Everyone knows that St. Albert Trail runs right through this city straight into Edmonton before the 118 Avenue traffic circle, where it continues on as Groat Road. Or does it?
The historic trail used to travel between St. Albert and Fort Edmonton followed a different route than the current Groat Road. There are actually two last vestiges of the historic trail that still exist, albeit disconnected from what has since become the main travel route.
Just east of the 118 Avenue traffic circle, St. Albert Trail travels southeast, transecting Inglewood’s residential neighbourhoods diagonally, before it stops again at 112 Avenue. It picks up again south of 111 Avenue where the last 50 metres of St. Albert Trail ends abruptly at 127 Street, facing straight into St. Peter’s Anglican Church.
This broken path remains from the time when St. Albert Trail was a prominent and important trade route to Fort Edmonton, at the time located on the current site of Alberta’s legislature building.
“St. Albert Trail actually followed the top of the [North Saskatchewan] riverbank to where the legislature is now,” explained author Shirley Lowe, Edmonton’s current historian laureate.
As early as 1820, she continued, the road stayed away from the ravine owned by Malcolm Groat. That ravine is now where Groat Road winds its curvy way toward the North Saskatchewan River.
Lowe, co-author of the book Edmonton’s West Side Story (along with Lori Yanish), explains that the trail served a significant purpose for many people in both communities.
“It came down 111 Street, which is why the Oblates bought that block between 99 and 100 Avenue on 110 to 111 Streets. All of the French Catholic influence on that block was because they could see the fort from there,” she said.
Albert Lacombe once served as the parish priest at the old Misericordia Hospital, she said. The hospital was located on the south side of 98 Avenue, but in its former life it was once a fur-trading warehouse.
“The reason it was located there was because it was on its way to and from the fort. There was not much of anything between the St. Albert mission and the fort in those days. It intersected with the Stony Plain Trail as well. That all came together and everybody just hoofed it on down to the fort.”
In these respects, St. Albert was born as a mission but soon grew into one of the first suburbs of Edmonton.
“It wasn’t so much the trail that was important as the two ends of it,” she said. “Things were built on the trail because that was basically the main street, more or less.”
Lowe ended by saying that one of Western Canada’s most important historical moments also contributed to the area’s development. The Riel Rebellion led many people to want to stay near the seminary, Bishop’s residence and St. Joachim’s, the local Roman Catholic parish. The locations of those prominent religious sites were chosen on purpose.
“They weren’t there by accident. They were there because the trail was there. People were very afraid [during the rebellion] that they would be [attacked] next so people started to populate and put [businesses and residences] on the trail, close to the fort, so they could get to St. Joachim’s as soon as possible.”
Did You Know?
Every week this summer, reporter Scott Hayes will explore interesting but little known facts about St. Albert.
