Date Published:
July 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Fort Pembina

Fort Pembina, a name applied to several fur-trading posts built at various times near the junction of the Pembina and Red rivers. The first post appears to have been a free-trader's house built by Peter Grant opposite the mouth of the Pembina river in 1793, but occupied only for a year or two. The same year the Hudson's Bay Company built a post nearby on the east side of the Red river, on the site of the present town of St. Vincent, Minnesota ; and this post was rebuilt in 1801. In 1797 the North West Company erected a fort, sometimes known as Chaboillez's House, on the west side of the Red river, to the south of the mouth of the Pembina; but this house was abandoned in 1801, and was rebuilt on the north side of the Pembina river opposite the old site. This was the fort seized by John McLeod for the Hudson's Bay Company in December, 1815; and it was taken over by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821. In 1812 the Hudson's Bay Company built Fort Daer on the north side of the Pembina river, on the present site of the town of Pembina ; but after the boundary line between Canada and the United States was defined, this post was moved a short distance north to British territory. In 1871 it was seized by Fenian raiders from the United States.

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., p. 374.