BRESAYLOR — The Fort Pitt Trail came into existence in 1876 when Battleford was established as the capital of the North-West Territories along with the North West Mounted Police post. When the Bresaylor settlers arrived in 1882, they used this trail every time they travelled to Battleford and for freighting to Fort Pitt and on to Frog Lake and Onion Lake. Many of the Bresaylor settlers lived along the trail.
This summer from Aug. 8 to 18, the Fort Pitt Trail will come alive as the Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society walk it from Battleford to Fort Pitt. Every few years, the society does a historic trail walk with the last one being from Swift Current to Fort Battleford in 2017.
The group will arrive in Battleford on Aug. 8 and will tour old Battleford, the Land Titles Building, Government House site, the Indian Residential Industrial School site and Fort Battleford. Aug. 9 they will walk halfway to Delmas and return to Battleford in the evening, where they will tour the Fred Light Museum and the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
On Aug. 10, the walk will take them across what was then the Moosomin and Thunderchild reserves to Delmas, where they will camp near the former Delmas Indian Residential School site and learn about residential school life.
The group will walk from Delmas to Bresaylor on Aug. 11. As they view the visible ruts of the old trail on uncultivated land west of Delmas, they will be given a talk about freighting. Just east of there, the trail split into two trails two miles apart that joined back together again west of Bresaylor. Those settlers living along both trails called their trail the Fort Pitt Trail. The north trail had Taylor’s stopping house and later in the early 1900s Turner’s store. The south trail, which the telegraph line followed, went by Bremner’s store. What happened there in 1885 caused waves all the way to Ottawa for the next 13 years. A side trip by vehicle will take the walkers two miles south to the former site of Father Cochin’s mission which existed before the Delmas Indian Residential School. Returning to the trail, the group will walk by the site of the first telegraph office when the new line went through in 1886. The walk will then take them past where the first school was built in 1883, then past the site of the second school built in 1888.
The trail will then take the walkers to the Bresaylor Heritage Museum for a tour, more stories and an evening of socializing. From Bresaylor, they will drive to where Cinnamon Landing was, where riverboats used to take on wood for fuel. They will camp at Paynton the evening of Aug. 11 and 12, walking halfway between Paynton and Silver Lake and driving down to the Poundmaker Cree Nation for a guided tour of the Chief Poundmaker Historical Centre.
En route to Silver Lake, the group will walk near the paint mines, camping at Silver Lake on the evening of Aug. 13 and 14. They will tour Pine Island on Aug. 13 and Shiloh Church Aug. 14.
Aug. 15, the walk will resume from the Kenderdine homestead site and the group will camp at Frenchman Butte or Paradise Hill the next three nights. The walkers will view the Imhoff church paintings at Paradise Hill and will tour the Frenchman Butte Museum Aug. 16. On the evening of Aug. 17, there will be a guided tour of where the Battle of Frenchman Butte took place. The group will reach Fort Pitt Aug. 18.
If anyone is interested in joining the group, either by foot or vehicle, for all or part of the trail, please phone Hugh Henry at 306-778-2531. Everyone is welcome to join.
The Bresaylor Heritage Museum is open again for the summer by appointment only from June 1 to Sept. 4. Please phone Enola at 306-893-8002 or Bob at 306-895-2075 to arrange a guided tour by one of our volunteer staff. Check out the Bresaylor Heritage Museum Facebook page for more information.
