Alexander Monkman

Alexander Monkman (March 29, 1870 – September 26, 1941) was a Canadian Métis pioneer trader and leader of the farmers in the Lake Saskatoon area of Alberta. He discovered Monkman Pass and led the push to build a highway through it in the 1930s.

Early life Alexander Monkman was born at Manitoba House on March 29, 1870, and grew up around Fort Garry, however he and his family fled to Edmonton after the suppression of the Red River Rebellion and received his education from mission schools. Monkman travelled to Montana and became a rodeo-rider. He returned to Edmonton from whence he set off to travel overland to join the Klondike Gold Rush in 1898. After a while, Monkman realised that his convoy would not make it and he turned back. He was the only one to turn back and he never heard from his colleagues again.

Career Monkman was hired by William Bredin and James Cornwall to become the trading post manager at the new Grande Prairie site near Lake Saskatoon. He lived there with his wife Louisa. He was the first non-Hudson's Bay Company trader in the region, and succeeded in cutting off the Hudson's Bay Company from the region's furs. This was the spot where Danezaa and Cree Indians met to form their summer camps, and a village soon sprang up around the trading post with mission churches, a bank and a post office. (The settlement at Lake Saskatoon was abandoned in 1924 and the buildings moved to Wembley.)

By the early 1900s Monkman held property of his own near Flying Shot Lake and received various grants from the government, which was trying to stimulate agricultural production in the area by handing out seeds to settlers for free.