Edmonton Trail is a major north-south arterial road in the northeast quadrant of

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

. The road connects

Downtown Calgary Downtown Calgary is a dense urban district in central Calgary, Alberta. It contains the second largest concentration of head offices in Canada, despite only being the country's fourth largest city in terms of population. The downtown is divided in ...

from Reconciliation Bridge (formerly called the Langevin Bridge) and the 5th Avenue Flyover at Memorial Drive with north-central Calgary. Between Memorial Drive and 16 Avenue NE (and to a lesser degree up to 24 Avenue NE), Edmonton Trail is lined with restaurants and retail businesses.

History

The road is the remnant of the southern terminus of the

Calgary and Edmonton Trail The Calgary and Edmonton Trail was a land transport route between Fort Edmonton and Fort Calgary in the Northwest Territories. Prior to European contact, there was already a route through the area that local Indigenous peoples used to travel be ...

, a land transport route between the

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

posts of

Fort Edmonton Fort Edmonton (also named Edmonton House) was the name of a series of Trading post, trading posts of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) from 1795 to 1914, all of which were located on the north banks of the North Saskatchewan River in what is now ce ...

and

Fort Calgary Fort Calgary was a North-West Mounted Police outpost at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers in present-day Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Originally named Fort Brisebois, after the outpost's first commander, the outpost was renamed Fort Calga ...

, used as far back as the early 1800s. The more modern trail was blazed by

John Alexander McDougall John Alexander McDougall (May 20, 1854 – December 17, 1928) was a businessman and politician in Alberta, Canada, He served as a municipal councillor, mayor and a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Early Life John Alexander McDou ...

in 1873 as far as Morley and extended to Calgary two years later. The northern terminus, called

Calgary Trail Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in Ca ...

, is a partial freeway in south

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

. The street lies in the heart of the Italian community of Calgary, being the location of the first Italian lodge and Italian school of Calgary in the 1920s. Many Italian restaurants and stores still line the street.

Route description

The southern terminus is divided from the

Bow River The headwaters of the Bow River in Alberta, Canada, start at the Bow Glacier and Bow Lake (Alberta), Bow Lake in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, Canadian Rocky Mountains. The glacial stream that feeds Bow Lake (Alberta), Bow Lake ...

and Memorial Drive, with a southbound one-way road along the 4 Street NE alignment, and a northbound one-way road along the 5 Street NE alignment (the northbound section is signed as Edmonton Trail). The spurs re-unite at 3 Avenue NE, and continue as a two-way road northwards between the communities of Bridgeland and Crescent Heights. It then crosses 16 Avenue NE ( Highway 1 /

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the A ...

), continues between the communities of Winston Heights and Tuxedo Park. North of the 32 Avenue NE, it passes through a light industrial district, then ends at

McKnight Boulevard McKnight (also MacKnight, Macknight) is a Scottish ( Ulster-Scots) surname. It is a derivative of the surname MacNaught/ McNaught. Notable people with the surname include A * Allen McKnight (born 1964), Northern Irish footballer * Angela V. McKn ...

. It is continued for a short stretch to the north by 4 Street NE into the community of Thorncliffe.

Major intersections

From south to north.

References

Roads in Calgary {{Alberta-road-stub

History

Route description

Major intersections

See also

References