Naming the West : Stories Melrose Community

Melrose Community Senior Story 1

Do you know the Blackfoot trail? Yes.

 

How many of you have ever seen it? Are we talking about the one in Calgary or the one that s just east of here? East.

 

Would you like to tell them about the Blackfoot trail? About the Blackfoot trail? Well it starts way down in Davisburg, right down I guess by the river. Right about the junction of the Highwood and the Bow would be where the Blackfoot Trail starts. And of course it was a trial that the Indian s used; it s how it got its name. It came up through to the north here quite a ways, and up to a- and finally it goes down over the bank into the- along the bow river. And then it heads on the south side of the Bow right to Calgary.

 

Farmers that lived in Davisburg and farmed, my parents did  when they were first married, lived for a bit in Davisburg and then loaded up their wagons and always went on the Blackfoot trail into Calgary with their livestock or whatever they had to sell. So the Blackfoot trail was here before the settlers came here. When the settlers came the Blackfoot trail was already here. The Indians had been using it for years to go into Calgary, or to what is now Calgary. So the settlers when they came they just used the same trail to take their wagon load of cattle or pigs or chicken or whatever they were taking into town, because it was already there. It was just a trail through the prairie, that s all it was. Just a rut carved through the grass. But it s still there, and some of you have already seen it. It s the winding road that- all the roads here go straight, straight north and south or east and west, but the Blackfoot trail winds through the district. And those who haven t seen it should go see it some day, its still there.