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Central Alberta Region

Others followed in the next decade along the Athabasca and Peace rivers. However, by then, development was also occurring along the North Saskatchewan River. Fort Edmonton and Fort Augustus had appeared by 1795, and the fort at Rocky Mountain House was established by 1799. The name "Terre Blanche," bestowed on many forts along the North Saskatchewan River at that period, survives today as Whitemud, after which several features in the area take their names. Many of the posts, built for profit in favour of permanence, took on the names of features that were in close proximity, for example, Fort Assiniboine, established in 1824 was named after the Assiniboine River, and Lac La Biche, established in 1798 by David Thompson as "Red Deer Lake Post," took its name from the nearby lake. Other forts commemorated the home towns of the early factors and traders, for example, Greenwich House. The geographical names that are preserved in these sites remain a testimony to early contact between native peoples and the new inhabitants who were to transform the plains.

Another influence which figures prominently in the history, and hence the toponymy, of Central Alberta is that of early Catholic, Anglican and Methodist missionaries. The establishment of schools, colleges, hospitals and other social institutions was another means to expand their missionary role. Protestant missionaries and the early Catholic priests in Canada were often referred to by the people of the First Nations as the "Black Robes." Men like Robert Rundle, George McDougall, John McDougall and Father Lacombe added their unique presence to place names in Alberta. Throughout Volume III, the names of these early missionaries are commemorated in the names of towns and other features. The hamlet of Therien and the town of Lacombe are two examples of features commemorating early Oblates. The town of Vegreville takes its name from Father Valentin Vegreville, a missionary who began his work here in the early 1850s. Grandin is a former post office that commemorates Vital-Julien Grandin, the first Bishop of St. Albert. The name Mission Beach, a summer village 53 kilometres west north-west of Wetaskiwin, is taken from its proximity to the Rundle Mission. Commemorative naming was a norm throughout the missionary era, and one may find many examples of this practice. The Methodist missionary George McDougall established Victoria Settlement on the north-east shore of the North Saskatchewan River, naming it after the Queen, as naming features after royalty was another common exercise; hence, the name of the province, which was named after Louise Caroline Alberta, daughter of Queen Victoria.

In 1870, the fur trade empire of the Hudson's Bay Company passed to the Dominion of Canada. The North West Mounted Police was consequently sent on a mission to "Maintiens le droit - Maintain the right." In the summer of 1874 the North West Mounted Police made the long trek across the prairies, in part to prevent conflicts between the Natives and whites, but also to serve as a visible symbol of Canadian sovereignty in the newly acquired North West Territories. The first N.W.M.P. post in the region covered in this volume was established at Fort Saskatchewan in 1875 under Inspector W.O. Jarvis, at the junction of where the North Saskatchewan River crossed the survey line for the railway. Moonshine Lake was named after an incident which occurred circa 1920 during which a Metis settler was apprehended by the N.W.M.P. for manufacturing home brew. The Mounted Police forts were a precursor to permanent settlement and with law and order, the Mounties, in tandem with the railway and the Dominion Land Survey, also brought settlement after 1885, moving north by the mid-1890s due to the Klondike Gold Rush. Alberta's landscape was dotted with pack animals and amateur gold-seekers from Edmonton to the north-west, who left a small, but persistent legacy of place names along their way. Places such as the locality of Noyes Crossing, named after Daniel E. Noyes (1828-1910) who was a goldseeker, packer and businessman, and the locality of Busby which likely commemorates Edward Busby, Inspector of Customs in the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, are examples of the influence that the Gold Rush had on place names in the study area.

Much of the information about the province of Alberta, information that was used by both the North West Mounted Police, as well as the railway companies in the later period, was the result of a British North American exploring expedition headed by Captain John Palliser (1817-1887) between the years 1857 to 1860 and known as the Palliser Expedition. The expedition collected vast amounts of data on the meteorological, geological and magnetic importance of this vast territory, and Palliser also collected information about the country's food supply, its flora, its inhabitants and its potential for settlement and routes of transportation. Palliser's published reports and especially his comprehensive map of 1865 were the main source of information about the lands in what is now Alberta for some time and they became the basis for later railway routes and surveys of land. Since the vast majority of Palliser's treks involved routes through southern Alberta and the mountains, the expedition itself left few names in this study area. Palliser's Expedition, however, did pave the way for other surveyors and survey parties to make careful studies of the area, to take measurements, and to systematically divide the land. Other surveyors who arrived after the Palliser Expedition have their names associated with features and are commemorated in features such as Kitto Lake, Gough Lake and Seibert Lake.

Shortly after the transfer of Rupert's Land from the H.B.C. to the Dominion Government in 1870, arrangements were made for the new Territories to be surveyed into square townships. Surveyors marked boundaries for future farms and homesteads using equipment such as transits, rods and 66-ft. chains, which evolved as genuine folk symbols. Some of Alberta is still unsurveyed, but most of the completed surveying was done by the Third System of Township Surveys. Surveyors divided the arable prairie lands into square townships, each comprising 36 sections of 640 acres (259 ha.) with the basic homestead comprising one 160-acre (64.7 ha.) quarter section. Some features in Central Alberta have been named to reflect the influence of this type of survey, such as Fifteen Lake, a lake that is in section 15, township 48, range 4, West of the Fourth Meridian, Meridian Lake, on the Fourth Meridian, Point Thirteen, a point that extends into Buffalo Lake from section 13, and Town Lake, shortened from "Township Lake."

Priorities set by the Dominion Government in the east set the stage for the next major development in central Alberta, that of the railways. No other phenomenon in early western Canadian history so affected the toponymy of western Canada as railroad development. The Dominion Government hoped that the railway would improve transportation and communication lines across the prairies and between the east and west but, more importantly, they believed that the railway would open up a new economic hinterland for eastern and central Canada. The railroad builders entered Alberta in 1883, and an assortment of lines taken over from various operators who built lines north-west, north and north-east from Edmonton who wove their own names into the tapestry of the toponymy of central Alberta. Survey parties during 1890 marked the route of the Calgary-Edmonton Railway. The pace for settlement of the west was decided almost exclusively by the routes chosen for development by these various companies. The choice of names of the various stations that dotted the routes of the lines of these railways varied from strictly descriptive names to the commemoration of railway officials who directed or engineered the main and the branch lines. Still others were named after the companies that influenced the growth of an area, like Antross (a former station near Wetaskiwin), a combination of the names of the Anthony Lumber Co. and the Ross Board Lumber Co. Completed through modern Alberta in 1883, the transcontinental railway (C.P.R.) set the stage for the coming of settlement and the further development that followed very closely the main line westward across the prairies, and northward to new frontiers, heading toward Edmonton in 1890. By 1914, several main lines and spur lines criss-crossed the province.

The railways moved the farmers and the homesteaders toward their personal promised land, and with them, their toils and struggles, their hopes and aspirations, disappointments and successes. The Dominion Lands Act of 1872, modelled on American homestead legislation, provided the legal authority and policy under which lands were to be given to intending settlers in return for the payment of a $10 fee and the performance of specified settlement duties, e.g., building a habitable residence within one year, and cultivating a certain area (30 acres) annually. This late 19th- and early 20th-century phenomenon called homesteading, provided newcomers with a clean start in life; however, despite their fresh beginning, there is evidence that many of the place names in the study area recall the ancestral homes of these early immigrants hailing from Ukraine, Germany, England, France, Finland, the United States, etc. Post offices were often named after the original postmasters or their places of birth; hence names such as Fribourg, Ispas, Lake Geneva, Ardrossan, Roras and Wostok. Throughout Volume III, the locations of post offices, former localities and localities are described at their last known spot. A variety of influences affected the locations of these places including, who volunteered to be postmaster/mistress, where the individual lived, railway line construction, or even political affiliation. It is therefore difficult to pin down a post office to a single location, as the locations changed regularly.

Place names in Alberta have been influenced by a number of developments and settlement patterns, as evidenced above, and have not escaped a degree of creative imagination in their selections over the years. While many of the geographical names reflect the names of the various people involved in many and a variety of ventures, others are more original. Prior to the establishment of official policies for geographical naming, features were often named for individuals or for companies or organizations that assisted in the development of industries in the various areas of the province. This practice has, however, been largely discontinued and geographical names are now chosen according to strict principles that govern the adoption of commemorative names. With the development of official naming procedures came the opportunity to accumulate extensive records on existing and proposed or local names. What follows is the geographical names history of central Alberta to the full extent of the Geographical Names Inventory to date. The intent of this overview of this area of the province is to provide a reference guide for the reader to accurately find locations using individual topographical map sheets as orientative tools. It is also intended to give readers information on the origin and significance of the place names of Alberta and to suggest the close connection between culture and heritage of the province and its citizens and the geographical names that describe and define the landscape.

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