1792:
Fur Trade Starts in the Peace River County
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Like
countless other historic mission sites, Dunvegan's roots are firmly
planted in the fur
trade. Located just north of present-day Grande Prairie, Dunvegan was one of the most significant trading sites on the Peace River,
and the
post established there in 1805 by the North West Company operated for
over 100 years. Conflict and competition between the North West Company
and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) coloured the early years of Dunvegan
until the two companies amalgamated and the latter took over operations in
1821. The first mission
that emerged to support the trading post at Dunvegan was the St. Charles
Mission,
established in 1867 by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a Roman
Catholic Order. It was soon joined by the Anglican St. Saviour's mission. However,
by the turn of the century the population of the area had declined, and both
missions eventually moved elsewhere-the Anglicans to Shaftesbury in 1895 and the Oblates
to Spirit River in 1903.
While the population grew in the region during the mid-1910s as a
result of the construction of the Edmonton, Dunvegan, and British Columbia railway extension line, the line itself bypassed Dunvegan
and following its completion, in 1918, the HBC closed the post.
While Dunvegan never grew into a town, the site, however, remains an
active
and important provincial resource: the church and rectory built by Oblate
Frs.
Grouard and Husson in 1884 still stand, restored and now part of a
provincial historic park; the HBC house built in 1877 has been declared a
provincial historic resource; and the Anglican mission is marked by
maple
trees that the Reverend Alfred Garrioch planted while he served at the
mission in the late 1880s.
Alfred
Campbell Garrioch, Missionary Author of the Peace
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