Fort Selkirk, Yukon

Fort Selkirk is a former trading post in the Yukon Territory at the confluence of the Pelly River and Yukon River.

The Selkirk First Nation has been here for a long time their home, hence the place is also known as archaeological site of significance.

Early History

Show finds that the region was used to the later Fort has seen about 11,300 years ago and the place at the river mouth for at least 7,000 years by Native Americans. This area was the border between the ice-free Beringia and the ice sheet that covered more than half of North America. The oldest find is a tool from caribou antler. By about 8000 BC, the vast majority of glaciers had melted, and the landscape turned into a lake area, which was more than two millennia. The Tundra was taken increasingly by forest, the tools of the so-called Northern Cordilleran Culture can be found only sporadically.

By 5000 BC, the large projectile points, were the only remains, replaced by Kompositwerkzeugen, which were composed of several parts. So you just had to replace each dulled or chipped stone points that were much smaller now (micro blades ). A major archaeological site was above Fort Selkirk discovered around 3 km. At this point blade found from ten different types of stone that have been manufactured 5000-3000 BC.

Around 3000 BC there was a new change of stone tool technology, for now notched stones were inserted sideways into other materials, which disappeared Micro blades. Numerous wood and antler tools appeared to fur processing. At this time, also seasonal migrations during the year can be detected, possibly using fish traps. Perhaps led the onset of salmon runs, the Yukon and its tributaries went up to spawn, to lifestyle change. One of the most important in this era, which is called the Northern Archaic, represents an area in Pelly Farm, above Fort Selkirk.

After severe volcanic eruptions around 850 AD in the area of the White River on the border with Alaska, the central Yukon by a massive ash fall was covered, which should have led to an ecological catastrophe. The subsequent recognizable culture is the so-called Late Prehistoric. Now appears copper in weapons technology and in the manufacture of tools, a material that originated in the area of ​​White River. Many of the villages and camps that saw the first Europeans who came to the region, can be demonstrated already by 1000. Often the tools are the recent so similar that only the elders of the Selkirk First Nation may differ.

Fort of the Hudson 's Bay Company

Robert Campbell achieved the first European to 1843 the area as he drove down the Pelly. He was employed by the Hudson 's Bay Company and built in 1848 near a trading post, which was in 1852 moved to its present location. The Selkirk he described as "Gens de Bois ", as people from the forest. They even named themselves after a fish camp near Victoria rock than thi Tsach'an.

The Tlingit were afraid because of the settlement of the Hudson 's Bay Company to its traditional trade relations with the Athabaskan First Nations and destroyed the fort in the same year.

40 years later it was rebuilt and became an important supply center on the Yukon.

Historic site

When in the middle of the 20th century, the Klondike Highway, the course of Fort Selkirk bypass was built and the Yukon lost as a waterway in importance, the post was abandoned.

Many of the buildings have now been rebuilt. The Fort Selkirk Historic Site is proportionally owned by the Selkirk First Nation and the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and the provincial government. There is no road access. Fort Selkirk can be reached by boat or plane.