A History of the Rangelands of Western Canada

Abstract

The first cattle came into western Canada in 1702, 267 years ago. They were brought in, with sheep and horses, pigs and poultry, through fur trading posts then recently established on Hudson Bay. And so, before we can discuss rangelands and domestic livestock, we should consider fur trade and buffalo. The British began fur trade operations on shores of Hudson Bay in 1670's. In addition to trade goods, supply ships brought out from Orkney Islands, and occasionally from Scandinavian countries, livestock and poultry, vegetable seeds and grain, which were kept at, or grown near, posts. French explorers, notably La Verendrye and his sons, discovered water route from Montreal to prairies in 1732 and, by 1738, had established a number of fur trading posts in what is now southern Manitoba (Fig. 1). For next one hundred years Hudson's Bay Company was content to sit on shores of Bay, a period that was called by a British Member of Parliament of time, the long sleep by