Highway in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba
The Red Coat Trail is a route that approximates the path taken in 1874 by the North-West Mounted Police in their March West from Fort Dufferin to Fort Whoop-Up.
Route description.
A number of highways in southern Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta roughly follow the original route.
In Alberta, the trail follows Highways 3, 4, 61, 889, and 501.
In Saskatchewan, Highway 13 is designated as Red Coat Trail. The travel corridor from the Manitoba–Saskatchewan border to Winnipeg follows Manitoba PTH 2.
Alberta.
Near Fort Macleod, the traffic volume is between 4,200 and 7,900 vehicles per day (vpd) according to the 2007 Average Annual Daily Traffic report which is quite consistent for the decade. The area is a short grass prairie ecosystem with black soils and is conducive to grain growing. Located at the junction of Highway 2 and the Red Coat Trail, Fort Macleod currently has a population of over 3,000 residents Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is a major attraction northwest of town. Between Fort Macleod, and Lethbridge, the Red Coat Trail runs concurrent with the Crowsnest Highway travelling through the Porcupine Hills, the Coyote Flats, and a ghost town named Pearce only marked by a railway crossing and a few farms. D.M. Wilson says, "beneath the Highway's pavement is perhaps of glacial till consisting of sand and gravel, clays, and boulder clays, humped into hills by the last continental glacier perhaps as it melted away to the northward some 11,000 years ago, overlaying some of sedimentary Púleozoic and Mesozoic strata which themselves rest on Precambrian granites. Beyond the low ridge on the far side of the cut-bank'd Oldman, an enormously rich bed of lacustrine loam began attracting settlers in the early 19-aughts and rewards so well still the agricultural efforts of their descendants...the hills are actually longitudinal dunes of loess picked up from a nearby lakebed..." The highway raises in elevation between the Oldman River and the Belly River watersheds and to the north of the highway is the CP Rail High Level trestle bridge of 1909. Currently the bridge has a well-developed trail system through the river valley and the Helen Schuler Coulee Centre and Sir Alexander Galt Museum are located nearby. The Highway 3A alternate route carries traffic across the Oldman River on a 1997 four-lane traffic which re-routed the highway from its old course over the 1957 narrow bridge. This area features a sandstone quarry which was used for construction projects as early as 1904 and a defunct community known as Nevarre changing names to Staunton. Highway 3A continues on to the village of Monarch which is just north of the confluence of the Oldman River and Belly rivers and halfway between Fort Macleod and Lethbridge. North of Monarch on Highway 23 and west of the village, the traffic volume is around 500 AADT, however following the Red Coat Trail into Lethbridge, the volume increases to over 5,000 vpd.
Between Monarch and Coalhurst, the Red Coat Trail is a twinned highway and between Coalhurst, and Lethbridge a multilane divided highway. West of Coalhurst, traffic volume is about 15,000 vpd, and to the east rises to approximately 18,000 vpd. Oil, flax, wheat, and sugar beets are the staples of the agricultural economy supplemented by gas and oil in 1974 which replaced the sugar beet harvests. The city of Lethbridge, is at the junction of Highway 4, Highway 5 and Highway 3. Travel along the Red Coat Trail corridor leaves Highway 3 and continues on Highway 4 south east towards Stirling, with a traffic volume around 5,500 vpd. Whence at Stirling, the Red Coat Trail travel corridor leaves Hwy 4 and now continues east along Highway 61 towards the small hamlet of Wrentham at the junction of Highway 36. Between Stirling and Wrentham the traffic volume declines to an AADT of about 550 vpd on a secondary undivided paved highway. The Red Coat Trail runs parallel and north of the Etzikom Coulee and Crow Indian Lake and to the north of the Red Coat Trail are the Chin Lakes and the Chin Reservoir. Coulees are meltwater channels produced by glacier meltoff forming long river valleys. A number of these coulees are dry or almost dry, and some such as the Chin Lakes have been formed by the Chin Reservoir. The weather of southeast Alberta is warmer than the rest of the province, with lower annual precipitation creating a grassland ecoregion. At the junction of the Red Coat Trail and Highway 877 is the small hamlet of Skiff, population 10, with a declining AADT between 350 and 400 vpd. The village of Foremost is at the junction with Highway 879 near park, and Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park. Etzikom on the intersection of the Red Coat Trail and Highway 855 features the Etzikom Museum and the Canadian National Historical Windmill Center. Orion, a small hamlet with a population of less than 10 residents, is at the intersection of Highway 887 and the Red Coat Trail. The traffic between Orion and the Saskatchewan border is very low averaging between 70 and 100 vpd. Manyberries is at the eastern terminus of Highway 61 travel on the Red Coat Trail continues south on Highway 889 a secondary connector road to meet with Highway 501, a secondary gravel highway to the Alberta—Saskatchewan border.
Saskatchewan.
There are 36 communities along the of the Saskatchewan portion of the Red Coat Trail which would be one approximately every apart, and there are 59 at grade intersections with primary and secondary highways which would be a junction approximately every . The highway volume beginning in Saskatchewan along the Red Coat Trail about 45 vpd on a class 4 gravel highway.
SK Hwy 615 provides access north to Fort Walsh National Historic Park and the highest point of land in Saskatchewan. Travel is mainly east through the province of Saskatchewan on the Red Coat Trail which is continuous on SK Hwy 13 which is a secondary paved undivided highway until Weyburn. It is at the Consul intersection of highways that the Red Coat Trail changes to a thin membrane surface undivided highway where the traffic volume increases to about 80 vpd. Travel continues north east until the junction with SK Hwy 21 which provides access to Cypress Hills Provincial Park and Maple Creek. The Red Coat Trail continues east after this intersection on a class 3 granular pavement highway and traffic here increases to an AADT of 270 vpd. There is a junction with SK Hwy 18 before the highway turns north again to arrive at the intersection of SK Hwy 614 and the town of Eastend, which has the nickname Dino Country where a "Tyrannosaurus rex" was discovered spawning the T. rex Discovery Centre. A number of ancient fauna paleontological dig sites exist in southern Saskatchewan.
This area of the Red Coat Trail receives an increase of traffic wherein about 300 vpd travel the Red Coat Trail east of Eastend and over 650 vpd east of town resulting in an upgrade to asphalt concrete road construction. The traffic volume entering Shaunavon is about 600 vpd, and the AADT increases to over 1,000 vpd heading north on the SK Hwy 37 and Red Coat Trail concurrency. SK Hwy 37 provides access to the town of Gull Lake and in , the Red Coat Trail turns east on a thin membrane surface class 2 highway bearing between 150 and 250 vpd. The Red Coat Trail is upgraded to a class 5 granular pavement as traffic can reach a high of 530 vpd east of this SK Hwy 4 intersection. To the north west of the SK Hwy 58 junction is Thomson Lake which is a man made lake used for recreational and reservoir purposes becoming the first regional park of Saskatchewan. Lafleche at the junction with SK Hwy 58, and east of this junction the AADT increases to over 600 vpd. The Louis Pierre Gravel National Historic Marker commemorates history at the north end of SK Hwy 58, and the Cripple Creek Provincial Historic Marker is at the junction with the Red Coat Trail (the southern terminus of SK Hwy 58).
The terrain of the Missouri Coteau features low hummocky, undulating, rolling hills, potholes, and grasslands. This physiographic region of Saskatchewan is the uplands Missouri Coteau, a part of the Great Plains Province or Alberta Plateau Region which extends across the south-east corner of the province of Saskatchewan. SK Hwy 2 and SK Hwy 717 come together at the town of Assinibioia. Just to the west of Assiniboia the traffic volume increases to about 1,000 vpd and to the east of town, the volume decreases to about 800 vpd and the majority of the highway is class 3 granular pavement.
The intersection with SK Hwy 621 north is passed before arriving at the city of Weyburn which is on the intersection of SK Hwy 35, SK Hwy 39, the CanAm Highway. Weyburn, the opportunity city, has also been dubbed the "Soo Line City" due its connection with Chicago on the Soo Line of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). The city of 9,433 people is on SK Hwy 35, SK Hwy 39, and SK Hwy 13. absorbed the small towns of Exon and Converge into the city. Weyburn is located astride the Williston geological Basin which contains oil deposits, and several wells operate in the vicinity. There are roadside attractions featured here such as a large Lighthouse water tower, wheat sheaves and Prairie Lily. Weyburn is near the upper delta of the Souris River. The Souris River continues south-east through North Dakota eventually meeting the Assiniboine River in Manitoba.
The Red Coat Trail is primarily asphalt concrete between SK Hwy 6 and SK Hwy 47 where traffic volume reaches about 1,450 vpd east of Weyburn, and over 3,500 vpd within the city on this class 2 highway. There is a short stretch of granular pavement before SK Hwy 9 where the traffic volume falls to about 1,700 vpd, rising to about 2,400 vpd near Carlyle.
The town of Carlyle is at the intersection with SK Hwy 9, which provides access north to Moose Mountain Provincial Park and Cannington Manor Provincial Historic Park. Before the Manitoba border, the Red Coat Trail is granular pavement with traffic volume below 1,000 vpd. Manor on SK Hwy 603, Antler River, Wauchope on SK Hwy 601, Redvers on SK Hwy 8, Gainsborough Creek, and finally Antler on SK Hwy 600 are the last localities in Saskatchewan before Manitoba.
Manitoba.
In Manitoba 19 communities populate the Red Coat Trail between the Saskatchewan border and Winnipeg. There are also 33 at grade intersections with numbered provincial highways and roads on this portion of the Red Coat Trail in Manitoba. The actual route taken by the North-West Mounted Police in 1874 was some hundred kilometres south of the "Red Coat Trail", designated by the tourism industry. This is a problem faced by many scenic and historic routes, purporting to take motorists on a historic route. The Manitoba government does not recognize the designation of "Red Coat Trail".
History.
Early travellers had two rivers to ford without bridge or ferry between Fort Macleod and Coal Banks, one at Monarch and the other at Coal Banks. Pioneers travelled the pioneer trails across the grasslands during the 19th century created by travellers, first nations and fur traders. The grasslands area of today was still forested in the 19th century and land would need to be cleared and broken for agricultural homesteads and roads. In the 19th century southern Saskatchewan was known as an extension of the "Greater Yellow Grass Marsh". The Dominion Land Surveyors marked the quarter sections of Manitoba in 1874–1875 and of Saskatchewan in 1881 and homesteaders began tilling their homesteads and fencing their quarter-sections. Travel transferred from prairie trail to road allowances set by the surveyors. Rural municipalities set road bosses and crews to grade the roads and to fill in the low areas. Walking ploughs would till the soil that was to be moved by the fresnoes, which was a scraper pulled with two horses. Those who worked on roads would have lowered taxes. Later crews would work with four-horse scrapers followed by crawler tractors which could pull even larger graders and scrapers. The rural municipality would work out a system of road work for the various ratepayers, and pathmasters or road crew foremen were appointed to oversee the statute labour conducted. Road