Our town is called Grande Cache, which is of course French. The story on how we got that name is very interesting. Ignace Giasson was an Iroquois employee of the Hudson Bay Company who was stationed at St. Mary's Fort near Peace River. He was originally from the Montreal area, so he spoke French.
Giasson was active in the Grande Cache area during the years 1818 to 1821. He would travel into what is now British Columbia and bring back large quantities of furs. On one of these trips, he was heavily laden with pelts and the snow was very deep, so he constructed a winter fur cache on the banks of the Sulphur River. Eventually, the whole area became known as Grande Cache.
Transcribed from sign at the cache
The Grande Cache Tourism & Interpretive Centre was officially opened on October 5, 1996. There are at this location a free museum, wildlife displays, Esson Gale Art Gallery and Bighorn Gallery Gift Shop. The Tourism Interpretive Centre offers local and regional tourist information, maps and brochures.
The centre showcases the history of the area through exhibits and displays featuring ice age artifacts, dinosaur tracks, Aboriginal heritage and fur trading.
Nearby, and associated with the centre, is Bird’s Eye View Park, officially opened August 28, 2010. The park features interpretive trails and picnic areas with three gazebos. Here you can see this replica of a "cache”, a small log building elevated upon four log posts or pillars. This replica is likely a bit larger than that erected by Ignace Giasson to store his furs. Otherwise, it would be a reasonable facsimile of his cache, as well as a great many others constructed by trappers throughout Western Canada, continuing to the present.