 The river was used commercially for many years - to carry flatboats of settlers goods and construction materials downstream from Edmonton, to float thousands of logs in the annual log drive downstream to Edmonton prior to WWI, as a source of ice blocks for home owners' iceboxes.The first bridge across the river opened in 1900, the Low Level Bridge (Edmonton).The Canadian Northern Railway Bridge (Prince Albert) (1907-9), which also at first carried foot and wheeled traffic, and the Battleford bridge (ca.