four structural components are currently protected by only single-rail fencing, and the Forest Service has no authority to enforce respect for the site. Historical Development Early in the 19th century the eastern slopes of the Rockies between the Athabasca River (Jasper House) and the Peace River (Fort Dunvegan) became the chosen hunting and trapping territory of a number of Iroquois from mission villages of central Canada. Having come west as engaged voyagers or as free hunters for the Canadian fur companies, and later as servants for the Hudson's Bay Company, they quickly earned a reputation as highly efficient and even ruthless trappers. The relative few who remained in the west as freemen married local native women, usually Cree, and founded the Iroquois families that persist in the native population of Alberta today. Members of the Joachim, Karaconte, Calliou and Waniyande families, for example, all descend from men who came west from Iroquois villages in Quebec during the first two decades of the 19th century. By 1821, when the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company amalgamated, the largest concentration of Iroquois freeman and their families was in the Smoky River / Jasper area. These people traded their hunts at Jasper House, or Dunvegan, and during the early 1820s, at a post on the upper Smoky River outfitted by the Hudson's Bay Company from Lesser Slave Lake. Later, with the establishment of Hudson's Bay Company posts at Kamloops (c. 1842) and Lac Ste Anne (1861), the eastern slopes Iroquois took their trade to those posts, or to Fort Edmonton, wherever they could get the best return. With the establishment of the Lac Ste Anne mission in 1842, many Iroquois descendants had renewed their Catholic affiliations by settling near the mission, or by visiting it on a regular basis. Thus, numerous kinship bonds came to link the Iroquois descendants of the eastern slopes with those of Lac Ste Anne. Pierre Grey was born at Lac Ste Anne in 1846 to an Iroquois mother (née Calliou) and a Metis father who had been born in the Jasper area in 1809. Pierre Grey became a successful trapper who later utilized his kinship ties to become a trader both at Lac Ste Anne and on the eastern slopes. ... He was married to Marie Delorme in 1868 by Father Christophe Tissier, Oblate missionary at Dunvegan, and later that year their daughter was born near the McLeod River. Tissier said two masses (at Dunvegan?) for Pierre Grey in 1869, and said another in 1875 for the 'f - de Pierre Grey.' In 1874 Pierre Grey was listed in the Hudson's Bay Company Account Book for Lesser Slave Lake. ... During the 1880s and '90s several independent Edmonton traders tried their hand in the Jasper / Smoky River region, including McDougall, Sinclair, Noyes, Swift, Taylor Aden Blackwood. Pierre Grey apparently outlasted them all, in part because of the kinship ties he and his wife shared in the area. In spite of the difficulty and expense of hauling trade goods into a remote area with pack horses over almost 250 miles of difficult terrain, Grey was able to turn a profit by utilizing both the Lac Ste Anne and Edmonton fur markets and supply houses. In 1887 and 1895 his fur sales totalled $3000. In 1896 the Greys moved their home from Lac Ste Anne to Island Lake a few miles to the southwest. After the turn of the century they appear to have stayed close to home, trading with local and visiting hunters, and occasionally attracting the attention of the NWMP with their illegal whiskey trading. Both died in the influenza epidemic of 1918 and are buried in the Lac Ste Anne cemetery. ... * * * Draft Release Mary J. LeMessurier, Minister of Culture announced today that the remains of the Pierre Grey trading post have been designated a Registered Historic Resource. This site, located twenty-one miles east of Grande Cache, is closely associated with the history of the fur trade in the Jasper-Grande Cache area of west central Alberta. Born at Lac Ste. Anne in 1846, Pierre Grey was the descendant of Iroquois who had come west in the early 19th century as voyagers or as free hunters for the Canadian fur companies and later as servants for the Hudson's Bay Company. With the establishment of Hudson's Bay Company posts at Kamloops (Ca. 1842) and Lac Ste. Anne (1861), the eastern slopes Iroquois took their trade to those posts or to Fort Edmonton, wherever they could get the best return. The establishment of the Lac Ste. Anne mission in 1842 was further incentive for them to settle in this area. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s Pierre Grey operated as a free trader from his base at Lac Ste. Anne, bringing furs to Lac Ste. Anne or Edmonton from Jasper House, Smoky River and Whitemud Lake. The Pierre Grey Lake site was one of his wintering posts. His kinship ties in the area contributed to a good business. None of the Hudson's Bay Company or other free traders, such as McDougall, Sinclair, Noyes, Swift, Taylor and Blackwood, were as successful. After the turn of the century he and his wife stayed close to home, trading with local and visiting hunters. Both died in the influenza epidemic of 1918 and are buried in the Lac Ste. Anne cemetery. This site is therefore associated with a significant representative of the fur trade during the latter part of the nineteenth century as well as with the eastern Canadian Iroquois who played an important role in the western fur trade throughout the century.

Internal

Designation Status:	Designation Date:

Register:	N/A

Links

Internet:
Alberta Register of Historic Places: