Former fur trade post on McLeod Lake, British Columbia.

In the autumn of 1805 Simon Fraser led a party of about twenty men up the Peace River and established a post at Rocky Mountain Portage, at the foot of the turbulent Peace River Canyon.

Having set most of his men to work on the building of Rocky Mountain Portage House, Fraser left Stuart in charge and pushed on with McDougall and La Malice to explore the upper reaches of the Peace River. In so doing he was following in the footsteps of his famous predecessor, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, and, like Mackenzie, when he reached Finlay Forks he turned to the left and followed the Parsnip River. A few days later he entered the smaller Pack River, which Mackenzie had failed to notice, and this led him to a lake known for a time as Trout Lake, but eventually named McLeod Lake. The natives thereabouts, which Fraser refers to as the Big Men, were a band of the Sekani Indians. They were friendly, and Fraser decided that the lake would be a good site for a trading-post. On its shores he built Trout Lake Post, later Fort McLeod, the first permanent settlement west of the Rocky Mountains in what iS now British Columbia. Leaving La Malice and two men to winter at the new post and trade with the Indians, Fraser and the rest of the party returned to Rocky Mountain Portage House.[1]

North West Co. fort at north end of lake McLeod, British Columbia, built by Simon Fraser for the Company in 1805. This is said to have been the first post erected in B.C. After the union of 1821 this post was operated by the Hudson’s Bay Co. to date.

— Ernest Voorhis [1859–1933], “Historic Forts” [2]

Fort McLeod Historic Park is the location of a former fur trading post located west of Highway 97 near the community of McLeod Lake in north central British Columbia. Situated in a clearing at the north end of McLeod Lake near the Upper Pack River, adjacent to the old Tsek’ehne village, the post consists of four small whitewashed log and wood-frame buildings (a main house, a warehouse, a workshop and an icehouse) and the remains of site features such as a saw pit, boat runs and fire pits. The former locations of additional site features including a fur farm, fences, gardens, boardwalks and flagpole have also been identified through historical and archaeological research. Fort McLeod was designated a National Historic Site in 1953 and designated by the Province of BC in 1999.

Fort McLeod Historic Park is valued as the oldest continuously-occupied Euro-Canadian site in British Columbia, as an important early centre of interaction between aboriginal and non-aboriginal cultures, and as a source of information about the fur trade in British Columbia. It is further valued as a picturesque recreation site.

Fort McLeod Historic Park established as a Provincial Historic Park per Order in Council #164, 19 January 1971, containing 6.72 acres more or less. Park status cancelled per Bill 86, Park Amendment Act 1999, Schedule A, effective 28 June 1999; the name remains the same but the property will be managed as a Provincial Heritage Property under the Heritage Conservation Act, per OIC #759, 2 July 1999 [3].

There is a Fort Macleod located west of Lethbridge in Alberta.