Photo and text have been provided courtesy of the Swift Current Museum
The Battleford Trail was an important trade route between Swift Current and Battleford in the late 1800's. Used as a freight route by Metis who collected buffalo bones, it provided Swift Current with its first export. Metis sold the bones to local merchants who shipped them to manufacturers in eastern Canada. The finest bones were made into bone china.Mid-grade bones were used to make fertilizer. The oldest, driest bones were burned and the resulting carbon was used to filter sugar, making it whiter. Because it was the terminus of the Battleford Trail, Swift Current became strategically important during the 1885 Resistance. Troops and supplies were delivered to the region by train and sent north on the trail. Many Metis in this region did not join the resistance because they were making good money freighting goods with their Red River Carts. By 1890, when the train reach Saskatoon, porviding a shipping point closer to Battleford, cart freighting was on the decline.
The ruts caused by constant traffic on this trail are visible at this location.