The oldest continuously occupied Euro-Canadian site in British Columbia, Fort McLeod was first established by the Northwest Company in 1805 as a fur trading post. From 1821 until 1952 the post was operated by the
Hudson's Bay Company, first as a fur trading post and later as a Hudson's Bay Company Store. Founded in 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company is the oldest company in North America.
The community which grew around the Hudson's Bay post remains quite small, with a population just under 100 at present. Across the lake, near the site of the fort, is McLeod Lake Indian Reserve No. 1, home of an Athabascan Sekani people known as "Tse'Khene" (the people of the rock, in reference to the Rocky Mountains). The population of the reserve is also just under 100.
On the Reserve are residences, the administration offices of the McLeod Lake Indian Band, and a resource centre. The administration and resource buildings are large, new and quite impressive buildings, for such a small community. There was once a fuel and food outlet which now appears to be gone. Of the Band’s approximately 500 members, close to one-fifth live on the reserve at McLeod Lake and 150-200 live between Bear Lake and Prince George. Roughly 100 members of the Band live in the Vancouver-area while the remaining resides outside of British Columbia. As a result of their entry into the logging industry in the late 1970s The Band has become quite prosperous, leaving behind a short period of poverty when civilization came to their area.
Sekani
Sekani are a First Nations people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group in the Northern Interior of British Columbia. Their territory includes the Finlay and Parsnip River drainages of the Rocky Mountain Trench. The neighbors of the Sekani are the Babine to the west, Dakelh to the south, Dunneza (Beaver) to the east, and Kaska and Tahltan, to the north, all Athabaskan peoples. In addition, due to the westward spread of the Plains Cree in recent centuries, their neighbors to the east now include Cree communities.
Sekani people call their language [tsek'ene] or [t?ek'ene] depending on dialect, which appended with "Dene" (meaning people), means "people on the rocks". "Sekani" is an anglicization of this term. Other forms occasionally found, especially in older sources, are Secunnie, Siccanie, Sikani, and the French Sékanais.
Culture
The traditional Sekani way of life was based on hunting and gathering. Although fish formed part of the diet, the Sekani relied more heavily on game, in contrast to their Carrier and Babine neighbors. Plant food consisted largely of berries, especially of blueberries.
The Sekani traditionally cremated their deceased. After cremation was discontinued, the Sekani revived an old custom, probably never entirely abandoned, of covering the dead man with the brush hut that had sheltered him during his last days and then deserting the locality for a period. Persons of influence were buried in coffins raised on platforms or trees.
They were said to have practiced polyandry before large scale conversion to Catholicism.
From Wiki
McLeod Lake Indian Band
For thousands of years, the Tse’khene were hunters, living primarily on moose, caribou, bear, and beaver. After the Northwest Company established a trading post at McLeod Lake in 1805, the Tse’khene people established trap lines and sold furs at the trading post. Their traditional pattern of life became securing game in the fall, trapping in the winter and spring, and picking berries and hunting birds and fish in the summer.
That changed dramatically in the 1960s, when the provincial railway and John Hart Highway were built, opening up their land to non-indigenous settlement and economic development. In 1969, the W.A.C. Bennett Dam created a 650 square mile lake, flooding the hunting and trapping areas of the McLeod Lake Tse’khene.
With their traditional livelihood gone, in just a few years the Tse’khene people were transformed from an isolated, self-sufficient hunting and gathering society into an impoverished and despondent society lacking jobs, hope and, in the eyes of many Band members, a future. Meanwhile, nearby municipalities like Prince George and Mackenzie were thriving from the growing forest industry.
In the late 1970s, the Band decided this situation could not continue. After several attempts to gain contracts from forest companies, they founded Duz Cho Logging, a company that reflected the determination and resilience of the Tse’khene people. Its success would finance a journey to economic independence for the McLeod Lake Indian Band that started with their signing to the Treaty 8 accord and led to their becoming one of British Columbia’s largest logging contractors.
From the Indigenous Business and Investment Council
Located west of Highway 97 near the community of McLeod Lake in north central British Columbia, the fort has been moved from its original site a short distance west along the lakeshore. The only remaining extant buildings at the fort, a workshop, a house, an icehouse and a warehouse, are all twentieth century buildings, built between 1926 and the early 1940s.
While a National Historic Site, the CNHS plaque for the fort is not at the site of the fort but in front of the McLeod Lake Post Office & General Store on Highway 97, about 620 metres (2,030 feet) to the southeast. The fort itself is at the northwest corner of McLeod Lake, down a short dirt road leading southeast off Carp Lake Road.
McLeod's Lake Post
1805-1952
Established in 1805, McLeod's Lake Post is the longest continually occupied European settlement in British Columbia. Representatives of the Northwest Company, out of Montreal, set up this post in order to take over the Native trade in the northern part of British Columbia. But, the traders did not "take over" so much as add on to the existing trade. Therefore, there was little conflict during the history of this fur trade post.
In 1821, the Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company joined forces under the name Hudson's Bay Company. They operated a store here until 1952. They then moved their store across the lake to the Hart Highway where it stands today.
In 1969 the site came under the management of the Province of British Columbia. At present three buildings date to the 1920s and one to the 1940s. These buildings are more than just a fur trader's residence and work and storage space, they are also a part of the heritage of the Tsek'ehne people. They lived and worked in this area prior to the fur traders' arrival and are still the main group in the area today.
From the plaque at the fort