Old Macleod Trail markers finally completed

The Old Macleod Trail markers are now finally complete.

The red and black wagon wheels are placed up and down the Old Macleod Trail from Fort Macleod all the way to Calgary.

The trail was instrumental in the development of the western provinces and was a major transportation hub for cattle drives and everything else, and had been used for thousands of years already by Indigenous people.

Irene Kerr, curator from the Museum of the Highwood, said the final marker was erected in July in Calgary.

"The museum has always been very supportive of the markers, but the highlight is we finally got the last wheel in Calgary in Ramsey, right by the Macdonald bridge, kind of around where the end of the trail was back in the 1860s, probably up until the railway came."

Kerr said the entire project wouldn't have been done without local Bill Dunn spearheading it in the 1990s.

"Bill Dunn, being this historian he is, just kind of took it on and actually got markers built in Okotoks, De Winton, and Pine Creek, and also maintained a lot of the other wheels, and they go from Fort Macleod, there's 21 of them, right to Calgary along the Old Macleod Trail.

Kerr adds that it all started in High River at the wagon wheel marker at McLaughlin Meadows.

"Bill Dunn, he met with George Sorkilmo many years ago in the early '90s, and George said, 'I want to show you something,' and he took Bill over to see the wheel and George said, 'That old marker could probably use some paint, right Bill?'"

There's been an upgrade to the markers too, Kerr explains.

"And we decided this year to do QR codes on each wheel, so when you go see the wheel you can just scan it and get the whole story of the trail. So, now Bill's dream's been realized."

Kerr also adds that there's a display and much more information at the Museum of the Highwood.

Plaque at marker #10 near Nanton.

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