European Artifacts Unearthed Outside Fort Edmonton

EDMONTON, CANADA—Artifacts dating to 1810 have been discovered on the south bank of the North Saskatchewan River, across from the location of Fort Edmonton. This is the first time that artifacts from this time period, including a ring, glass beads, and other European decorative items, have been found outside the original fort. “Once you start to have things associated with the fort outside its walls, then you start to see a community establishing itself in an area,” archaeologist Ryan Eldridge of Turtle Island Cultural Resource Management told CBC Canada. These residents on the other side of the river may have been Métis people, who were often born of First Nations women and European men. “People would have been employed as hunters to supply the fort, carpenters, cooks, tailors. All of that support structure that you needed to keep the facility operating,” Eldridge explained. To read about historical archaeology in Canada, see "Saga of the Northwest Passage."