The Red River Trails were a network of overland routes connecting the Red River Colony, mainly inhabited by Métis people, with the Hudson’s Bay Company’s southern Upper Fort Garry, located at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. At their farthest, these trails stretched from Fort Edmonton to Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Red River cart, also called aen wagon and aen charet by the Métis, was the primary mode of navigating these routes that spanned the West in the nineteenth century and remains an important symbol of Métis culture. Driven by teams of oxen and made of simple wood and canvas, these carts were the ideal way of navigating the Prairies and would be connected in trains hundreds of wagons long. Here, Andrew Sherriff Scott depicts one of these trains leaving the fort in early morning, turning away from the shadowed banks of the Assiniboine towards a glowing sunrise at the start of a lengthy journey.

For more information on the Hudson's Bay Company Calendar Paintings in PDF format, please click here.