Historic Fort Livingstone
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Saskatchewan Tourism
GPS: 51d 54.27m N 101d 57.51m W 2449 feet
Location: 4 kms north of Pelly and 2.5 kms west.
The original headquarters and first post built specifically for the North-West Mounted Police, Fort Livingstone (generally known as Swan River Barracks) was erected in 1874, but not fully occupied until the following spring.
It provided facilities for 185 men and their mounts and included a residence for a stipendiary magistrate. The headquarters of the Force was moved to Fort Macleod in 1876, but Fort Livingstone continued as a post until 1878 when it became a substation of Shoal Lake. It was destroyed by a prairie fire in 1884.
A note from Alberta:
The first Lieutenant-Governor of the Northwest Territories was David Laird, and the First Session of the Northwest Territorial Council was held at Fort Livingstone in 1876. Fort Livingstone was located near the Manitoba bolder approximately one mile northwest of present-day Pelly, Saskatchewan.
Historic Places
A quote from http://www.rcmpmarchwest.com/eng/history/places/Swan/index.html. Follow the link to read the full article.As if Commissioner French didn't have enough to worry about, when he got to Fort Benton in September there was a telegram waiting for him from Ottawa. Along with new orders, there was good news and there was bad news: the good news was that Fort Ellice was not going to be his headquarters after all, the bad news was that they had chosen Swan River instead. Fort Livingstone was on the Swan River, near the junction of Snake Creek. It was about 150 kilometers further north than Fort Ellice, located along the proposed railway and telegraph route, and these may have been good reasons for choosing the site. But it was on the edge of the territory to be patrolled by the Mounties, and the railway did not yet exist. To further exasperate Commissioner French, his Métis guides found the choice to be very funny, and he said as much to the Justice Minister in Ottawa: "[the guides] who have been there could scarcely believe that a portion of country so thickly wooded and full of lakes and marshes should have been selected as the Field of Operations of a large portion of a Mounted Force, and in fact laughed outright when I asked opinions as to its suitability."
The site chosen for the barracks was ten miles from the HBC post on a rocky and exposed hill. As it turned out, it also happened to be a nesting area for thousands of snakes! Because of the change in plans so late in the season, construction for the winter shelter didn't even begin until September. When Commissioner French returned from the march west late in October, he found the carpenters struggling to finish the barracks using green wood. The buildings weren't ready, and most of the hay crop had been wiped out by a prairie fire. French left a small detachment under Inspector Carvell, and carried on intending to winter the rest of the force at Fort Dufferin.
Commissioner French's battle with the politicians over the Swan River Barracks was the last straw, ruining his career in the NWMP. He spoke his mind - sometimes in public - about bad decisions and wasted money. This was politically unforgivable, and it wasn't long before French resigned.
Work continued at Swan River and it did serve as the headquarters for a short time. In August 1876, the new Commissioner, James Macleod, moved his headquarters to Fort Macleod to be closer to the center of operations. Things were heating up in the United States as a result of Lt-Col George Armstrong Custer's defeat by the Sioux and Cheyenne at the Little Big Horn in June that year, and Macleod found Swan River to be too remote.
