Fort Espérance

Rocanville No. 151, CA

Fort Espérance was a North West Company trading post near Rocanville, Saskatchewan from 1787 until 1819. It was moved three times and was called Fort John from 1814 to 1816. There was a competing XY Company post from 1801 to 1805 and a Hudson's Bay post nearby from 1813 to 1816. It was on the Qu'App

elle River about 20 km from that river's junction with the Assiniboine River and about 7 km west of the Manitoba border. It was on the prairie in buffalo country and was mainly used as a source of pemmican which was sent down the river to Fort Bas de la Rivière at the mouth of the Winnipeg River. (1787–1810) In 1787 Robert Grant of the North West Company established Fort Esperance on the south bank of the Qu'Appelle about one half mile below the mouth of Big Cut Arm Creek. It was about 150 feet square and the site was subject to flooding. Relations with the plains Indians were poor. According to a hearsay report in the journal of Alexander Henry the younger as of July 1810 it was destroyed and abandoned. (1810–1814) A second fort was built on one of the Qu'Appelle lakes which operated for four years. During one of these years a brigade going downriver was ambushed and many of the men killed...

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