The Carbon Trail
An interesting link to our indigenous heritage that passes, quite literally, right through the middle of Pioneer Acres.
by Shelly McElroy
Metis explorer Peter Fidler made the discovery of coal in Wayne, Alberta in 1793; his map also shows that there was a fur fort located at Carbon. It would be one hundred years before the coal was mined, but the coal Fidler saw at Carbon would prove to be connected to the Drumheller coalfield, a massive deposit that extended up and down the Red Deer River. Here is Fidler’s description of his first view of that coal field:
“Where we put up the Northern bank of the creek is steep and a clayesh white earth along which there are two stratas of coal in a horizontal position, one of them being 28 feet below the level of the surface and the lower strata 34 feet. The former strata is about 60 yards long and the lower one 100 yards, each strata about fifteen inches thick. This is the only coal I have seen in the earth in this manner in this country.”
The next day, Fidler climbed out of the creek valley and caught his first sighting of a range of shining blue and white mountains towering in the west – the Rockies. His record also documents the immense herds of bison he witnessed as he travelled through what is now Alberta. But it was his discovery of coal that was to have a significant influence on future of pioneering families in southern Alberta – though that was not going to happen until about one hundred years in the future.
The wagon tracks that made up part of the Carbon Trail are still visible both to the north and south of Pioneer Acres. We were curious to see if this track could have been part of the Metis cart trail system. By 1840, the Bow River Valley in Canmore was already known as “the white man’s river valley.” For generations, Metis had guided travellers, staffed trading posts, hunted and journeyed across western Canada. They had established a dense series of cart trails and sometimes modern highways follow the route of older trails. The Yellowhead Highway is a great example of this. As it turns out, so is the Carbon Trail.
We reached out to the Metis Nation of Alberta (Region Three) to ask if they thought the trail that runs past Pioneer Acres could be a Metis cart trail predating the Carbon Trail. They responded:
“Regarding Carbon trail, from satellite imagery, it certainly looks like it could have been a [Metis] cart trail. Indeed, one line of the railway that runs northwards crosses the Red Deer River at a known Hivernant site. Just before the river, it forks and that fork appears to extend to Tail Creek. North of the Red Deer River, that line also passes through Duhamel (AKA Battle River Settlement/Laboucan Settlement, just south of Salois Crossing). This line was almost certainly a Cart trail.
“That said, the trail seems to fork a bunch of times, and [we are] not sure which fork constitutes the Carbon Trail. Despite that uncertainty, the portion of the Carbon Trail/Highway 9 that passes through Irricana was almost certainly part of the network that connected Tail Creek and Battle River to Calgary.”
The next incarnation of the life of this bison/Metis trail developed when the mine opened at Carbon where Peter Fidler had witnessed that huge coal deposit one hundred years before. Before coal was discovered on Kneehill Creek, coal was hauled to Calgary from Black Diamond. Just as is true today, the resource industry and fossil fuels were an essential part of survival for southern Albertans. The fury of prairie winters was mitigated by coal burning stoves. Coal was needed for steel making and concrete production, and generating electricity for homes and factories. Coal also powered steam engines in trains and in tractors.
From the early 1890s onward, coal was transported to Calgary from as far north as Olds. This Mine Inspector’s Report is from 10 November 1898. “Inspection of the Knee Hill Coal Mines, Thos. Hunt and J. Reads Mine, owners in charge and working in the mine; depth to face of main drift 100 ft. Thickness of coal 4 ft. clear coal. Analysis of this coal as supplied by Mr. G. B. Bruce will be found below.”
Hauling coal was often a job that farmers took on in the off season, or as they were getting started in the cattle industry. One pioneer from the Chestermere area recounted his experiences to his descendants who reported:
“Another source of income was hauling coal from Carbon to Calgary, “to get a sack of flour” as he often said. Much of this hauling was done in the wintertime, and he slept on the ground on these trips, regardless of the temperature. For this purpose, he had a mattress made of two layers of rabbit skins sewn together and covered on each side with a heavy grey wool blanket, with red wool ties about one square foot.”
Despite the mattress, he sometimes woke up in the mornings to find his hair frozen to the ground.
The Carbon Trail was cut down into the prairie and is still visible in places where it has not been ploughed. The road to the mines crossed a creek about the same place as old Highway 26, then traveled to a point below a big hill crossing the Four Mile Coulee. (The coulees were named for their distance from the mines, Six Mile Coulee and so on). The trail crossed again at the Six Mile Coulee. Coal haulers often camped in this coulee because of a good spring of clear water that ran through it. Then, the trail led to Nine Mile Coulee. The trail also passed through Irricana and it runs next to Pioneer Acres where the railroad for CN and the old CPR railbed run. The wagon tracks can still be seen extending north and south. The next time you visit Pioneer Acres, ask our staff and volunteers to point these out to you.
Learn more:
• Peter Fidler’s Adventures in Surveying (published by McClelland and Stewart)
• Peter Fidler: from York Factory to the Rocky Mountains by Barbara Belyea
• The Good Land of Alberta: Carbon District | Crop, Coal and Cattle Centre | 1895 – 1962
• Carbon: Our History, Our Heritage
• Saddles, Sleighs and Sadirons
