Alberta is far too easily perceived as being culturally
monolithic, especially as concerns language use, but there is in
fact considerable linguistic diversity to the province, not the
least of which is French. The first Europeans to make contact
with the aboriginal peoples of this region were the French
explorers and voyageurs, as noted by historian Donald Smith who
tells us that to the Blackfoot, the French were the "real" white
men. This is probably due to the presence of the La Vérendrye
clan, who during the 18th century, while searching for a passage
to the Western Sea, were also involved in the fur trade for
France. In this way they built forts in the upper Missouri basin
and in present-day Manitoba and Saskatchewan, pushing back the
frontiers of New France west of the Great Lakes and across the
Prairies, but are not known to have seen the Rocky Mountains of
Alberta. The Blackfoot may only have known of the presence of
the French through hearsay and the inevitable trickling effect
of fur trade goods.
However, the La Vérendrye clan established the French fur
trade in what is today the Canadian West, even though it was
briefly interrupted by the Conquest of New France in 1760. Fur
traders from Montreal pushed on, and annually hired men from the
Saint Lawrence valley to man their canoes. Towards the end of
the 19th century, opportunities for settlers brought a few
French-Canadians to the West. Recruitment abroad, in the United
States and in Europe, brought other Francophones to take
homesteads.
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