Title (English): Esperance National Historic Site

There is an unknown site on the south bank of the Qu'Appelle River northwest of Rocanville. It is worth a stop, though, if only for the beautiful valley view. Fort Espérance National Historic Site of Canada is an archaeological site containing the remains of two late 18th and early 19th-century trading forts called Fort Espérance. The official recognition of heritage value refers to the landscape where the remains of what is probably Fort Espérance I, on the south bank of the Qu'Appelle River, and those of Fort Espérance II, on a nearby mound, are located. It was the main North West Company fort on the prairies. 

According to Parks Canada: "Built on the Qu'Appelle river flats below in 1787 by Robert Grant, Fort Espérance was one of the earliest and most permanent of the North West Company's posts in the Assiniboine basin. It was the main pemmican depot in the Company's continental fur trade and provisioned brigades to the Churchill and Athabasca regions. Abandoned in 1810 and rebuilt on this knoll in 1816, it was replaced in 1819 by a post 14 miles east at Beaver Creek." (Source: https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=756) 

The fort would be one of the oldest and most permanent posts of the North West Company. It was named in honour of Alexis Bonami "dit "L'Espérance," a famous guide and "traveller" who worked for the Hudson's Bay Company which joined forces with the North West Company in 1821. Bonami was born in Saint-Michel d'Yamaska in Quebec in 1796 to parents from France. He is a veteran of the War of 1812. He travelled throughout the North-West region. He and his "country wife," Marguerite, would have had 18 children. He died a prosperous and respected farmer of Franco-Manitobans in St-François-Xavier, Manitoba, in 1890.