Fort Ellice was a

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trade, fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake b ...

trading post operated from 1794 to 1892. First established on the Qu'Appelle River, the post was rebuilt in 1817 on the south bank of the Assiniboine. Another iteration of the post was built near the first in 1862 and, in 1873, replaced Fort Pelly as the headquarters for the Swan River District. The fort was located in what is now west-central

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Win ...

, Canada, just east of that province's border with

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North ...

. It was an important fort, as it was a major stopping point on the Carlton Trail, which ran from the

Red River Colony The Red River Colony (or Selkirk Settlement), also known as Assinboia, was a colonization project set up in 1811 by Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, on of land in British North America. This land was granted to Douglas by the Hudson's Ba ...

to Fort Edmonton. (The section leading from Upper Fort Garry to this district was commonly known as the Fort Ellice Trail.) A second more elaborate structure was built in 1862 by the HBC but its economic life was short-lived as the Company relinquished control of Rupert's Land with the 1870 Deed of Surrender. This deed transferred many HBC rights to the new Canadian national government. The fort had one more important role to play in history; it acted as a staging point for part of the

North-West Mounted Police The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was a Canadian para-military police force, established in 1873, to maintain order in the new Canadian North-West Territories (NWT) following the 1870 transfer of Rupert’s Land and North-Western Territory ...

(NWMP) force that started at Fort Dufferin and headed west in 1874 to establish law and order in the future provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The fort acted as an NWMP post beginning in 1875. The fort was named after

Edward Ellice Edward Ellice may refer to: * Edward Ellice (merchant) (1783–1863), merchant and politician, and a prime mover behind the Reform Bill of 1832 ** Edward Ellice (1813 ship), launched in New Brunswick *Edward Ellice (MP for St Andrews) (1810–80), s ...

, a British merchant and an investor in the Hudson's Bay Company. Fort Ellice in turn gave its name to the Rural Municipality of Ellice in west-central Manitoba and to Ellice Avenue, a major arterial road in Winnipeg. The property that supports both forts is currently owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

References

External links

*
''Manitoba Community Profiles''

''History in Winnipeg Street Names'' from the Manitoba Historical Society

* Google trekker - virtual hike of Fort Ellice property https://www.google.com/maps/@50.4027067,-101.2869901,3a,50.4y,283.13h,76.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUF2N0E_pMD23ln2H07fipw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 {{DEFAULTSORT:Ellice Forts in Manitoba Hudson's Bay Company forts North-West Mounted Police forts 1831 establishments in the British Empire