“The intersection of events and people that came together along that stretch of what would become the Dawson Road around Ste. Anne from 1868-1880 was in fact, a critical site in and for understanding how Manitoba came to be. The route itself  reaches way back to before the fur trade  and was not “discovered” by Dawson at all, but rather shown to him by  First Nations who had long known which ridges to follow.  

   "In reviewing primary and secondary sources about some of the antagonist characters that played a role in the story of the Dawson Trail such as John Snow, Charles Schulz, Charles Mair, Thomas Scott, Stoughton Dennis, William McDougall and others it becomes clear that racist and discriminatory colonial mentality against Indigenous peoples prevailed among them.  Their actions combined with the impossible situation Indigenous peoples found themselves in amounted to an assault which ignited resistance movements by Métis and First Nations in the West, with which the story of the Dawson Trail is intimately linked. All together, this is a fascinating story that unsettles a lot of colonial myths.” 

Mireille Lamontagne, Historiography of the Dawson Trail, April, 2020,
undertaken as part of both the Dawson Trail Arts & Heritage Tour
and the Dawson Trail Heritage Inventory   

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