Fort George and Buckingham House Provincial Historic Site

10/30/2026

Do you drive a hard bargain?
Have you tried negotiating with the video clerk in the gallery at Fort George & Buckingham House? He tried to trade ice picks (which these visitors did NOT want), and this knife, which they didn’t like either.

They were also not impressed by the clerk’s greasy hair.

Trade negotiations often happened through a small window inside the main building of the Fort. People bringing furs to trade stood inside and bargained through a small hole in the wall with the clerk who was working in a room on the other side of the wall. The video station at the trade store section of the gallery mimics this experience. When you press the button, the window is opened and the clerk in the trade store appears and starts bargaining with you.

10/28/2026

Shallow water. Sharp rocks. Sliced birchbark.

It was a bad combination.

In October of 1792, the water in the North Saskatchewan was super shallow. The more shallow the water, the closer the birchbark canoes are to those sharp rocks at the bottom. Even though the Hudson’s Bay men travelled with only half loads to try to make the canoes lighter, they still ended up arriving at Buckingham House with canoes that were badly damaged.

So what to do?

There is a small bucket in the visitor centre gallery with the answer: pitch. This gummy, glue-like substance made from tree sap will help to seal those damaged birchbark canoes back together.

10/25/2026

Cool and Calculating
The September 1935 issue of The Beaver gave readers a tour of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur-grading and cold-storage operations in London, England.

The September 1935 issue of The Beaver gave readers a tour of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur-grading and cold-storage operations in London, England.

10/23/2026

The surprising role of horses at Buckingham House.

No, not buffalo hunting.

On their way to the future site of Buckingham House, Gilbert Laughton, Robert Linkletter, Robert Carson, and their boss, William Tomison, had a problem.

Their problem was the river. In October of 1792, the river was super shallow, so canoes could only carry half a regular load. Sharp rocks on the river bed were threatening to slice open the delicate birch bark of the canoes.

So instead, these four men left Manchester House (about 50km east of modern-day Lloydminster) and rode horses to the place they would build Buckingham House.

Once they arrived, they started work building the fort, and the horses helped. On October 14th, the men who travelled by canoe arrived with bundles of goods. But because Buckingham House was located in an inconvenient spot “being far above the river and a very bad bank to ascend” they used horses to carry the heavy goods up the bank.

The next week the horses hauled stones to build chimneys and grass to fill up the pits where the canoes would be kept safe over the winter.

Quote from William Tomison’s journal, HBCA 24/a/1.
This image is from the Fort George & Buckingham House visitor centre gallery. It is adapted from the work of Paul Kane.

10/21/2026

Late September souvenirs from a local acquaintance. If you’re outside, make lots of noise and be bear aware!

10/18/2026

It’s the middle of October! How would you like to start building a house… right now?

Not so much? Pretty cold out there? Ground starting to freeze?

Yeah. We thought so too. Unfortunately for the men of the Hudson’s Bay Company, their rivals at the North West Company were winning the race to the west. The North West Company had already built Fort George.

The HBC needed to catch up. 🏃 🏃 🏃 So they showed up. And started digging 🪏 and chopping 🪓.

On October 12, 1792, the first HBC men arrived at a place ¼ mile below the Canadian House. Anyone travelling westwards would come across the future Buckingham House before they got to the rival Fort George.

They start 🪏 digging a well. (This well will become a problem in the future.)
They start 🪓 hewing logs.
They start 🪏 digging out space for building foundations.
They start 🪏 digging out cellars.
They start 🪏 digging up stones for chimneys.

On October 26, 1792 there was a strong frost in the night. They probably started digging and chopping faster after that. No one wants to be left out in the cold in November!

10/16/2026

At the end of each summer season, all the artifacts in the museum gallery at Fort George & Buckingham House get lovingly packed up for the winter. Blankets get tucked into special totes; pipes, cups and beads get wrapped in acid-free tissue paper; and furs are tucked into acid-free boxes.

Why do we pack everything up for the winter? Because even artifacts deserve a winter holiday!

Nah. Not really.

But seriously, our artifacts do a lot of work all summer long. Visitors look at them and say “Ooh!”, elementary students pass them around, and everyone compares how soft the furs are.

To keep the artifacts safe from dust, potential water, sneaky rodents, and accidents over the winter, they all get safely packed away.

In summary, we hope everyone is able to enjoy a wee bit of relaxing winter holiday. Both the artifacts and all the awesome people who visit Fort George & Buckingham House each year!

10/14/2026

Can you identify this chicken? This lady with her stunning stripes came to visit the visitor centre at the end of August.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

10/11/2026

Have you ever struggled to fill out an online form because your name or address didn’t fit into the exact format expected by the form? Or the drop-down menu didn’t have the option you needed?

Many people in our past experienced this same problem when it came to the Canadian census. The census usually asked what ethnicity or “race” people were. But a lot of people didn’t fit into any of the categories. Metis people, for example, often had to pick either “Indian” or “white.” This makes it challenging to find all the Metis people in the census records.

The census is one of the tools modern people use to understand the people who came before us. But the census isn’t a perfect tool. The way the census is set up affects which pieces of information were saved. And sometimes that can warp, twist, and mess up our understanding of the past.

This blog post explores how the census impacts our understanding of the Metis, including the children of the Fort George and Buckingham House people.

MÉTIS AND CENSUS: Reading Between the Lines Words by Matt Hiltermann According to Benedict Anderson, the census – along with the map and museum – has “profoundly shaped the way in which the colonial state imagined its dominion.”¹In the late nineteenth century, census categories became incr...

10/09/2026

Mr. Bear is stunned by how awesome the archaeological finds are!

He is especially impressed by long, skinny, pointed pieces of bone or metal called “awls”. Awls are one of those everyday objects that our modern eyes might ignore because they look so simple. But awls were necessary tools.

Every time you needed to sew through leather, you needed an awl to poke holes that your needle could get through. And every time you got holes in the bottom of your moccasins, you had to sew a new leather sole on. Repairing moccasins was a constant task that needed an awl.

Archaeologists found at least 14 metal awls at Fort George.

Pictured here is the plain metal of the awl. This is the way it was shipped across the ocean to arrive at Fort George. See the funny “L” shape in the middle? That’s so that the awl doesn’t slip and slide out of the handle people made for it. Handles were usually made from antler or wood.