Commercial Navigation
The North Saskatchewan River has always been a major trade route from Hudson Bay and central Canada across the plains and towards the Rocky Mountains. During the fur trade era, birch bark canoes and York boats travelled up and down the Saskatchewan delivering trade goods and amassing furs for transportation to Europe.
The North Saskatchewan also witnessed a lively, although short-lived, era of steamboat shipping during the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. The Hudson's Bay Company purchased a number of steamboats from companies operating on the Red River and trading at Winnipeg/Fort Garry. The Company desired to avoid paying the labour costs of fur trade brigades, and felt steamboat shipping provided a suitable alternative. A number of HBC steamboats did navigate the river intermittently over two decades, although fluctuating water levels and natural barriers (rapids and sandbars) hampered efficient operation of the HBC fleet. With the arrival of the railroad in Western Canada, steamboat shipping on the Saskatchewan came to an end.
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