Red River ox cart
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Red River ox cart was a large, two-wheeled cart made entirely of wood, and usually in the form of oak and pulled by oxen. Because nails were either unavailable or extremely expensive in the early west, these carts were frequently held together with animal sinew, most usually obtained from buffalo. It was used in the middle of the 19th century in the fur trade and in westward expansion in Canada and the United States, in the area of the Red River of the North.
The Red River Ox Cart Trail extended from the fur-trading posts such as Pembina and St. Joseph in the Red River Valley to St. Paul, Minnesota. Furs were the usual cargo on the trip to St. Paul, and supplies were carried on the trip back to the trading posts. The carts were noted for the creaking sound they made, with their all-wooden axles.
The Carlton Trail was also an important route for the carts, running from the Red River Colony in Manitoba northwest to Fort Carlton and Fort Edmonton in what is present day Saskatchewan and Alberta, with minor offshoots like the Fort a la Corne Trail. In this respect it was the primary conveyance in the Canadian west during the latter half of the nineteenth century, although it virtually dissapeared from use soon after the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed.
Invented and developed by the Metis and Anglo-Metis peoples, it is sometimes used today as a symbol of Metis nationalism.
Selkirk, Manitoba has an oversized model of a Red River ox cart. St. Louis, Saskatchewan, Duck Lake, Saskatchewan and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan also have models of the carts.
