Old and New Fort Saskatchewan - The Fort itself

I visited 'The Fort' recently and went inside the newly built reconstruction of the original 'Fort on the Saskatchewan'. Some very interesting information - and you can feel a little like you were really there just after it was built (around 1875).

Here's a photo from one corner of the (newly built) Fort.

And here's a much earlier photo from almost the same location.

A few differences are obvious - plastic bins and the picnic tables - but it's surprisingly close overall. The old photo was taken after the 11ft walls (stockade) were taken down and the original guard house (low building towards the middle of that picture) had been removed. Plus a more recent building shows up (to the left rear...the ice house as I understand from my newspaper correspondent from The Sturgeon Creek Post - a publication I recommend reading if you want to keep track of what's going on in The Fort. The Sturgeon Creek Post is also the original name of the NWMP post that became Fort Sask). A few other things are 'close' - the chimneys in the men's quarters, the height of the flagpole, and some minor building differences - but these could also be due to the difference in timing. It's not clear when the old photo was taken - I got it from here.

Finally, a picture that I liked from the junior officers quarters - makes sense that there would be buffalo hides on the beds but they still had a big impact when we opened the door and first saw them!