2 miles south of Radium Junction, Highway 93/95
In 1841, Sinclair guided 200 Red River settlers from Fort Garry through the Rockies to Oregon in an attempt to hold the territory for Great Britain. By 1854 he had re-crossed the mountains several times by routes which later were followed by trails and highways – a tribute to this great pathfinder, traveler, free trader and colonizer.
James Sinclair, born in 1806 in northern Manitoba, was the son of a Scottish father and a Metis mother. Sinclair graduated from the University of Edinburgh and later became a free trader at Fort Garry on the Red River.
Sinclair was an advocate of the rights for free traders and Metis, and soon became the spokesman for this group. In 1841, Sinclair agreed to Hudson's Bay Co. Governor George Simpson's proposal to lead a party of settlers from Fort Garry to Oregon in order to increase British influence in that part of the country.
As a result of this trip, tension between the Metis and the HBC increased, and in 1846 Sinclair traveled to London to lay the question of Metis rights before the British government. The government, however, upheld the HBC and it was another three years before the HBC was forced to recognize that free trade was a fact of life among the Metis.
In order to rid Fort Garry of Sinclair and others who clashed with HBC ideas, Governor Simpson proposed to lead another party to Oregon. In return Sinclair would be put in charge of one of the Oregon posts. The group set out from Fort Garry in May 1854 and, led by a Cree guide, went through Kananaskis Pass, the first European party to do so. They arrived at Walla Walla, Washington in November where Sinclair took over as chief trader. In less than a year, the US government closed the fort due to native uprisings. On March 26, 1856, Sinclair was shot and killed during a surprise attack on a settlement at the Columbia river.
