| Heritage Narrative |
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Early human activities in the region can be traced back to as early as 7,000 - 13,000 years ago following the retreat of the Wisconsin ice sheet and the formation of the early stages of glacial Lake Agassiz. Artifacts excavated at several Shield Archaic Complex and Mckeen Complex sites suggest that these people inhabited the area for the period 3000 B.C. - 500 B.C. Other evidence also indicates that The Pas and the surrounding area had been a meeting place for native people for thousands of years. The period from 1200 - 1780 A.D. witnessed the early activities of the Woodland Cree and Assiniboine in a territory starting from the southern area and extending all the way up north beyond the region to lower Grass River area. Artifacts further suggest that this area was possibly visited and occupied later by other tribes such as Swampy Cree, Ojibwe, and Chipewyan by 1800 A.D. While the Ojibwe began to migrate northwesterly and expand their influence in the south by the late 18th century, the Cree continued to occupy the northern area.
The period between the late 1600's and the early 1800's witnessed the overwhelming influence of European explorers, traders, and settlers in the North. The year 1684 saw the establishment of York Factory, the Hudson Bay Company's (HBC) first major permanent fur trade post in the West, at the mouth of the Hayes River. Cree, Assiniboine and other tribes from the Prairies and the boreal forest area began to utilize the river systems in the North and sent canoes to York Factory to trade furs with HBC. In 1690, Henry Kelsey, a fur trader of HBC, guided by native people, arrived in today's The Pas area on a fur trade promotional trip. Kelsey's arrival and presence in the region marked an important historical milestone in the history of The Pas area. In 1734 French fur traders from Montreal canoed to Lake Winnipeg and began to build trading post in southern Manitoba. In 1741, Louis Joseph Laverendryea and his brother found the confluence of the Saskatchewan, Carrot, and Pasquia Rivers. The period 1743 - 1750 documented the establishment of two French trading posts - Fort Bourbon and Fort Paskoyac on the bank of the Saskatchewan River, in the modern-day The Pas area. Due to their closeness to the Native groups who traded with HBC, those fur trade posts directly cut off a large portion of fur supplies destined for York Factory. As a result, the HBC responded to French competition by sending traders inland to help the Indian traders bypass the French. The region entered a historical era in the late 1800s and early 1900s with industrial activities such as natural resource surveying, prospecting, mining exploration, and forestry flourishing in the The Pas - Flin Flon area. The twentieth century industrialization, in general, and forestry, mining exploration, and transportation in particular, to a large extent, led to the formation and development of the communities within the area including The Pas and Flin Flon. In 1906, the Canadian government purchased the present town site from the local Indian band, i.e., today's Opaskwayak Cree Nation (OCN), and laid the embryonic form of the settlement. The year 1908 marked the arrival of an enterprising man, Herman Finger, who established the Finger Lumber Company in 1910. Employment opportunities created by the company and the farming potential of the richest farmland north of the 53rd parallel jointly stimulated the population expansion on the settlement and were directly attributable to the official incorporation of the settlement as the Town of The Pas in 1912. |
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